For a universal law of humankind

Abstract

The article is a tribute to Antônio Cançado Trindade, a Brazilian jurist, professor and judge, as part of the reflection on the importance of his thought and legacy. By situating them in Latin American traditions and doctrines and in contemporary international law, we seek to establish differences and explain the international recognition of his work, considered original and innovative. Inspired by jusnaturalist conceptions, he dedicated his life to the humanization and universalization of International Law, inserting the human person in a place previously occupied only by the State. His criticism of positivism is even more justified in view of the repeated abuse of force in armed conflicts, such as the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, or the Russian war in Ukraine, in 2022, with the annexation of territories, in defiance of the law. Moscow’s recurrent threats to use weapons of mass destruction show the relevance of his dissenting opinion at the International Court of Justice and his brilliant defense of the Universal Obligation of Nuclear Disarmament. He was the only Latin American internationalist to be recognized by the prestigious Doctrine(s) collection, in 2012, with an edition on the importance of his thinking. What Cançado Trindade represents is eloquently recognized there: the defense of the idea that international law is not that based on the will of sovereign states, to which it was wanted to be reduced so many times and for so long, but what it is becoming irresistibly, in what it should always have been: a universal right of humanity, in which the human person should be the ultimate beneficiary (TRINDADE, 2012a).