Clashing frames: human rights and foreign policy in the Brazilian re-democratization process (original) (raw)
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.
Constitutions, Democracy and Human Rights Discourse in Portugal and Brazil
WCES2019_Abstracts Book
Considering the year of 1933 as the beginning of the Portuguese Salazar regimen, the repressive and oppressive “Estado Novo” (New State) by the Portuguese Republic Constitution, there is a main research element: the fundamental rights recognized (art. 8º). This paper aims to study and debate the Salazar Rights Discourse, that in a first stage had been supported by the Catholic Church that in a funambulism strategy, changed fascist political, economic and social discourse to a speech adjusted to the scope of the state and governance aims. In a comparative context, it´s our objective study the Brazilian Constitution from 1934 that instituted the Getúlio Vargas Dictatorship. It´s curious, or simply a strategic coincidence, the fascist dictatorship, institutionalized as “Estado Novo” (New State), as it was in Portugal. In 1974 with the “Carnation” Revolution and the political regimen change to a Democracy, legally started with the Portuguese Republic Constitution in 1976, recognizing the Human Rights (Universal Declaration from 1948) and the Fundamental ones, but the political and social Discourse of Human Rights was object of intervention, but it was need several years to the effective recognizing of the Fundamental and Human Rights to the Portuguese citizens. Although the Portugal entrance to Economic European Community (today European Union), it´s important to study the historical “line”, and the actuality of the Discourses and Human Rights by the violations and the need of intervention, as well as the education for the promotion of a juridical and judicial system able to protect the victims of all violations, and to prevent the abuses. Concerning the Brazil context, with the popular movements, the “Diretas Já” (Direct now), the power was given to the military and civil, during the Second Re-democratization. It was only with the Constitution of 1988 was guaranteed and increased the social rights, the delimited indigenous land was guaranteed, the unique system of health as the oldest and rural reforms, as it was the end of the censorship to the art and the public information. Globally, this article aims to study the main points of the approaches and the distances of these states that are identified as “brothers”.
Latin American Human Rights Studies, 2021
Authoritarianism is a pathology of Brazilian democracy. Brazilians opposed to Bolsonarist authoritarianism could deploy human rights as mundane achievements of political action by ordinary people. They could oppose authoritarian democracy in Brazil by promoting liberal democratic constitutionalism committed to human rights, particularly by encouraging education toward rendering citizens better informed and more analytic, sensitive to the power of old identities and the power of new social media; by rendering human rights internal to a community's selfunderstanding as a means to challenge authoritarian democracy; and by championing individual agency and rejecting centralized authority wherever it tramples individual rights. These various methods share a core feature: human rights thinking as a "cognitive style." This feature can be pursued in the context of civic education that encourages citizen participation. Three models deploy this approach in different settings: one for professional activists, one for non-professional community activists, and one for educational use. Português: Como se Opor à Democracia Autoritária no Brasil Sumário: Os brasileiros que se opõem ao autoritarismo bolonarista poderiam implantar os direitos humanos como conquistas mundanas de ação política por pessoas comuns. Eu desenvolvo essa perspectiva prática para a agência política de cidadãos interessados em três etapas. (1) Eu reviso a eleição democrática de Jair Bolsonaro para argumentar que o autoritarismo é uma patologia da democracia brasileira. (2) Os cidadãos poderiam se opor à democracia autoritária no Brasil, promovendo (a) constitucionalismo democrático liberal comprometido com os direitos humanos, (b) particularmente encorajando a educação para tornar os cidadãos mais informados e mais analíticos, (c) sensíveis ao poder de velhas identidades e o poder das novas mídias sociais, (d) tornando os direitos humanos internos para a autocompreensão da comunidade como um meio de desafiar a democracia autoritária, e (e) defendendo a agência individual e rejeitando a autoridade centralizada onde quer que ela atropele os direitos individuais. (3) Todos esses métodos compartilham uma característica central: (a) pensamento de direitos humanos como um "estilo cognitivo", (b) uma abordagem que pode ser perseguida no contexto de um tipo de educação cívica que (c) incentiva a participação do cidadão. (d) Eu ofereço três modelos que implantam essa abordagem em diferentes ambientes: um modelo para ativistas profissionais, um para ativistas comunitários não profissionais e um para implantação educacional. Palavras-chave: democracia autoritária, direitos humanos, cidadāos, Brasil
The article provides a brief background to the Inter-American system of human rights and its monitoring organs, the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It then focuses on the relationship between the two institutions, looking in particular at how cases are instituted before the Court. Against this background, the process of ensuring effective domestic enforcement of the Court’s judgments in Brazil is investigated with reference to two decided cases and a draft Bill pending before Congress.
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 aims to discuss the possibility of constitutional changes coming from the International Human Rights Law, both by virtue of decisions issued in the International Courts when the State has expressed adhesion, as by the international norms freely covenanted in the scenario of the international society, ratifying and internalizing them. There is a legal duty to conform internal norms to international standards for the protection of human rights, and such a duty can be carried out through constitutional change or through direct amendment of legal texts, including the constitutional text. For this purpose, what is proposed here is the adoption of a universalist and supranormative vision of human rights, aided by the control of conventionality of norms and by the abandonment of the classical view of sovereignty.
Once Upon a Time, a Human Rights Ally: The State and its Bureaucracy in Right-Wing Populist Brazil
Human Rights Quarterly, 2020
Based on the case of Brazil, this article looks deep into the state apparatus and analyzes the organic relationship between state commitments to human rights and the work of bureaucrats who are motivated by human rights values and ideas. Brazil had a consolidated history of engagement with the international human rights regime until Jair Bolsonaro was elected President. That history was marked by a foreign policy that was active in international human rights norm-making, as well as by domestic institutions and policies that sought to promote rights at home. An engaged state made room for the work of human rights bureaucrats in the federal government, including diplomats, officials at the Ministry of Human Rights, and beyond. Since the election of Bolsonaro, however, the Brazilian state has reversed and revised its foreign and domestic policies. As a result, bureaucrats who were dedicated to human rights work are now faced with persecution, having to oblige to the new foreign policy in the case of diplomats, or having to find somewhere else to work or something else to do, in the case of non-diplomats.
This article aims to analyse the conventionality control as a mechanism to deal with the encounter between international and local interpretations of human rights. To avoid a judicial war between Constitutional Courts and International Human Rights bodies regarding the interpretation of rights, a dialogue of courts is essential. Moreover, in the common situation of the absence of dialogue between national and international courts, the theory of the dual control can be viewed as the way of overcoming the antagonism between domestic Courts and international bodies in the interpretation of human rights.
Brazil, (Post-)Transitional Justice, and the Inter-American Human Rights System
This paper examines the Inter-American Human Rights System and its relevance for human rights protection in Brazil. The focus of the paper is not primarily legal or jurisprudential. Rather it locates the Inter-American System in its relevant political context to try to understand the various ways in which the System matters. The paper is particularly concerned with current processes of post-transitional justice in Brazil. By this I mean the “prospects for the revision of [the] transition-era human rights settlement” in Brazil. More specifically, the paper emphasises what types of transitional justice policies may be required from Brazil in light of the Gomes Lund ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from November 2010. It also draws out some key implications of what the ruling, and the Brazilian government’s response to it, tell us about the prospects for and limitations on Brazilian post-transitional justice, and arguably, Brazilian democracy more broadly.