Internationalization of Families: A Perspective from the Global South

One of the least explored topics in International Constitutional Law, then and still today, is the protection of family rights — an institution that constitutes the backbone of every society and is constitutionally safeguarded in various ways.

The activism of judges internationally aligns today with the idea of the social responsibility of adjudicators, the rule of rationality in their decisions, and never with so-called judicial imperialism or hegemonism.

The active presence of the judge or court, together with the parties, ensures the success of hearings, which should be less formal than current ones: this accomplishes the stated objectives of simplifying procedures and immediacy.

Those who explain the phenomenon of globalization cannot avoid addressing human rights, the constitutionalization and internationalization of Family Law and family proceedings, the transnationalization of the State, the supranationalization of problems and public policies, global interdependence, and the emergence of new centers of power that challenge ancestral concepts of sovereignty and self-determination, thereby undermining the power of the nation-state — especially when it comes to subordinating its authority to that of transnational corporations, which hold all power.

Globalization can also be a positive phenomenon; it does not have to be neoliberal, nor does it have to advocate for the loss of faces, identities, cultures, borders, and national values.

Globalization can aid solidarity and internationalism, integration and cooperation among the peoples of the political South — those once colonized, subjugated, oppressed, and vilified by colonial or neocolonial powers, and even today by submissive governments or those neglectful of public policies. These peoples come together, supporting each other in the pursuit of the common good for their societies.

The emancipation of the peoples of the South, their integration, and the need to globalize family solidarity is conceived as a philosophical current that tends to preserve independence, attachment to the roots of each people, to their history, to the preservation of values that form a nation, a region, or a community of related cultures and peoples. Among these, the family persists as an age-old institution of unquestionable reservoir of values and vital importance for the very subsistence of the human species and its central core of existence: families.

Doctor in Political Science. Full Professor and Consultant.