In the dissertation I explore how John Rawls derives his moderate list of human rights, and how he justifies that the principle of human rights is normatively binding upon outlaw states, which are excluded from the (international) original position in which that principle is reached. The purpose of my study is to defend Rawls against an accusation as follows: his proposal of human rights fails to protect the reasonable interests of individuals in nonliberal societies I am primarily concerned with the basis of the Law of Peoples in regard to the following two issues. First, is it true that, as Rawls claims, once the (international) original position is open to parties representing individuals across the world, the basis of the Law of Peoples would become 'too narrow' (Rawls, Collected Papers, p.550)? Second, would those parties, once in that position, reject, as Kok-Chor Tan claims, 'global principles that condone the kinds of institutional arrangements associated with DHSs [i.e., decent hierarchical societies]' (Tan, Toleration, Diversity and Global Justice, p.35)? I will argue that neither is necessarily the case if individuals from different societies enter the (international) original position to deliberate, behind the veil of ignorance, upon the terms of international social cooperation between distinct societies, without knowing which kind of society they would turn out to live in. I conjecture that they would reach the same principles as those derived by the agents representing well-ordered peoples I will further argue that the (international) original position open to individuals across the world is a more advantageous procedure than that open only to representatives of well-ordered peoples. First of all, the former establishes the universal normative binding force of the principle of human rights and justifies that principle with reference to the essential interests of individuals in nonliberal societies. Secondly, deriving the Law of Peoples from the (international) original position open to individuals from various societies is more in spirit with what Rawls conceives of as the ultimate justification of the principles of justice, namely, 'wide and general reflective equilibrium' (Rawls, Collected Papers, p.321) / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

In this study in recent legal theory, I begin by establishing that the new style of legal positivism, initiated by H. L. A. Hart and developed by Joseph Raz, relies on two assumptions: (1) that an adequate legal theory must not distort the nature of legal systems as seen from the point of view of participants in those systems; (2) that an adequate legal theory must be able to account for legal obligation. I then show that the legal theories of Hart and Raz do not meet these requirements, partly because they deny a conceptual connection between law and morals. Both theories distort the Anglo-American doctrine of precedent, and neither theory can explain legal obligation, even on their own analyses of the concept of obligation. Next, I argue that Ronald Dworkin's legal theory, contrary to recent interpretations of it, does assert a conceptual connection between law and morals, and I sketch this theory in order to show that it does not violate the two requirements mentioned above. I conclude with a brief outline of the constructivist moral theory which underlies Dworkin's legal theory and displays the continuity of his theory of legal obligation with those of Hart and Raz / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

La huella de lo audiovisual en la cultura ecuatoriana is, in first instance, a historical survey of Ecuadorian feature films from the 1920s to the present day. It traces, in chronological order, all the productions that were either shot in Ecuador or that involved Ecuadorian producers or directors filming Ecuadorian related themes in foreign soil The dissertation begins with the first silent feature film El tesoro de Atahualpa (Augusto San Miguel, 1924) and ends with Fuera de juego (Victor Arregui, 2002), which won the best film in the Cine en Construccion category at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2002 In second instance, the dissertation also analysis the cultural production of those eighty years in Ecuador and attempts to discover similarities or discrepancies with the other 'art forms' of the period. It establishes the difference between 'high art' and 'low art' and how film has come to be understood in those terms. It attempts to insert Ecuadorian film within the larger context of Latin America and to search for connections, during the early film period (1920--1950), with the itinerant directors who criss-crossed the Continent at the time: Saa Silva, Diumenjo and Santana. It later attempts to rethink the paradigms of the sixties and seventies in Latin America concerning New Latin American Cinema and finally looks at how the new technology of Digital Video has created a new way of looking at film in the Continent / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu