(Mis)recognition : essay on transnational law, identities and marginalization.

Summary This study examines the articulation between private international law ("PIL") and the discipline of human rights in the transnational context in light of the notions of recognition and denial of recognition, both of which are derived from political philosophy. The central problematic studied here is the following: in what way do political struggles for the recognition of marginalized identities modify the reasoning and techniques of transnational conflict resolution employed by national judges? In political philosophy, recognition implies respect for the otherness and difference of the Other. In contrast to recognition, the denial of recognition refers to cultural and economic processes that generate and reinforce daily humiliation and contempt for those whose identities differ from the social norm. The general argument defended in this work is that decision-making processes in transnational space, i.e. legal modes of reasoning, reproduce the stigmatization of individual and collective identities. PIL and human rights thus legitimize and participate in political processes of exclusion of communities that have been and continue to be culturally marginalized throughout history. The law thus legitimizes the denial of recognition that already constitutes the political space.