Quixotic utopia of human rights

Abstract

The aim of this article is to (re)tell the legal discourse of human rights across the emancipatory lens of literature through Miguel de Cervantes' The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote de La Mancha. The objective is to draw a parallel between Quixote's struggle and the battle for human rights in the present day, showing his points of approach, with no intention to exhaust them. From this opening of Law to literature, the legal discourse of human rights will be explored based on the literary narrative of Cervantes. The quixotic vocation of fighting injustices, the focus on the vulnerable, the dimension of dialogical alterity - all marked by the tension between reality and ideality - that stand out in the chosen work are points of communication with the paradoxes and dilemmas of the realization of rights in contemporary times. The challenge that arises is, from a different posture of - and before – the law, from the dialogues with Quixote, to give possible concreteness to human rights, thus unveiling the horizon of a possible utopia to transform them into a tangible dimension of reality.