INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW, COLLECTIVE MEMORY, AND EMOTIONS: AN ANALYSIS BASED ON MEMORY STUDIES

Abstract

 This article aims to explore a set of analytical pathways for examining the interactions between international human rights law, collective memory, and political emotions. The methodology adopted is resolutely interdisciplinary, proposing as its central pillar a dialogue with memory studies in order to understand the functioning of international human rights law, which is presented both as an agent of memory and as a field shaped by pre-existing historical and emotional narratives. The article applies this framework to a comparative analysis of the positions adopted by the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, with a view to highlighting a significant divergence between the two. This divergence is characterized by a transformative and memory-oriented approach on the part of the latter, and a more cautious and consensus-based stance on the part of the former. It concludes that understanding the role of international human rights law requires incorporating the dimension of memory and political emotions, which are fundamental to the construction of collective identities and to processes of justice and reparation.

KEYWORDS: International human rights law. Collective memory. Political emotions. International courts. Memory studies.