A dignidade humana como fundamento sistêmico do direito dos povos

Abstract

Modern international law dates back to the 1648 treaties of Westphalia as a form of regulation of relations between States, developing over a long period as a very peculiar branch of law, and evolving as a specific subsystem specified to regulate relations between fictitious entities - that is, States - in a fictional context – a so-called international society. Far from the daily lives of individuals, international law has become an adjunct to international geopolitics. If the State, a mere legal fiction, must seek the common welfare of its people, there is no justification for, in the international plan, the fictional entity being privileged over the real being. At the same time, a series of phenomena of the last century fave contribute to the tise of the individual’s protagonism in the contemporary international law, in particular the rise of the international protection of individuals as the central element of public international law and the seek of material justice in the private international law. In this context, the present thesis aims to demonstrate that such modifications reflect a tendency to change the validity basis of international law, from theories centered on the figure of the state to human dignity.