Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This paper explains that global peace could be achieved by means of a State of nations which includes four variants, although it is proposed that only one variant meets the demands of the legal reason: the State of nations with republican form or world republic. Because the appropriateness of a philosophical proposal depends on the examination of its strengths and weaknesses, the core of this paper is the analysis of the pros and cons of a State of nations with republican form.

En el océano de literatura jurídica que aparece casi todos los días en los estantes de las diferentes librerías nacionales, suelen ser pocas las ocasiones en las que se pueden llegar a encontrar trabajos sobre un tema tan importante como es el de la dignidad de la persona; la mayor parte de los libros que aparecen se refieren a cuestiones de derecho positivo, p. ej. el derecho penal, civil, administrativo, no se diga el constitucional, etcétera, y aunque cada una de éstas debería tener como presupuesto básico al ser humano y la dignidad de éste, poca, muy poca atención es la que se le presta a tan trascendental asunto. Por eso deben recibirse con gusto trabajos que analicen el tema de la dignidad humana, y en un sentido más general, aquellos asuntos relacionados con las cuestiones morales en el derecho. Es el caso del libro De la dignidad humana y otras cuestiones jurídico-morales, del profesor José Luis Pérez Triviño, publicado por la prestigiosa editorial Fontamara. Trabajo interesante en el que he podido hallar muchos puntos de coincidencia y también algunos puntos de discrepancia.

One of the central topics of contemporary criminal law theory is the discussion for and against equal punishment of attempts and completed crimes. This problem is commonly analyzed from the perspective of luck. The goal of the defenders of the equal punishment view is to erradícate luck from criminal responsibility judgements. To do that, they first have to differentiate among the luck that affects the results of actions and other kinds of luck involved. Rivera López tried to justify the drawing of that limit in the field of morals, and if his ideas could be trasposed to the criminal law realm, they could be a great help for the upholders of the equal punishment view. Here I try to pose some critical observations to his theses, and to show that, ultimately, they could not support the subjetivists' claim.

El libro del profesor Schmill es un brillante ensayo de teoría del derecho que articula piezas conceptuales que se suelen presentar en forma desarticulada. El resultado es la presentación -y ejemplificación de uso- de una herramienta para conceptuar la noción de revolución. La herramienta es bifronte, pues contiene una estructura propia de la teoría del derecho -un esqueleto que proporciona la sintaxis, como dice Schmill- y una interpretación complementaria de carácter socio-político -arrancada a Tucídides con una sapiencia y lucidez que suelen caracterizar los escritos del profesor Schmill.

Legal positivism in general and legal realism in particular tend to follow at least three philosophical theories: empirism, naturalism and pragmatism. Contemporary legal realism has multiple variants: American, Scandinavian and Italian.The differents sorts of legal realism not always form the totality of a given philosophical theory. Rather, they tend to embrace some thesis, to abandon others, adding to the general theory their own ones. This paper analyzes a variant of legal realism (so called “legal realism from Genova”) and tries to show that its main thesis generate a cluster of tensions. Some of the tensions that will be noted here are relevant for legal positivism in general.

It is often maintained that (nonhuman) animals cannot be considered persons, so it is not possible to sue on their behalf. This article examines this idea. Firstly, it analyzes the different meanings that the term "person" has in the colloquial, the metaphysical, the moral and the legal realm. It shows that there is no necessary connection between these meanings. Then, the paper breaks down and assesses the different arguments in favor of moral anthropocentrism. It concludes that none of them is successful. Finally, the paper argues that if the category of personhood remains central in the legal realm, but we keep on excluding nonhuman animals from its domain, we will assume a position which will not be morally justified.

In this paper I analyze the autonomy and relevance of permissive norms. Particularly, I revise two skeptical theses: (i) the permissive function of permissive norms could be replaced by other normative forms, e.g. derogation of prohibitions, and (ii) there are no practical differences between negative and positive permissions. Both theses are analyzed in relation to the nature and function of permissive rules of closure (e.g. not prohibited actions are permitted). I conclude that permissive norms - and specifically rules of closure - have an important role in the normative systems and they are a useful tool in order to analyze other normative problems like legal gaps and judicial discretion.

The article aims to provide an overview of the problems facing the justification of judicial decisions. Basically it attempts to answer three questions: 1. What is the justification? 2. What does it mean to justify given the role of the judiciary? 3. Derived from the previous two questions, what are the requirements for a sound justification?

Motivation of the facts supporting a legal claim has become in recent years a subject of great consequence, especially since there is a growing tendency to shift the analysis of this subject from the traditional tools provided by General Procedural Law to those offered by an epistemológica I approach to the manner in which judges work. This paper presents a series of thoughts revolving around a type of evidence the use of which and transcend in the construction of a statement of fact through the importation of material criteria, when used by constitutional courts: evidence obtained by a judge sua sponte, this is to say, without a prior motion or request from the parties. This sort of evidence serves the same purpose which amicus curiae serve in Common Law. This paper presents a double approach to the study of this sort of evidence: the first one related to the mail principles of General Procedural Law, and the second one to certain epistemological problems. The intention of this study is to draw at-tention about the relevance that the use of this type of evidence may have in ge-nerating genuine conviction in judges. The author considers that even though the Mexican legal system offers this important epistemological tool to judges, it is seldom used by the judiciary.

The purpose of this paper is to compare an approach to normativity that may be found in several of the works of a philosopher such as Rorty with the positivist methodological model that may be found in a jurist such as Hart. I aim to show that both depart from simple explanations based on jus naturalists models or on the Austinian model (which explains normativity on the basis of exclusive notions such as 'sovereign', 'imperative' or 'obedience habit'). Both perspectives get close to an analysis that places the origin of norms in a more plausible and complex perspective, where the basic assumption is either the notion of 'acknowledgement rules', which allows the identification of rules as a system of norms that are not necessarily legislated (Hart), or the analysis of non polemic propositions which determine and inform about those things that count as norms and those that do no within a certain ethnocentric social practice (Rorty).