Restitution of Cosmic Harmony: a Legal Propposal from the Originary People of Abya Yala

Abstract

This paper analyses the relation between the indigenous legal systems and official state law, especially in the case of Guatemala. On the one hand, it is argued that indigenous law conception of human rights is fundamentally different from the occidental conception of law. But, rather than conceivingthese differences as a necessity of homogenization within modern legal principles, in this paper it isaffirmed that these differences move law to an intercultural dialogue, in which all different conceptionsof law and human rights must participate in equal conditions. In this account, a construction of a plural state and legal system becomes necessary, to which it is of the highest importance the equal participationof the indigenous conception of law, based on its autonomy from state law. Sadly in Latin America and in Guatemala in particular, the response of the official legal system has not been the construction of a pluralstate, but rather the exclusion, marginalization and invisibilization of indigenous law.