Contradictions of Green Development: Human Rights and Environmental Norms in Light of Belo Monte Dam Activism

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
EVE Z. BRATMAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
Political Opportunities ◽  
Green Development ◽  
Hydroelectric Dam ◽  
Political Alignments ◽  
Environmental Human Rights ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Belo Monte

AbstractThis paper offers a historical examination of the ways in which advocacy strategies and tactics have shifted in relation to political opportunities, using a case study of a hydroelectric dam project in the Brazilian Amazon, known as the Belo Monte Dam. Drawing on over three decades of resistance by transnational activist coalitions, the paper looks at how new tactics and political alignments have altered the dynamics of activism and norm diffusion in Brazilian domestic environmental, human rights and development policies. The paper argues that current theories of norm diffusion inadequately explain backslides and tend to underestimate the complexity of domestic political alignments. The case adds political insight to our understanding of the relationship of transnational advocacy strategy to environmental and human rights political realities in Brazil.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Corporate Reinsurance: From Ensuring Rights to Insuring Risks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Scheper ◽  
Johanna Gördemann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Private Governance ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Corporate Form ◽  
Norm Compliance ◽  
Hydroelectric Dam ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Belo Monte

With the aimof grounding the analysis of private transnational human rights governance, the article examines how a European reinsurance company links its human rights policy to its core business of underwriting risks in the case of Belo Monte, a large hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon. Based on the current international regulatory framework, the global political economy of reinsurance is becoming a constitutive element of human rights governance. Conceptualising underwriting as a social practice, we observe how human rights norms are translated into the corporate form of risks. This process goes beyond questions of norm compliance and involves practices of valuation and boundary-drawing based on the underwriter’s competences and background knowledgeabout reinsurance markets, value chains and corporate hierarchies. We conclude with a critique of private governance as an institutional pillar of the human rights system that rests on business rationales rather than lending institutional power to rights-holders.

Children Claiming the Future of Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-140
Author(s):  
Richard P. Hiskes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Public Agency ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Social Technologies ◽  
Environmental Human Rights ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter examines a number of child human rights leaders around the world and how they are utilizing existing activist networks and the courts to effect social change. In doing so, these “global kids” are also changing the nature of human rights activism by employing evolving social technologies and networking strategies for social movements. The chapter begins with a discussion of the Juliana v. US federal court case, in which the plaintiffs were twenty-one children suing for protection of their environmental human rights. The dissent by Judge Staton effectively establishes the legal standing of children in courts in the United States and, as a precedent, for similar cases abroad. The child activists’ reliance on and expansion of transnational advocacy networks expands the definition of “global civil society.” Both in their courtroom participation and in other forms of activism, children are proving effective as advocates for their own public agency.

When Rights Embrace Responsibilities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Sajeva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Group Rights ◽  
Potential Applicability ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Relationship Of

The conservation of environment and the protection of human rights are two of the most compelling needs of our time. Unfortunately, they are not always easy to combine and too often result in mutual harm. This book analyses the idea of biocultural rights as a proposal for harmonizing the needs of environmental and human rights. These rights, considered as a basket of group rights, are those deemed necessary to protect the stewardship role that certain indigenous peoples and local communities have played towards the environment. With a view to understanding the value and merits, as well as the threats that biocultural rights entail, the book critically assesses their foundations, content, and implications, and develops new perspectives and ideas concerning their potential applicability for promoting the socio-economic interests of indigenous people and local communities. It further explores the controversial relationship of interdependence and conflict between conservation of environment and protection of human rights.

Human Rights and the Mediatization of International Law

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL JOYCE
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Media ◽  
International Law ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
International Regulation ◽  
The Media ◽  
Legal Forms ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Communicative Capitalism ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis article considers the relationship of international law and the media through the prism of human rights. In the first section the international regulation of the media is examined and visions of good, bad, and new media emerge. In the second section, the enquiry is reversed and the article explores the ways in which the media is shaping international legal forms and processes in the field of human rights. This is termed the ‘mediatization of international law’. Yet despite hopes for new media and the Internet to transform international law, the theoretical work of Jodi Dean warns of the danger to democracy of commodification through the spread of ‘communicative capitalism’.

Effects of the Belo Monte hydro-electric-dam complex on crocodilians in the Xingu River, Brazilian Amazonia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Zilca Campos ◽  
Fábio Muniz ◽  
William E. Magnusson ◽  
Guilherme Mourão
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Xingu River ◽  
Hydroelectric Dam ◽  
River Reservoir ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Collateral Effects ◽  
Generating Capacity ◽  
Reservoir Filling ◽  
Belo Monte

Abstract The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on the Xingu River has the third largest generating capacity of any hydroelectric dam in the world. We conducted surveys of crocodilians (Caiman crocodilus, Paleosuchus trigonatus) by boat in the Xingu River at the site of the dam prior to (2013-2015), and after filling (2016-2017). While the number of C. crocodilus sighted decreased with increasing water level, there was no difference in numbers prior to, and after reservoir filling. The number of P. trigonatus was unaffected by both water level prior to and after reservoir filling. Reservoir filling had little effect on the number of crocodilians using the forest around the Xingu River reservoir. Most crocodilians seen in forest surveys were P. trigonatus, both before and after reservoir filling, but C. crocodilus was recorded occasionally in the forest. It seems that most Amazonian crocodilians are sufficiently generalist to adapt to the new conditions created by the construction of dams, at least in the short-term. However, there may be long-term collateral effects on crocodilian populations from dams, due to as deforestation and improved access for hunters.

scholarly journals DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES IN IMPACTS OF HYDROELETRIC DAMS BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH OF BRAZIL

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUILLAUME LETURCQ
Keyword(s):  
Hydroelectric Dams ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
Hydroelectric Dam ◽  
Area North ◽  
South Of Brazil ◽  
The Impact ◽  
North And South ◽  
Belo Monte

Abstract The environmental impacts of hydroelectric dams in Brazil are investigated in local and regional scales, for the last years. In this paper, we analyze the impact than the establishment of a hydroelectric dam has for the people and their spaces, with the comparative experiences occurred for the North and South of Brazil. We will focus on aspects related to the organization of families, social fight, the compensation and resettlement of people affected by the dam's construction, as well we take a look to the similarities between the two areas, with emphasis on aspects related to migration, mobility and landscapes. For this, we rely on research carried out on the river Uruguay (South), based on interviews, questionnaires and studies of primary and secondary sources, from 2007 to 2014 and also in a survey that is currently being held in Belo Monte area (North), which also uses primary and secondary sources, with fieldwork periods.

The (co)evolution of human rights advocacy: Understanding human rights issue emergence over time

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baekkwan Park ◽  
Amanda Murdie ◽  
David R Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Advocacy Network ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
Rights Issue ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Rights Issues ◽  
Over Time

How does the discussion of human rights issues change over time? Without advocates adopting a human rights issue in the first place, international ‘shaming’ cannot occur. In this article, we examine how human rights discussions converge and diverge around new frames and new issues over time. Human rights norms do not evolve alone; their prevalence, framing, and focus are all dependent on how they relate to other norms in the advocacy community. Drawing on over 30,000 documents from dozens of human rights organizations from 1990 to 2011, we provide a temporal overview and visualization of the ebb and flow of human rights issues. Using our new dataset and state-of-the-art methods from computer science, our approach allows us to quantitatively examine (a) how new issues emerge in the advocacy network, (b) the relationship of these new issues to extant human rights advocacy and information, and (c) how the framing and specificity of these issues change over time. By focusing on the process by which a new issue gets incorporated into the work of advocates, we provide an empirical assessment of the first step in the causal process connecting shaming to improvement in human rights practices.

scholarly journals Monitoring mechanisms designed to serve persons with intellectual disabilities: exploring the implementation of Article 16 CRPD in Cyprus

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Julia Kakoullis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
National Human ◽  
Adults With Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
National Human Rights Institutions ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn its concluding observations for Cyprus, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Committee stated that it ‘is concerned about the insufficiency of legal provisions and accessible mechanisms to detect, report, prevent and combat all forms of violence’.1This paper focuses on the independent monitoring obligation Article 16(3) CRPD places on states parties, and discusses the implications of the insufficient implementation of Article 16(3) as it affects adults with intellectual disabilities in Cyprus. It examines the existing monitoring frameworks, explains why they do not meet with Article 16(3) CRPD requirements and explores the relationship of the national human rights institutions (NHRIs) with Article 16(3). This paper enables understanding as to how, despite pre-existing monitoring frameworks in place, no independent monitoring action has been taken since the ratification of the CRPD. It argues that there is an immediate need for measures to achieve the implementation of Article 16(3) and makes recommendations for Cyprus and other states parties.

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