HUMAN RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA AND MILITARIZATION OF PUBLIC SECURITY

Abstract

This article aims to examine the theoretical state and the practical situation of human rights in Latin America, with an emphasis on public security, in the countries Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, and Ecuador. The fight against violence and crime has assumed a position of prominence in the region, especially under governments of the conservative political cycle that have recently come to power in several countries. Through bibliographic and documentary research, it is argued that human rights in Latin America constitute a theoretically and politically contested concept, including in the field of public security, due to the distinct conceptions advanced and implemented by political currents that rise to power. To this end, the methodology also includes consultation of the Annual Reports produced by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights between 2019 and 2022, as they provide updated information on the occurrence of sociopolitical phenomena that undermine human rights, including those related to public security. It is observed that public security, as a human right and a state duty, is more susceptible to rhetorical uses and distorted applications, as it encompasses a wide range of rights and guarantees, as well as social markers and distinctions resulting from inequalities, one of whose outcomes is criminal activity. Based on the analyses and discussions, it is concluded that this conception is responsible for generating new controversies in the field of human rights, opposing them by privileging certain rights (and certain subjects and groups) to the detriment of others.