Suchergebnisse

The paper argues that the Constitutional Court of Colombia has understood economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) from the perspective of a traditional theory of rights according to which they are achievements that cannot be overridden by conflicting public interests. As a result, the Court has favored a categorical formula of adjudication according to which judicial activity focuses on the definition of the scope of the right. Competing public interests may be taken into account in order to establish the scope of the right, but once that scope is defined, it cannot be overridden by conflicting public interests. Therefore, the conception of ESCR that the Court of Colombia has adopted differs from the South African conception. The South African Constitutional Court regards ESCR as protective shields against conflicting governmental interests. This theory allows for positions of rights to be balanced against countervailing governmental interests. Given the tensions that these theories of rights and formulas of adjudication create in terms of judicial discretion and democratic debate, some intermediate formulas have been proposed. In the final part of the paper, these proposals are analyzed and some suggestions are made that contribute to the debate.

Following global trends, many Latin American cities have embraced urban governance models that emphasise real estate development as a means to absorb surplus capital and trigger market-led growth. As the value of real estate investment is connected to its spatial surroundings, urban renewal plans, the upgrading of historic city centres and tighter surveillance and control of urban space have become key components of urban governance. Not only does urban planning and management of Latin American cities pander to private interests, this type of governing and its policies have a significant impact on the cities social make up. Public spaces are increasingly policed and securitised. Criminal law and other punitive policies have played crucial roles in the removal of 'undesirables' (beggars, drug users, homeless and street populations, etc.) from the areas of economic interest. Through the cases of Bogotá and Rio de Janeiro, this paper illustrates the growing of coercive and punitive urban policies that deal with the homelessness as the phenomenon which has escalated since the early 1990s. It is claimed that 'clearing out' of certain parts of these cities is not only achieved by means of deterrence, but more importantly, the arbitrary incarceration and physical extermination of these populations carried out by the police, military and para-military forces. The debates on criminalisation of poverty in the global south reveal how urban governance, state violence and financialisation are deeply connected.

ABSTRACT
This article explores the central role of formalization in the history and functioning of international economic law. International economic law, in constituting and managing a 'modern' world economy, has relied on what we call 'the dream of formality'. This dream gives a sense of internal coherence and future totality to international economic law. It enables international economic law to claim awareness and progressive inclusion of socio-economic and legal relations outside the 'formal' modern economy while enabling a regime of differentiation of the so-called 'surplus'—often racialized—population. In a world where 'informality' is the norm and 'formality' is the exception, formalization's colonial origins have evolved into a fully-fledged regime of social management and value extraction. This regime has embedded itself in international labour law and human rights, as well as in areas of international economic law such as Aid for Trade and Global Value Chains. Building on contemporary debates on racial and post-colonial capitalism, we focus on Colombia's informal economy to illustrate the elusiveness of the dream of formality, and how current exercises of othering underpin today's practices of 'racialization otherwise'. Our question, then, is: what would international economic law look like if it did not follow the dream of formality but instead embraced the challenge of sustaining life?

En este evento, los investigadores del proyecto Endless Conflicts capítulo Colombia presentamos los resultados preliminares de una de nuestras líneas de investigación. En particular, presentamos un panorama de los recursos de cooperación internacional que han recibido los Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial (PDET) a los cinco años de la firma del Acuerdo de Paz entre el gobierno colombiano y las FARC. ; In this event, the researchers of the Endless Conflicts Project, Colombian chapter, will present the preliminary results of one of their research areas. They will offer an overview of the international aid received by the Territorially Focused Development Programmes (PDET) five years after the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC was signed.