scholarly journals From paper to practice? Assembling a rights-based conservation approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1128-1147
Author(s):  
Catherine Corson ◽  
Julia Worcester ◽  
Sabine Rogers ◽  
Isabel Flores-Ganley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Strategic Alliances ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Conservation Governance ◽  
Conservation Politics ◽  
Principles And Standards

Drawing on a collaborative ethnographic study of the 2016 International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress (WCC), we analyze how Indigenous peoples and local community (IPLC) rights advocates have used a rights-based approach (RBA) to advance long-standing struggles to secure local communities' land and resource rights and advance governing authority in biodiversity conservation. The RBA has allowed IPLC advocates to draw legitimacy from the United Nations system—from its declarations to its special rapporteurs—and to build transnational strategic alliances in ways they could not with participatory discourses. Using it, they have brought attention to biodiversity as a basic human right and to the struggle to use, access, and own it as a human rights struggle. In this article, we show how the 2016 WCC provided a platform for building and reinforcing these alliances, advancing diverse procedural and substantive rights, redefining key principles and standards for a rights-based conservation approach, and leveraging international support for enforcement mechanisms on-the-ground. We argue that, as advocates staked out physical and discursive space at the venue, they secured the authority to shape conservation politics, shifting the terrain of struggle between strict conservationists and community activists and creating new conditions of possibility for advancing the human rights agenda in international conservation politics. Nonetheless, while RBAs have been politically successful at reconfiguring global discourse, numerous obstacles remain in translating that progress to secure human rights to resources "on the ground", and it is vital that the international conservation community finance the implementation of RBA in specific locales, demand that nation states create monitoring and grievance systems, and decolonize the ways in which they interact with IPLCs. Finally, we reflect on the value of the Collaborative Event Ethnography methodology, with its emphasis on capturing the mundane, meaningful and processual aspects of policymaking, in illuminating the on-going labor entailed in bringing together and aligning the disparate elements in dynamic assemblages.Keywords: Human rights, global conservation governance, collaborative event ethnography, Indigenous peoples 

Indigenous Australians, Specialist Courts, and The Intergenerational Impacts of Child Removal in The Criminal Justice System

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 378-400
Author(s):  
Amelia Radke ◽  
Heather Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Torres Strait Islander ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Community Justice ◽  
Torres Strait ◽  
Kinship Ties ◽  
The Impact

Murri Courts are a specialist criminal law practice that includes Elders and respected persons of the local Community Justice Group in the sentencing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander defendants. Drawing on an ethnographic study of two southeast Queensland Murri Courts, this article explores the impact of State ordered out-of-home care on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander defendants and their children. We show how Community Justice Groups and specialist courts help to address the intergenerational impacts of child protection interventions. The rights of Australian Indigenous peoples to enjoy, maintain, control, protect and develop their kinship ties is recognised under the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) and international human rights treaties. We suggest that policymakers and legislators should better recognise and support Community Justice Groups and specialist courts as they provide an important avenue for implementing the rights of Australian Indigenous peoples to recover and maintain their kinship ties.

scholarly journals Indigenous Education and Human Rights

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Schimmel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Education ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Educational Programmes ◽  
The Right

AbstractThe right to an education that is consonant with and draws upon the culture and language of indigenous peoples is a human right which is too often overlooked by governments when they develop and implement programmes whose purported goals are to improve the social, economic and political status of these peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples must fully respect and integrate human rights protections, particularly rights to cultural continuity and integrity. Racist attitudes dominate many government development programmes aimed at indigenous peoples. Educational programmes for indigenous peoples are often designed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy the uniqueness of their language, values, culture and relationship with their native lands. Until indigenous peoples are empowered to develop educational programmes for their own communities that reflect and promote their values and culture, their human rights are likely to remain threatened by governments that use education as a political mechanism for coercing indigenous peoples to adapt to a majority culture that does not recognize their rights, and that seeks to destroy their ability to sustain and pass on to future generations their language and culture.

scholarly journals Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women: A Rights-based Approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Shaorin Tanira ◽  
Raihana Amin ◽  
Sanchita Adhikary ◽  
Khadiza Sultana ◽  
Rashida Khatun
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Sexual And Reproductive Health ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Sexual And Reproductive Rights

Violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are frequent all over the world. Women’s sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights. The term ‘rights-based’ has become increasingly linked to the concept of a more comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive rights of women around the globe. The rights-based perspective is derived from the treaties, pacts and other international commitments that recognize and reinforce human rights, including the sexual and reproductive rights of women. We conducted an extensive review of the guidelines, frameworks, research reports and published articles that have been cited as informing the rights-based approach. The findings of the review highlights what is meant by sexual and reproductive health and rights by the stakeholders, why this matter is important, and what can be done. It demands more partnerships with human rights, women’s and other civil society organizations, increased number of successful national policies, initiatives and/or legislative changes, increased budget and other resources at national and/or local community level, mass communication and engagement of men to promote and advance women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Achievement of gender equality is very crucial, because it is a human right that advances women’s empowerment; and is interlinked with sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Contours of an Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Water in Latin America under International Law

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Parriciatu ◽  
Francesco Sindico
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Customary Laws ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

This article critically assesses the nature and the content of a possible human right to water for Indigenous People in the Latin American context. On the one hand, after introducing the deliberately unclear definition of Indigenous People, the article considers that a human right to water is embedded in Indigenous Peoples’ customary laws, which, according to legal pluralism, are to be considered as a legitimate source of law. The article then moves to the content of a possible human right to water for Indigenous People in the Latin American context. The importance of the jurisprudence of the Inter American Court of Human Rights is highlighted, and the obligation for States to consult with Indigenous People when dealing with their water resources is hailed as one of the key elements of a human right to water.

Human Rights and the Commons: Exploring Approaches to the Governance of Land and Natural Resources beyond Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. The Case of Peasants

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Stefania Errico ◽  
Priscilla Claeys
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Rural Workers ◽  
The Commons ◽  
The Right

Abstract Worldwide, 2.5 billion people today depend on lands managed through customary, community-based tenure systems. Although land and natural resources are recognised as essential elements for the realisation of many human rights, international human rights law does not recognise a human right to land, except for indigenous peoples. With the recent adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas (undrop), the right to land is now recognised for new categories of rural workers. This article explores the governance of land and natural resources beyond the case of indigenous peoples’ rights. It argues that undrop contains key and mutually reinforcing elements of the human rights and collective action approaches to the governance of land and natural resources, and therefore has the potential to ensure the social and environmental ‘viability’ of the commons.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Global Environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-113
Author(s):  
Flora Pricilla Kalalo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Healthy Life ◽  
Healthy Environment ◽  
The Right

Human rights and the environment are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. The concern of a group of people for the environment is not enough because changes in an environment have an impact not only locally, but often globally. Therefore it can be said that in countries where there are many violations of human rights, environmental damage often occurs. What happened then was that the human right to have a healthy life (the right to a healthy environment) was violated or sidelined. In addition, development that is not controlled can result in human rights being violated. Regulations regarding human rights are not entirely related to environmental protection. However, if you pay attention, there are several articles in some of these provisions that can be used as a legal basis for taking various actions aimed at protecting the environment. On the other hand, regulation of environmental protection at the same time means respect for human rights, especially with regard to issues of the right to life, health problems, disturbance of their property to respect for indigenous peoples' rights.

scholarly journals A Socially Constructed Human Right to the Self‑determination of Indigenous Peoples

2017 ◽  
pp. 105-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Gregg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Socially Constructed

I propose a human right to self‑determination for indigenous peoples as a something in each case developed by the indigenous people and valid only if embraced by that people. That is, I approach human rights as social constructs toward (1) arguing for the social construction of indigenous peoples themselves, (2) with certain limits on indigenous rights to autonomy and diversity even as they construct collective rights for themselves, (3) in this way achieving the internal self‑determination of indigenous peoples, whereby an indigenous people would design its own human right to self‑determination without thereby undermining individual rights, (4) by means of a social and political movement that I conceive as a metaphorical «human rights state.»Received: 25 July 2016Accepted: 30 November 2016Published online: 11 December 2017

Involuntary Circumcision of Males in Illegal Initiation Schools in South Africa: A Violation of African Customary Human Rights?

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Porsche Makama
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Topical Issue ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Traditional Practice

The incidence of deaths associated with the practice of forced and botched circumcisions at initiation schools has become a topical issue in South Africa. In recent times, the number of deaths and injuries among initiates has risen at an alarming rate, most of them occurring at illegal initiation schools. The continuous rise in the number of injuries among initiates at these schools has elicited mixed reactions among community members, some referring to it as genocide in the case of fatalities and calling for its abandonment, while others argue that this traditional practice should be allowed to continue. The majority of young men who go to initiation schools do not make the decision on their own, nor do they have a choice in the matter. Instead they are compelled by parents or guardians, influenced by friends, and also coerced by others in the community who insist that they have to ‘go to the mountain’, as initiation schools are generally referred to in South Africa. It has been argued by those against circumcision that this practice infringes constitutional rights and contravenes the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. There have been numerous instances where young and even mature males have been taken from the streets, or even from the comfort of their homes, and forced into circumcision camps with or without their consent. This begs the question whether the continued practice of a cultural tradition that violates the fundamental human right and freedom to choose religious and cultural beliefs is justifiable.

Housing as a Basic Human Right: A Reflection on South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mziwandile Sobantu ◽  
Nqobile Zulu ◽  
Ntandoyenkosi Maphosa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This paper reflects on human rights in the post-apartheid South Africa housing context from a social development lens. The Constitution guarantees access to adequate housing as a basic human right, a prerequisite for the optimum development of individuals, families and communities. Without the other related socio-economic rights, the provision of access to housing is limited in its service delivery. We argue that housing rights are inseparable from the broader human rights discourse and social development endeavours underway in the country. While government has made much progress through the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the reality of informal settlements and backyard shacks continues to undermine the human rights prospects of the urban poor. Forced evictions undermine some poor citizens’ human rights leading courts to play an active role in enforcing housing and human rights through establishing a jurisprudence that invariably advances a social development agenda. The authors argue that the post-1994 government needs to galvanise the citizenship of the urban poor through development-oriented housing delivery.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document