Abstract
The Third World can easily experience a form of ghost existence: We speak but are not heard. However, in our
culThe Third World can easily experience a form of ghost existence: We speak but are not heard. However, in our
culture there are a number of trends and positions that are relevant to the task of thinking human rights in a new
light. Among them, the critiques of rationalism advanced by Oswald de Andrade and Luis Alberto Warat in Brasil
and Argentina—where there is a possibility of integrating the emotions into human rights theory. Sharing a preoccupation
with those excluded from the ‘world order’ and the appeal to sensibility, Subaltern Studies have advanced
some insights pointing at establishing a link between colonialism, human rights and suffering. This is the case in
the work of Upendra Baxi, who has made a criticism of Western theorisations of law and crafted a fruitful encounter
between the insights of Subaltern Studies and the theory of human rights.