Foreign policy, regional autonomy and human rights in Colombia

Abstract

The Republic of Colombia, is organized in the form of a social and democratic state of law which has some implications for foreign policy. This state form of how power is distributed in the territory affects the formulation and practice of foreign policy. In Colombia, is organized as centralized power and is the President of the Republic in whom that power is concentrated. Also, the international human rights standards, limited to governments in developing its foreign policy which has to be made democratically. However, the more concentrated the government, less democracy will in foreign policy. This paper aims to identify how the Colombian foreign policy, necessarily limits set by the International Law of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law affecting even domestic politics. In the social and democratic state of law, politics has limits, and the foreign policy of a state can not escape these limits and must follow them. However, foreign policy in Colombia, has a glaring weakness: its exclusive centralism, which is made evident with the decision of the Court of Justice in The Hague in which is affected the population of San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean region, was not heard in the international process.