BY DR. YULHMA V. BALDERAS ORTIZ
PhD IN PUBLIC LAW, UNIVERSITY OF ROME “TOR VERGATA”
Dr. Yulhma Virginia Balderas Ortiz is an expert in Comparative Law and Constitutional Justice. In this field she served as State Attorney at the Procuraduría Fiscal de la Federación in Mexico City, before the Constitutional Court and the federal courts of the United States of Mexico.
In preparing this personal webpage, I primarily relied on the decisions and transcripts of the Supreme Court of every state of the International Community: published information, the private decisions of the justice at conferences discussing the cases, the documents of the Supreme Court justices, and the interviews I conducted with participants in those cases.
I am indebted to the scholarship and graciousness of my former professors in university law school (in Latin America and Europe), and my other professors of the International Community.
I thank my legal colleagues, Mexican and Italian.
I express my sincere appreciation to caring editors and collaborators, especially Elisa Fedeli, Francesca Mastri, Giovanna Trimboli (my portraitist), Jonatan Trimboli and Fabio Biancucci (www.studiofuturoma.com) who helped transform my scrawls into this personal webpage.
Comments that I appreciated came from conversations with the Vice President Emeritus of the Italian Constitutional Court, Prof. Enzo Cheli. He deserves the first thanks, since he has always listened very carefully to the “dreams” of a young colleague (me) in the research of constitutional justice. Also, the Presidents Emeritus of the Italian Constitutional Court, Dr. Francesco Amirante, Prof. Franco Gallo, Prof. Giuseppe Tesauro and Prof. Gaetano Silvestri; the constitutional judge of the Italian Constitutional Court, Avv. Giuseppe Frigo; and current President, Prof. Paolo Grossi.
A special thanks to Prof. Pierfrancesco Grossi, Prof. Antonio D’Atena, Prof. Guido Corso, Lucia Tria, Umberto Zingales, Elena D’Alessandro, Guerino Fares, Fabrizio Proietti, Vera Bizzoni, Giulia Merlonghi, Pierluigi Villivà, Simona Mastronardi, Riccardo Mondì and Manuel Pastorelli. Last, but not least, to my Family, without whose support and encouragement this personal webpage would not have been done.
About the content this personal webpage, having reached this point, taking conscience of on one side the macroeconomic context of the financial global crisis today (whose negative effects in Europe, especially in countries like Greece, for example, are putting at risk the protection of the fundamental rights, such as the family rights), the purposes of its creation are more than evident: VERITAS and IUSTITIA!
However, before we can think to plan the future, there is the need to stop this crowd of world citizens who run like Tom Hanks’ character Forrest Gump from the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film: “run crowd, run”. This human crowd represents the International Community, we have to stop it for a moment, and ask it to take a deep breath and look around – especially towards the sky – , in order to locate it in the universe, or in space, – time, and after that, take conscience and ask ourselves the following questions: Who are you? What is the purpose of your life? What are the most important things in life for you? Where do you want to reach? To find a starting point, more or less the one described by the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, “the secret of our personality, is not only in living, but in knowing for what we live for”. After that, the human crowd will be able to undertake any future venture.
So in this prospective of research for knowledge, rereading and vision, we begin our path, taking the first stop in the revision of the Treccani encyclopedia definition of Uòmo (ant. o pop. òmo) s. m. [lat. hŏmo hŏmĭnis] (pl. Uòmini [lat. hŏmĭnes]): living creature conscient and responsible for his actions, able to detach himself from the organic world objectifying it and using it to his own will, and as such maker of actions not immediately reducible to the laws that rule the rest of the physical world: man’s problem is central according to the historical religions and the various philosophical systems. From the biological point of view, uomo is the term with which all the species of mammal hominid primates belonging to the Homo genre is related to and, in particular, the only living species Homo Sapiens, characterized by the upright position, reduced hairiness, hands with opposable thumbs to enable the precise grip, a highly developed brain and neurocranium, overhanging the facial region; it differs from all the other animal species for the complexity of the articulated symbolic language, for the high capacity of abstraction and transmission of information in ways other than biological heritage (cultural transmission). The ending, followed by specific denominations, shows different anthropology forms and species: so, with u. of Neanderthal we indicate the populations ascribed at the subspecies of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, who lived in the würmian period (v. neanderthalian); with u. of Beijing and u. of Giava we indicate the populations ascribed today at the Homo erectus species, also known respectively as sinantropo (v.) and pitecantropo (v.).
And so, following this definition, the first element we find to confirm our acknowledgment is that we are all men and women: beings who are conscious and responsible of our actions, able to detach from the organic world objectifying it and using it for our needs, and as such, subject to actions not immediately related to the laws that rule the rest of the physical world. We, Homo sapiens, are the only living species characterized by an upright position, reduced hairiness, hands with opposable thumbs to enable precise grip, great development of the brain and neurocranium, overhanging our facial region; we differ from the other animal species for the complexity of our articulated symbolic language, from our ability to abstract and differ information in other ways rather than biological inheritance (cultural transmission).
Having said this, let’s consider a second element of knowledge: what limits are there in our society (International Community), in juridical terms? Our limits are the ones disposed by the rights and duties. In this venue we will discuss only the rights. Now, according to Art. 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are capable of reason and conscience and have to act one towards the other in brotherly spirit.” So, we are human beings, free and equal in dignity and rights, capable of reason and conscience. Therefore, we must act, in this International Community, one towards the other in brotherly spirit.
However, to our great surprise, there are some living beings, travel mates on this planet earth (or, better called Common Home), who are able to have a certain amount of reason and conscience and who act one towards the other in brotherly spirit. As a matter of fact, sometimes nature puts great surprises in front of our eyes great surprises showing us amazing actions in the animal world that leave us speechless. Two viral videos from the web that have already gained millions of views, the story of a monkey in India and of an octopus at the bottom of the sea, show us how simple and easy it is to understand the brotherly spirit and how easy it is to use intelligence to solve the difficulties we face every day that threaten our existence.
The first case takes place in India and it involves a monkey saving another monkey’s life: she had fallen on the train tracks unconscious after being electrocuted by the railway cables in Kanpur. The monkey was injured falling on the alimentation tracks of the station losing consciousness. At this point, the other monkey ran to the rescue: the animal, showing an innate sense of brotherhood, tried to reanimate the other by hitting it on its heart several times, and in the end, dragged its body still shaking from the shock, in a puddle of water. After this first aid and after the first 20 minutes, the unconscious monkey started showing the first signs of recovery by starting to move. At this point, the crowd of passengers looking at this curious happening on the platform started to take pictures and videos of the heroic act that ended in a great ovation. Even if in most places in India the great number of monkeys is seen as a bother, some environmentalists sustain that the main reason for the large invasion of these animals is the development of cities which reduces their natural habitat and forces them to find food and shelter amongst people.
The second case shows an octopus “walking” on the seabed, two coconut shells to use as a shelter in case of a threat. The theory of octopuses (whose intelligence is in continuous development) who have learnt to use utensils has been confirmed also by recent studies conducted by Julian Finn, a researcher of the Victoria Museum in Australia. The octopus is in fact considered one of the most intelligent invertebrates. For example, it has been demonstrated how the common octopus is able to learn by association by observing others of its species, an ability observed till now only in certain mammals. This last evidence is quite surprising being that the octopus is a strongly solitary animal; it would seem to be a very unlikely behavior, typical only of social interactive animals. Because nature did not provide them with a shell for protection, they can be easy prey. To defend themselves, as many researchers and filmmakers have observed, they have thus learnt to use props or flotsam parts found on the seabed. Some specimens are able to, for example, pick up two halves of a coconut shell left on the beach to secure themselves with a “portable” and light armor, easy to lift and to carry.
I referred to these two cases because in these tough times of crisis in the global governance, there seems to be a lack of this reason, this conscience, this brotherly and humanity feeling. This may be because some societies, some leaders and some global institution representatives have lost this skill to “dream and imagine that all the citizens of the world can live in peace, in a world that lives in harmony, without hunger and greediness, in a brotherly spirit between men, in a sharing spirit”. Maybe in these societies the leaders and representatives have, unfortunately, lost that energy, that extremely powerful strength for which science hasn’t yet found a formal explanation. That strength that includes and administers all the others, and is also behind all phenomena operating in the universe and that hasn’t yet been localized. That universal strength called Love. That Love that is Power and Strength, because it multiplies the best that is in us and avoids the extinction of the human race by the hand of its blind ego. That Love that reveals and unveils. The Love for which we live and die for. That strength that explains all and gives it a capital reason to existence. The one we try to avoid at all costs. Maybe because Love is scary, since it is the only energy of the universe man hasn’t learnt to manipulate for his own will. That great medicine that has, without any doubt, the power to heal the world, the most powerful strength and energy existing, because it is limitless, Love.
Therefore, reconnecting to all that has been referred to the institutional crisis to which we are spectators of in some of the state members of the International Community, the governments haven’t been able to manage the conferred trust and, by means they have broken the social pact, especially towards the weakest bands of the society, in the use and control of their resources, excesses that have fired back nowadays, causing an economic-financial crisis.
In this hard picture we have reached the point where we need to try to recover through the care and nutrition of our minds and hearts towards a healthy balance. If we want the human race to survive and to save the world and every living thing living in it, if we are willing to find a reason to live, let us try and use Love as a unique and last answer to activate that reason, that conscience, that brotherly and human spirit towards peace, something lacking at this moment in the biggest part of society. Let us fight the hate through Love, the egoism and greediness afflicting the planet, let us give to every citizen of the world, through new actions and guide lines the instructions to turn on inside one another a tiny but powerful generator of Love, whose energy will be released towards the society we live in. Without a doubt, with these actions we will see immediately some results because Love wins over everything, goes beyond everything and can everything, because Love is the essence of life, covering the substance and the spirit. As proof we have what some extraordinary men and women left for us, those Nobel Peace Prizes or saints, among them Teresa di Calcutta, née Anjëzë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (tireless defender of the right to food and health, especially for the victims of poverty in Calcutta), Pio da Pietrelcina, née Francesco Forgione, Italian presbyter of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (tireless defender of the right to health, especially for the poorest sick ones of Italy) whose operation “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza” of San Giovanni Rotondo (province of Foggia), a highly specialized sanitary structure which every year registers 57,000 admissions and over 1.3 million surgeries, as a religious foundation without income, has received the qualification of Recovery Institution of Care and Scientific Character of “genetic inherited diseases”, from the 5th of December 2012 it has been expanded to the section of “genetic diseases, innovative therapies and regenerative medicine”. On the 25th of June 2012, in such hospital, the first transplant of human brain cells (stamina cells) took place on a patient suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We also find, amongst these noble people, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known by the name of Mahatma (big soul), philosopher, lawyer and important spiritual guide for his country, India, who recognized him as the Father of the nation. His birthday, the 2nd of October, has been declared “International Day of Non-violence” for the General Assembly of the United Nations. Gandhi has been one of the pioneers and theorists of the satyagraha [founded on satya (truth) and on ahimsa (non violence)]. The resistance to oppression through mass disobedience of the civilization brought India to independence. With his actions, Gandhi inspired defensive movements for civil rights, having an effect on people like Martin Luther King Jr. (especially the march guided from Selma to Montgomery fifty years ago as part of the campaign to make his “dream” come true, a dream of full civil and political rights for the Afro-Americans) and Nelson Mandela. And still, the work of Dorothy Day, her efforts for social justice, the rights of the people (especially the workers), non-violence, her passion for the causes of the oppressed, aimed especially towards helping the homeless and poor of New York through the opening of the first “hospitality home”, an action that spread quickly throughout cities of the USA, Canada and Great Britain: since 1941, dozens of communities have been opened. Dorothy eventually died in one of these homes on the 29th of November 1980.
We can recall the names of other men and women who “have written pages, notes of a lifetime, of great value, irreplaceable because they denounce corrupted systems. Men and women who, step by step, left a mark with courage and effort, with dedication and against organized institutions, aware that their ideas would have remained in time as words and hyperboles, intact and real like little miracles, ideas of equality, ideas of education. Men and women who keep on working, despite everything around them is shattered”, because this life has no meaning in the end, without the pursuit of global wellness, that brings with no doubt a search of peace for the soul, the intellectual serenity, and most of all the individual happiness; it is in this that justice isn’t only an illusion!!!
With these encouraging works by extraordinary men and women and those moving actions of generosity performed by the Indian monkey and recognition of the octopus’s intelligence, we end this preface of thoughts that has permitted us to be located in space and time and to take action of who we are and what is waiting for us on this journey in this Common Home of ours, Earth.
But the journey doesn’t end here because there is still a lot to learn about the meaning of life, what the important things in life for us are, where we want to go, to be able in the end to rethink our present and reflect on our past experiences through an interdisciplinary point of view (anthropological, ethical, philosophical, sociological, juridical and economical), forbidding us to repeat the mistakes and most of all the habits that can put our future deed at risk, in this case represented by new institutions worldwide; a dream involving the International Community for the respect of human rights and fundamental of every person in the 21st century.
Personally writing, I am a convinced dreamer, inspired by the great dreamers of the past, in primis the architects of the advanced civilizations of Mexico, like the Olmecs (apogee from 1200 BC to 500 BC we underestimate that their influence has been decisive, we recall the invention of writing and of the calendar in all the Mesoamerican civilizations). And still, the civilization of Teotihuacán (from 100 BC up to 650 AC) being the greatest pre Colombian city-state who imposed its influence from modern-day New Mexico to Costa Rica. The Zapotecs (apogee from 200 to 700) settled mainly in what we know as the State of Oaxaca today through the city-states (many relevant archaeological sites such as Monte Albán) who left their dialect as inheritance to the new generations: still today 400,000 people speak Zapotec. The Mayas (apogee from 200 to 900) one of the most evolved civilizations of the Pre-Colombian era, characterized by the development of important cities, such as Chichén Itzá (one of the most important ones belonging to Pre-Hispanic Mexico) and Palenque. The Toltecs (apogee from 1000 to 1200), with their most important city: Tula. The Aztecs (apogee from 1200 to 1500) who, in about 200 years, developed from just a tribal nomad state to an empire: Tenochtitlán, which became Mexico City, where I was born.
The inheritance left in my DNA from the indigenous populations of Mexico, the tight relationship and the harmony of the Olmecs, the Teotihuacans, the Zapotecs, the Mayas, the Toltecs and the Aztecs with the universe, their passion for nature and for every living thing populating our Common Home, the Earth, is the lymph of my dreams, the same lymph that illuminated the works of Francesco d’Assisi, keeper of the right of environmental ecology and biodiversity.
Furthermore, a source of inspiration for my dreams was the work of the eight members of the Order of Preachers (Ordo fratrum praedicatorum), the Dominican Order that arrived in America, and in particular their Sermón de adviento held on La Española island in 1511 (pronounced by friar Antonio di Montesinos). And still, the works Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias and Tratado sobre los indios que se han hecho esclavos, both written in 1522 by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, which overall can be considered the first “High Commissioners” and “Defenders of the human rights” of the populations originating in America in human history.
In addition, Abraham Lincoln the keeper of freedom. Let us recall the Fathers of Constitutionalism in Mexico: Constitution of Apatzingán October 1814, the Federation Paper of the 1824, the Reforming Act of 1847, the Paper of 1857, the Constitution of 1917, keepers of the social guarantees, of the “agricultural right, earth and freedom for farmers and for the different rights for workers, amongst which we find the right to a house and to social security”. Fathers keepers of the fundamental rights, human rights today, through the precious gift we call direct constitutional control, given to the citizens: the Juicio de Amparo appeal aimed to protect these rights in front of the acts and arbitrary laws of the authorities, both inheritances, not only for the Mexican State, but also in different global countries (as testified by the compared constitutional right).
The Founding Fathers and constituents of the Nation’s Organization, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of the United Nation Paper, of the State of the United Nations and of the Declaration on the Right to Development.
The poets of justice in Italy, Piero Calamandrei and Giuseppe Zanardelli, keepers of the rights and guaranties of the access to justice and fair trial. And contemporary Poets of justice, the Vice President Emeritus of the Italian Constitutional Court, Prof. Enzo, the Presidents Emeritus of the Italian Constitutional Court, Dr. Francesco Amirante and Prof. Franco Gallo; the constitutional judge of the Italian Constitutional Court, Avv. Giuseppe Frigo; and current President, Prof. Paolo Grossi.
Maria Teresa di Calcutta, full of love and keeper of the right to food.
The merciful Pio da Pietrelcina, keeper of the right to health.
Papa Giovanni Paolo II, brave promoter of determination, strength, of “no fear”, to pick up the key of Love, that key that opens all gates, even the ones that seem impossible and unreachable because they are set on the highest mountains. I could never forget to name as primary and daily sources of inspiration of my dreams, all my co-citizens of the world (my brothers and sisters), especially the other living creatures of this Common Home, the Earth, who are the joy of my eyes and through their daily actions I act everyday on my rights to freedom.
The freedom my eyes have to see through the vision of beauty and the natural and cultural richness of every state member of the International Community; the freedom my ears have to listen to the phonic sampling of the musical beauty and richness coming from every state member of the International Community; the capacity to reason before we speak or judge, through dialogue and knowledge of the cultural beauties and riches of every state member of the International Community; the freedom to be happy and “satisfy” my palate tasting the culinary riches of every state of the International Community.
Recently the two people most responsible for my dreams, or more importantly, the strength to continue dreaming are: the masterly, lovable and generous Papa Benedetto XVI, promoter of knowledge, balance between the mind and the heart, promoter of trust and hope, of “team work” and most of all of Unity. And last but not least, the “top scorer” in our Hearts, promoter of consistency, coherency, humility, brotherhood, of the execution of the sentences erga omnes: IUSTITIA and VERITAS in the field of the global human rights, the promoter of Happiness: Papa Francesco, who gifted my ears with “new music”, through the speech he pronounced at the Pastoral of Cuba visit: “a youngster who is not able to dream, is closed in himself”, “I invite you to dream of great things”, “dream of a world that will be different with you”. “If you give the best of yourselves you shall help the world change”, “don’t forget to dream”.
Having said this, I shall carry you through these following pages (in this personal webpage) in a journey divided into several parts: in some, what you will read will have Dantesque scenes, made of heavens, hells and purgatories (the degree, I shall leave to your own imagination); in other parts, the dream shall be revealed, “a Dream for the International Community”, because living without dreams is like living in black and white! Who knows, they might come true!
A dream that for now we shall let rest and wake later with Love, lots of Love, at the end of our journey!***
***V. Y. V. BALDERAS ORTIZ, V. BIZZONI, S. MASTRONARDI, G. MERLONGHI, R. MONDÌ, M. PASTORELLI, F. PROIETTI, P. VILLIVÀ; Ebook, Youcanprint Self-Publishing, 15/12/2015, ISBN/EAN 9788896803196, Italian Language ISBN/EAN-13 9788896803196; Sezione III, Un Sogno per la Comunità Internazionale: DOMUS XXI, di Avv. Yulhma V. Balderas Ortiz – Dottore di ricerca in Diritto pubblico, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Parte Prima, “La veritas”, p.89 ss. v. http://www.domusxxi-ebook.com/