Shifting Power and Human Rights Diplomacy: Brazil (original) (raw)
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Brazil is important for the present and future development of international human rights. Yet, any immediate expectations that the country will emerge as an active promoter of human rights internationally are likely to remain unfulfilled. Indeed, Brazil’s distinctiveness, both in terms of its domestic human rights record, and in terms of its historical relationship with the international human rights regime, means that the country is likely to impact on debates on the meaning and nature of human rights in the decades to come. From its membership in the so-called BRICS to its leadership role in the exclusive club of G20 countries, Brazil has indeed emerged as a pivotal player in global governance. There are also a host of domestic processes of change that have projected Brazil abroad. From Brazilian companies with mining interests in Africa, increased diplomatic activities and collaborations through various country constellations (IBSA, BRICS), through to its significant soft power projection, Brazil’s international profile is more varied and extensive than ever before. Much of the international interest in Brazil in recent years reflects a widespread view that the country matters for the outside world. The very active foreign policy agenda pursued by former president Lula da Silva raised Brazil’s international profile. And, although current president Dilma Rousseff has increasingly turned inward over the course of her administration the image of a ‘rising’ Brazil remains prevalent. It is of course not the first time that outside observers have had high expectations on Brazil. But what may be most striking in the current conjuncture is that these are increasingly matched by domestic expectations in Brazil that the country should take its rightful place in elite international fora. Whether these expectations are likely to be fulfilled is a matter of dispute. For many international observers, particularly in the financial press, the recent sluggish performance of the Brazilian economy raises significant doubts. For other even more hardnosed observers, Brazil’s limited military might, its hard power, seriously questions the capacity of Brazil to play any influential role on the global scene. Brazil remains a moderate military power, and will do so for the foreseeable future. Still, whether Brazil is actually rising – however one may measure it – is at least partly distinct from the international perceptions of and expectations on the country’s rise. It may not be quite as simple as this, but as long as these perceptions and expectations persist, Brazil will continue its ascent. Important questions remain unanswered however, regarding Brazil, the character, meaning and direction of its rise. In this short article the aim is to assess, on the one hand, the considerable hopes that many have invested in Brazil, but also, on the other hand, to illustrate the many uncertainties that accompany Brazil’s foreign policy in general and with regards to the promotion of human rights abroad in particular.
The Return of Brazil to the International Arena of Human Rights
Estefânia Maria de Queiroz Barboza & Melina Girardi Fachin, The Return of Brazil to the International Arena of Human Rights, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Feb. 12, 2023, at: http://www.iconnectblog.com/2023/02/the-return-of-brazil-to-the- international-arena-of-human-rights/, 2023
Talking about Brazil’s return to the international human rights arena has a logical antecedent assumption that presupposes its withdrawal from this stage. The Brazilian authoritarian escalation, which culminated with the election of Jair Bolsonaro, marks the Brazilian isolation in international protection forums. Brazil shifted from protagonist to peer in these matters. During the last four years, corresponding to the Bolsonaro administration, Brazil has also experienced its decline from a human rights perspective. This is not by chance because there is a common anti-human rights agenda within this populist and authoritarian wave with which Bolsonaro aligns himself. Bolsonaro’s authoritarian populism and his rise are linked to factors common to his administration. Like other populist leaders, Bolsonaro portrayed himself as a political outsider and secured his election through an anti-pluralist discourse that exploited Brazil’s economic crisis and political polarization.
Human Rights Diplomacy: Case Study of Brazil
Human rights diplomacy is considered as a consequence of globalization. While many norms and issues are extensively globalized, nonetheless they can be implemented based on cost and benefit analysis (i.e. maximization of benefits and minimization of costs). States have to take their responsibility of human rights by demonstrating their responsiveness towards their people, international organizations, human rights entities, civil societies and NGOs. This accountability would improve their position in international public opinion and would prove their legitimacy in the globalized world. Human rights diplomacy could be defined at strategic and tactical levels. The main question treated in this article is how Brazil has planned its strategies and tactics on human rights diplomacy? The importance of scrutinizing on Brazilian human rights diplomacy is that Brazil, as an emerging power, has been playing an effective role in the transitional international system. In fact, Brazil, as a first step, has defined its proper and suitable strategies and tactics, and as a second step, it has been highlighting its role in international organizations inter allia the United Nations, and finally it has increased its credit and prestige among south counties in the framework of BRICS and south-south dialogue. Analysis of Brazilian human rights strategy indicates that this country tries to stratify its human rights diplomacy firstly at regional level and secondly at international level; to implement this multilayered diplomacy, it seeks to involve interested stakeholders including NGO's and civil society actors.
'The Impact of Domestic Politics on Brazil’s Foreign Policy on Human Rights'
Shifting Power and Human Rights Diplomacy: Brazil, eds Thijs Van Lindert and Lars Van Troost, Amnesty International, Amsterdam , 2014
Domestic politics in Brazil is still very disconnected from the country’s foreign policy and international stance on human rights issues. That indifference creates a twofold problem, both for Brazil’s ambition to be a major world power, and for a world that needs a country with Brazil’s heft and legitimacy with the nations and institutions of both the Global North and South
The Quest for Status: Brazil’s Activism in the UN Human Rights Council 2006–2020
Anuario Latinoamericano – Ciencias Políticas y Relaciones Internacionales, 2021
The paper seeks to investigate changes in Brazil's activism within the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) between 2006 and 2020 and addresses the modifications of status-seeking strategies (of social mobility, creativity, and competition) applied by the state within this international body. My claim is that Brazil under the Bolsonaro administration chose the role of the defender of the faith advocating for a recreation of the global human rights protection system over being a good international citizen committed to the maintenance and development of this system. This role was selected in conformity with a populist political agenda based on a conservative set of values that the state's diplomacy had to promote. The changes, exemplified by Brazil's conduct within the HRC since 2019, undermined the state's prestige and moral authority that led to status losses.
Brazilian Foreign Policy and Human Rights: Change and Continuity under Dilma
This article evaluates the degree of policy change and continuity at the intersection of human rights and foreign policy in the early period of the Dilma Rousseff administration in Brazil. The smooth character of succession of power in Brazil that Dilma’s election represented suggests significant policy continuity with her immediate predecessor Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. In the area of human rights, however, there have been some early indications of policy shifts. Four particularly salient dimensions of both change and continuity in the areas of human rights and foreign policy are examined: (i) Brazil’s role as an advocate for global governance reforms; (ii) its efforts to foster South-South relations; (iii) the character of Brazil’s power projection; and (iv) its regional leadership role. The article also evaluates the emergence of Brazil as a pivotal player in global governance and assesses the implications for the engagement with international human rights by Brazilian foreign policy. Brazil will have to manage increasing expectations that the country should play a more active and forceful role in shaping the development of the international human rights regime.
This paper considers the interplay of international law, politics and national law in the politics of human rights in Brazil through post-1985 Brazilian democratic governments with reference to the foundation of a governmental culture of human rights as well as the institutionalization from 1964 to 2010 of international human rights law into the country's legal system. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), it compares, on the one hand, international human rights instruments ratified by Brazil and, on the other hand, significant samples of human rights documents related to the Brazilian transition to democracy. By unveiling influences of the political, economic, social and cultural shifts (developments) towards the creation of the unprecedented Brazilian Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (PPDDH), it finally engages with the questions of whether the Brazilian State's practices follow its human rights rhetoric as well as whether the Brazilian State's practices are really following its human rights rhetoric towards the protection of human rights defenders in the country.
This article discusses one of the main controversies in Brazilian society at this moment: the development of a national policy of human rights and the return of the debate on political crimes committed under the military dictatorship from 1964 onwards. The main hypothesis associates the barriers imposed on that human rights policy to the way in which democracy was retaken in the country and the model on which important segments related to the authoritarian government occupied strategic roles. Even today, this presents a real difficulty in terms of recovery and, if necessary, punishment for the crimes committed by the government during the dictatorship, which in turn makes the development of human rights policies more complicated.