To end the dictatorships of 21st Century Socialism, its infamous laws must be abolished.
By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 09/09/2026
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An organized criminal group has held power since 1959 in Cuba, since 1999 in Venezuela, since 2003 in Bolivia, and since 2007 in its second term in Nicaragua. It began as Castroism and has become internationalized as 21st-Century Socialism, Castro-Chavismo, or the Latin American left. These dictatorships will not end without dismantling their laws that violate human rights, impede freedom and the development of their peoples—"infamous laws" imposed for oppression, state terrorism, and impunity.
An infamous law is a “norm that, drafted and established following the formal procedure for its creation, violates human rights and fundamental freedoms in its object and content.” An infamous law is, in truth, a non-law, because the basic concept of law is that of a “precept issued by a competent authority, which commands or prohibits something in accordance with justice and for the good of those governed.”
The entire philosophical, ethical, moral, and legal foundation of the law calls into question the very nature of the norm when it does not seek justice and the common good. The infamous laws of the 21st-century socialist system imposed in Cuba under the Castros and Díaz-Canel, Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro, Bolivia under Morales and Arce, Nicaragua under Ortega and Murillo, and Ecuador under Correa are instruments that violate the possibility of justice and only favor oppression and a reign of terror, institutionalizing the concentration of power and inequality.
The so-called political constitutions imposed, supplanted, reformed, or in any way established by 21st-century socialism are dictatorial statutes that eliminate the essential elements of democracy: they violate freedom and human rights; they distort the rule of law, extinguish the separation and independence of the organs of public power, impede free social and political organization; and instead of free elections, they create a system of electoral dictatorship with institutionalized fraud in which the people vote but do not choose.
Human rights in the Americas are fundamental rights because the American Convention on Human Rights or Pact of San José is a binding instrument that establishes rights openly violated by the fundamental regulations of 21st-century socialism, such as the non-retroactivity of the law, ignored after being proclaimed with the addition of exceptions with which special laws are approved to apply retroactivity.
Human rights relating to personal liberty and security, due process, the rule of law, and freedom of thought and expression are meticulously violated. Private property is a human right, and its violation is widespread in the dictatorial system, with laws permitting confiscations, sanctions, unjustified expropriations, and all kinds of usurpations.
Universal suffrage or universal vote - which is an essential element of democracy - founded on the equality of all citizens under the premise of one citizen one vote, is eliminated by most of the Castro-Chavista constitutions that, following fascist models, give sectoral, functional or preferential representation under various pretexts.
In the realm of domestic and foreign investment, the constitutional texts of Castro-Chavismo are mechanisms open to manipulation, the concentration of power, corruption, and legal uncertainty. The main codes and laws adhere to principles of authoritarianism, inverting universal legal principles, and undermining legal equality and due process, resulting in a widespread state of defenselessness.
Heinous crimes, carrying extremely severe penalties, exemplify the use of a penal and administrative system riddled with infamous laws to ensure "judicialized state terrorism." Examples include the crime of "pre-criminal dangerousness," the "regulation" of such measures in Cuba, and the discretionary use of "precautionary measures" by corrupt prosecutors and judges in all the subjugated countries.
By manipulating concepts such as sovereignty, social justice, and even anti-imperialism, they have perpetrated criminal instruments under the guise of laws, decrees, and regulations that have eliminated any form of legal security for the individual, the family, property, or any type of initiative, making the citizen a vassal and even a slave, as in the case of the labor trafficking of doctors and others that Cuba carries out internationally.
Special analysis is warranted for anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism laws, because, as in the case of Bolivia, they replaced norms—which were the basis of a successful state policy—with permissive provisions that grant impunity and sustain the narco-state.
Without ceasing the infamous laws, the dictatorships do not end, and the criminals may lose the government but will continue to have power with impunity.
*Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy
«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».