Un ‘colonialismo costituzionalizzato’. L’impatto della dottrina Monroe sull’ordinamento portoricano

A ‘constitutionalized colonialism’. The impact of the Monroe doctrine on the Puerto Rican legal system

Abstract

Courts often rely on legal ‘fictions’ to conceal the fact that they are engaged in enforcing a precise political will for reform. The attitude of the Puerto Rican Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court in legitimizing the ‘colonization’ of Puerto Rico by US law seems to rest on exactly such a dynamic; indeed, it is a case in which a precise legal tradition – that of the United States of America – intervenes in a sense that would ideally support the territory of Puerto Rico, but instead comes in many respects to replace the legal tradition of the ‘receiving’ legal order. In this context, it will therefore be analyzed how historical, political, and juridical factors concur in the indicated colonization of the Puerto Rican legal system, in an interweaving that begins with the Monroe Doctrine, passes through the status of the territories and finally arrives at what part of the literature perceives as a form of ‘transculturation’.

Keywords: United States of America; Puerto Rico; Territories; Legal transplants; Mixed legal systems