As condenações dos casos Guerrilha do Araguaia e Vladimir Herzog na Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos: um estudo sobre o imaginário político dos direitos humanos no Brasil

Abstract

In this thesis, I analyze the political imaginary of human rights in Brazil, focusing on discursive practices that advocate for justice and truth for the victims of state violence during the civil-military dictatorship. Empirically, the analysis begins with Brazil's condemnations by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the cases of the Araguaia Guerrilla and journalist Vladimir Herzog. Examine the antagonistic disputes in the field of discursive practices, using the Amnesty Law as a starting point to observe the sociopolitical dimensions of the phenomenon. To describe the political imaginary of human rights, the analysis relies on two theoretical axes. The first, based on López (2018), addresses representations, discourses, and social technologies. The second, grounded in Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory (2015), uses the concepts of empty signifier, antagonism, and hegemony to understand opposition to human rights as discursive practices that seek to deconstruct and recreate them on conservative bases. Methodologically, this study employs research and documentary analysis from the Court and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. To construct the sociohistory of human rights, it relies on specialized literature, widely circulated newspapers in Brazil, and documents from various Brazilian organizations. Observing national reconciliation as an expression of the political imaginary reveals that the meanings attributed to the Amnesty Law are contingent and precarious, not a universal consensus. Amnesty is a field of dispute among agencies, seeking to unite different worldviews and social demands. Both the axes of construction and deconstruction vie for social recognition and political legitimacy of the human rights imaginary in Brazil, with trajectories that intersect and possess varying degrees of autonomy over the last few decades.