Ibero-American Human Rights Tradition

emergence and interpretative contexts. Catholic Modernity, Iberian School and Hispanic Monarchy

Abstract

The aim of this article is to contextualise and explain some of the bases of the action and discourse of the Ibero-American Human Rights Tradition. The arrival of Europeans in the Americas was approached by the Iberian School of Peace from the premises of a tradition that outlined a Catholic Modernity different from the hegemonic Modernity. The influence of these visions meant that the project of the Hispanic Monarchy in general, and for the New World in particular, had an important ethical-religious dimension. The contradictions between this project and the reality of Spanish action in the West Indies formed the framework that gave rise to the denunciations and the theoretical and practical achievements of the missionaries who, arriving on the new continent from the Iberian Peninsula, initiated the Ibero-American Human Rights Tradition. The recognition of common human dignity will be the basis for the construction of a discourse that will use universal human rights as an instrument for the defence of Amerindian and Afro-American peoples, bringing the ideas of the Iberian School to their best development.