Legitimizing Penality: Human Rights Discourses and Punitivism in Colombia

ABSTRACT: Despite their benevolent appearance, transnational discourses of human rights have played a substantial role in fueling the deployment of coercive power. Yet, their impact on domestic systems, particularly in the Global South, remains largely unexplored. This article examines the interaction of these discourses with local practices, processes, and narratives in the Colombian context. I argue that, rather than being merely imposed or imported, notions of victims’ rights, anti-impunity, and security have forged unique coercive pathways in domestic penal policy and constitutional law that transcend transnational obligations. On the one hand, they have played a key role in the justification of increased coercion throughout the criminal law as a whole, rather than being restricted to serious human rights violations. On the other hand, although the language of human rights has been instrumental in denouncing rights violations in prisons, it has also played a crucial role in legitimizing the imposition of punishment under conditions recognized as unconstitutional.