Inverted walls and displaced risk: human rights limits of Chile’s trench in the Tacna–Arica border corridor

Pari-Bedoya I.N.M.d.l.A.; Vargas-Murillo A.R.; Daga Palacios R.H. · Frontiers in Political Science (2026) · DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2026.1846645

Resumen

In March 2026, Chile began excavating trenches near Chacalluta in the Tacna–Arica corridor under the Border Shield plan. This Perspective examines whether this infrastructure satisfies legality, strict necessity and proportionality under human rights law. It triangulates scholarship on transfrontier mobility, securitization, crimmigration and the Chile–Bolivia ‘inverted wall’ with official, legal, humanitarian and contemporaneous reporting. It argues that a trench beside a historically integrated urban corridor may redirect residual movement toward less visible and more hazardous routes. Existing evidence does not establish that the 2026 works have already caused particular injuries or protection denials; it makes displaced risk foreseeable. Ex ante review must therefore distinguish vehicular control from migration and crime-control objectives, compare localized physical alternatives, and require humanitarian and child-protection safeguards. Copyright

Instituciones: Universidad Tecnológica del Perú; Universidad Nacional Jorge Basadre Grohmann; Universidad Privada del Norte