Rua Marqus de So Vicente, 225,
Edifcio da Amizade - Ala Frings, 6 andar
Gvea - Rio de Janeiro, RJ
CEP 22451-900

Tel (Law Dep.): +55 21 3114  1647/1649/1650

Managing Committee: 

Joo Ricardo Dornelles, Carolina Campos Mello,

Mrcia Nina Benardes, Florian Fabian Hoffmann

 
Zone de texte:

 

 

 

 

 


Research Dynamic on Law, Governance and Sustainable Development

 

Universit de Montral

Facults Universitaires Saint Louis (Bruxelles)

Ncleo de Direitos Humanos do Departamento de Direito da PUC-Rio

Laboratoire dAnthropologie Juridique de Paris, Universit Paris 1 Panthon / Sorbonne

 

General Coordinators: Christoph Eberhard & Franois Ost

 

 

Project Coordenators Ncleo de Direitos Humanos (NDH):

Marcia Nina Bernardes, Liszt Vieira, Florian Hoffmann

 

 

 

Introduction to the NDH

 

 

The NDH was launched by the Law Department of the PUC-Rio in August 2002 as part of an effort to focus and accentuate its manifold work in human rights. The NDH is to function as an umbrella for all human rights related activities in the Department, bringing together the various lines of research by faculty members, and structure the teaching of human rights so as to render law students more sensible to the distinct topic of human rights, and encourage both theoretical reflection, as well as practical engagement. The objective is to form a center point for academic research and an interface with human rights advocacy and activism in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, and, thus, contribute to the mainstreaming of a human rights perspective into the wider academy and beyond.

 

The NDH currently incorporates six thematic Working Groups, notably on Womens Rights, Social Rights (in the domestic context), Access to Justice, HR Mooting (with special emphasis on the Inter-American System), Public Security, and Development and Human Rights - the Research Dynamic is embedded within this last Working Group (see below). Each WG is coordinated by one or more professors, and consists of either up to twenty undergraduate students, or up to five specially selected stagiaires. Activities range from reading, discussion, to the organization of workshops, and joint projects with human rights NGOs.

 

Last year, the NDH has, inter alia, played a key  role, jointly with several local NGOs, in drafting a civil society   report  on extrajudicial killings, as well as in planning and conducting the Rio de Janeiro leg of the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Asma  Jahangir's official mission to Brazil. It has also hosted two parallel workshops on human rights defenders and public security on the occasion of the Rio visit of an Amnesty International delegation headed by its Secretary-General, Ms. Irene Khan; it also organized one of the few conferences held on Vienna+10, commemorating and reflecting on the state of human rights ten years on from the Declaration of Vienna. Other distinguished recent visitors have included Prof. Nicholas Bamforth of the University of Oxford (on human rights and sexual orientation), and Grard Fellous, Secretary-General of the French governments Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de LHomme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The NDHs Working Group on Development and Human Rights (WGDH)

 

The WGDH was created in the context of the UN CHR Independent Expert on the Right to Development Arjun Senguptas mission to Brazil in July of 2003; on that occasion, the NDH, jointly with the Brazil-wide ESC-rights NGO FASE, organised and moderated a civil society meeting with the Independent Expert. We have since been in the process of elaborating a long-term research project on

 

Trade and Development, Human Rights, and Global Governance: the Brazilian context, Southern perspectives, and new international articulations,

 

within which we are pursuing the present Research Dynamic. In its still preliminary current version, it is to consist of three distinct thematic Issue Areas within the general heading, notably Trade, International Cooperation, and Public Policies, preceded by an introductory reflection on the core concepts of the project, human rights, (sustainable) development, and (global) governance. The first of the Issue Areas will deal with the nexus of the international trade regime and specifically the WTO scheme- with development and human rights, a theme of particular concern here at the moment. In this context, both the Dispute Settlement Panels jurisprudence with Brazil being a prolific user thereof-, and the political logic of the various rounds (including Doha) will be examined from a human rights and development perspective. The second Issue Area will look at the UN's development agenda -ranging from the idea of a Development Compact, and up to the current deliberations within the Millennium Project-, as well as at the different Southern articulations with the international development debate, be is through ad-hoc G++ alliances, the IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) coalition, or new proactive engagement in existing multilateral mechanisms. Finally, the third Issue Area will study the rights based approach to development and its implementation (or not) in some of the Brazilian governments public policies - most notably the notorious FomeZero project, which has been treated as a potential international model.

 

The project will be coordinated by three professors of the Department, Mrcia Nina Bernardes, who is currently completing her JSD at New York University, Dr. Liszt Vieira, who is, among others, a former Environmental Secretary of the State of Rio de Janeiro, and the current director of Rios Botanical Gardens, and Dr. Florian F. Hoffmann, who has recently completed his PhD in Law at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy). They will be assisted by up to five undergraduate stagiairs, who will be an integral part of weekly preparatory seminars during which different aspects within each Issue Area will be discussed on the basis of the state-of-the-art literature. The objective of these is to prepare and organize a Workshop on each Issue Area, with the one Trade ideally taking place during the second semester of 2004. Both the Workshops as well as the preparatory sessions will be interdisciplinary, and include specialists from other areas, most notably sociology, political science, and international relations. Finally, the Project is also to be part of the virtual network of institutions part of this Research Dynamic, proactively exchanging information on methods and substantive issues, and making the other components virtual partners in the Project. In this context, each preparatory session, as well as the Workshop and other collateral work might be consolidated into Compte Rendus which could be posted on the Dynamics website.

 

At this stage, we have set out the general lines of the Project, and have elaborated an introductory note on the nexus between trade, development, and human rights, which is also posted. We would, in any case, be most grateful for any feedback from the Dynamics collaborators.