The power of not respecting rights and its effects

History and the present show that those who have enough power have the capacity to disregard already established rights without suffering significant consequences. In many cases, those powers were involved in the establishment of the legal order that they afterward infringe. If a situation that is foreseen in the international or national legal order favors them, they respect that order and if it harms them they infringe it, whether it is openly or using arguments or excuses to mask their arrogance. This applies to international agreements, financial regulations, human and labor rights, among many other spaces of rights that were conquered with enormous sacrifice. In the meantime, nations and sectors that do not have that power are subdued to several conditionalities that limit their right to freely make decisions that are crucial for their future. Duplicities, hypocrisies, arrogance, exactions are everyday occurrences when antagonistic interests struggle with each other. In this issue of Opinion Sur we tackle some of those asymmetries that generate all sorts of inequalities and types of violence giving way to dangerous geopolitical tensions and a considerable citizen insecurity.

Cordial greeting,

The Editors