Brazilian (non) compliance with international human rights norms. The case of indigenous peoples' rights
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2014-12-19
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en
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This research, written as part of Amnesty International The Netherland’s ‘Strategic Studies Project’, is aimed at explaining why Brazil does not comply with international norms on indigenous peoples’ rights, although this it is a so-called ‘ideal case’ which depicts all the characteristics and outcomes under which the Risse, Ropp and Sikkink (2013) model expects compliance to take place. As this theoretical model, however, remains rather vague on the actual processes and mechanisms leading up to compliance, a new theoretical model is constructed based on the work of various IR scholars.
After formulating three hypotheses designed along the lines of the social mechanisms that foster compliance with international human rights norms, we start analyzing the Brazilian (non) compliance with international norms on indigenous peoples’ rights and the role of various actors in ‘pushing’ the Brazilian government from commitment to compliance with these norms, using the qualitative method of process tracing. It appeared that all three ‘mechanisms’ work. However, although they played in role in advocating for compliance, these mechanisms were not as ‘strong’ as expected on beforehand, as the various transnational actors were not able to ‘move’ the Brazilian government from commitment to compliance with international norms on indigenous peoples’ rights.
Therefore, we propose three additional scope conditions that may affect the ‘working’ of the social mechanisms. Incorporating the (perceived) salience of an issue, the relative weight of (economic) ‘gains’ and ‘losses’ and the target actor’s ‘nature’ into the Risse, Ropp and Sikkink (2013) model has not only the potential to improve this theoretical model, but also the potential to provide transnational actors (such as Amnesty International) with better insights in the processes and mechanisms that influence states’ move from commitment to compliance with international norms.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen