How Can We Adapt Human Rights to Neo-Authoritarian Tendencies? A Case Study of Bukele’s Administration in El Salvador.
(2025) JAMM07 20251Department of Law
Faculty of Law
- Abstract
- In recent decades, international human rights law has encountered growing challenges and opportunities at the same time, posed by regimes that, while maintaining democratic appearances such as free and fair elections, adopt authoritarian practices questionable with liberal rule-of-law stand-ards.
This phenomenon, has being referred to as "illiberalism," reflecting a ris-ing tension between policy effectiveness and fundamental freedoms. This thesis wants to explore the issue through the paradigmatic case of El Sal-vador under the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, who has promoted a model of governance that combines high popularity and significant crime reduction with fierce restrictions on fundamental rights.
This thesis aims to... (More) - In recent decades, international human rights law has encountered growing challenges and opportunities at the same time, posed by regimes that, while maintaining democratic appearances such as free and fair elections, adopt authoritarian practices questionable with liberal rule-of-law stand-ards.
This phenomenon, has being referred to as "illiberalism," reflecting a ris-ing tension between policy effectiveness and fundamental freedoms. This thesis wants to explore the issue through the paradigmatic case of El Sal-vador under the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, who has promoted a model of governance that combines high popularity and significant crime reduction with fierce restrictions on fundamental rights.
This thesis aims to explore how legal “illiberal” governance and the “dem-ocratic backsliding”, and International Human Rights Law are correlated, and with the focus on El Salvador and compare it with other examples of the world.
As the same time the question of How should international human rights mechanisms respond to governments that enjoy broad popular support yet undermine essential guarantees? Is it possible to adapt the International human rights treaties to the new emerging political and legal frameworks? Do we need to redefine the concept?
The case of El Salvador is highly relevant and this research. Other coun-tries, such as Hungary, Türkiye, and Poland, Israel among others, exhibit similar traits of illiberal and democratic backslide, also in Developed countries.
Also considering how social media is spreading the popularity of this new political and legal management is creating a worldwide impact on other governments, especially in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries but also in other latitudes.
the goal of this thesis is not to talk only about El Salvador but how the In-ternational Human Rights Mechanisms can contribute to the development of this policies or how they can countermeasure the “excesses” of these policies. In other words, this research seeks to propose ways to adapt hu-man rights protections to new political realities without compromising fundamental principles. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9193572
- author
- Alcalde Bermudez, Xoan LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- JAMM07 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- International Law, Human Rights, Democratic Backsliding, Authoritarianism, El Salvador, Bukele, Illiberalism, Social Media, Governance
- language
- English
- id
- 9193572
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-13 11:09:31
- date last changed
- 2025-06-13 11:09:31
@misc{9193572,
abstract = {{In recent decades, international human rights law has encountered growing challenges and opportunities at the same time, posed by regimes that, while maintaining democratic appearances such as free and fair elections, adopt authoritarian practices questionable with liberal rule-of-law stand-ards.
This phenomenon, has being referred to as "illiberalism," reflecting a ris-ing tension between policy effectiveness and fundamental freedoms. This thesis wants to explore the issue through the paradigmatic case of El Sal-vador under the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, who has promoted a model of governance that combines high popularity and significant crime reduction with fierce restrictions on fundamental rights.
This thesis aims to explore how legal “illiberal” governance and the “dem-ocratic backsliding”, and International Human Rights Law are correlated, and with the focus on El Salvador and compare it with other examples of the world.
As the same time the question of How should international human rights mechanisms respond to governments that enjoy broad popular support yet undermine essential guarantees? Is it possible to adapt the International human rights treaties to the new emerging political and legal frameworks? Do we need to redefine the concept?
The case of El Salvador is highly relevant and this research. Other coun-tries, such as Hungary, Türkiye, and Poland, Israel among others, exhibit similar traits of illiberal and democratic backslide, also in Developed countries.
Also considering how social media is spreading the popularity of this new political and legal management is creating a worldwide impact on other governments, especially in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries but also in other latitudes.
the goal of this thesis is not to talk only about El Salvador but how the In-ternational Human Rights Mechanisms can contribute to the development of this policies or how they can countermeasure the “excesses” of these policies. In other words, this research seeks to propose ways to adapt hu-man rights protections to new political realities without compromising fundamental principles.}},
author = {{Alcalde Bermudez, Xoan}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{How Can We Adapt Human Rights to Neo-Authoritarian Tendencies? A Case Study of Bukele’s Administration in El Salvador.}},
year = {{2025}},
}