Contemporary debates on social-environmental conflicts, extractivism and human rights in Latin America

Abstract

This opening contribution to ‘Social-Environmental Conflicts, Extractivism and Human Rights in Latin America’ analyses how human rights have emerged as a weapon in the political battleground over the environment as natural resource extraction has become an increasingly contested and politicised form of development. It examines the link between human rights abuses and extractivism, arguing that this new cycle of protests has opened up new political spaces for human rights based resistance. Furthermore, the explosion of socio-environmental conflicts that have accompanied the expansion and politicisation of natural resources has highlighted the different conceptualisations of nature, development and human rights that exist within Latin America. While new human rights perspectives are emerging in the region, mainstream human rights discourses are providing social movements and activists with the legal power to challenge extractivism and critique the current development agenda. However, while the application of human rights discourses can put pressure on governments, it has yielded limited concrete results largely because the state as a guardian of human rights remains fragile in Latin America and is willing to override their commitment to human and environmental rights in the pursuit of development. Lastly, individual contributions to the volume are introduced and future directions for research in natural resource development and human rights are suggested.

Keywords:

• extractivism
• environment
• human rights
• rights of nature
• development
• Latin America

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Malayna Raftopoulos is an assistant professor in Latin American Studies at Aalborg University. She is also an associate research fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, the Human Rights Consortium, University of London and the Centro Latino Americano de Ecología Social, Uruguay.

ORCID

Malayna Raftopoulos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5619-8496

Notes

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2. Phillipe Descola, The Ecology of Others (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2013), 81.

3. Inter-America Commission for Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendent Communities, and Natural Resources: Human Rights Protection in the Context of Extraction, Exploitation, and Development Activities (2015), http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/ExtractiveIndustries2016.pdf.

4. United Nations Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, A/HRC/29/25 (2015), 15 January 2017, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/AssemblyAssociation/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx.

5. John-Andrew McNeish, ‘More than Beads and Feathers: Resource Extractions and the Indigenous Challenge in Latin America’, in New Political Spaces in Latin American Natural Resource Governance, ed. Håvard Haarstad (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 39–60, 41.

6. Global Witness, On Dangerous Ground (June 2016), 1–27, 3, https://www.globalwitness.org/en/reports/dangerous-ground/.

7. United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution, ‘Promotion and Protection of all Human rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development’, A/HRC/31/L.7/Rev.1 (2016), http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/31/L.7/Rev.1.

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9. Ana Grear, ‘The Vulnerable Living Order: Human Rights and the Environment in a Critical and Philosophical Perspective’, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 2, no. 1 (2011): 23–44, 23.

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11. Gearty, ‘Do Human Rights Help or Hinder Environmental Protection?’, 7.

12. Håvard Haarstad, ‘Extracting Justice? Critical Themes and Challenges in Latin American Natural Resource Governance’, in New Political Spaces in Latin American Natural Resource Governance, ed. Håvard Haarstad (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 1–16, 1.

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14. Alberto Acosta, La Maldición de la Abundancia (Quito: Abya-Yala, 2009).

15. Ibid., 136.

16. Eduardo Gudynas, ‘The New Extractivism of the 21st Century: Ten Urgent Theses about Extractivism in Relation to Current South American Progressivism’, Americas Program Report (Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, 2010), 1–14.

17. Maristella Svampa, ‘Resource Extractivism and Alternatives: Latin American Perspectives on Development’, in Beyond Development: Alternatives Visions from Latin America, ed. Miriam Lang and Dunia Mokrani (Quito: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2013), 117–45.

18. Veltmeyer and Petras, ‘The New Extraction’, 21.

19. Svampa, ‘Resource Extractivism and Alternatives’, 118.

20. Barbara Hogenboom, ‘Depoliticized and Repoliticized Minerals in Latin America’, Journal of Developing Studies 28, no. 2 (2012): 133–58.

21. Alan García, El Síndrome del Perro del Hortelano (2007), http://www.justiciaviva.org.pe/userfiles/26539211-Alan-Garcia-Perez-y-el-perro-del-hortelano.pdf.

22. Svampa, ‘Resource Extractivism and Alternatives’, 122–3.

23. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ (2011),

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf.

24. Svampa, ‘Resource Extractivism and Alternatives’, 122–3.

25. Conor Gearty, ‘Do Human Rights Help or Hinder Environmental Protection?’, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 1, no. 1 (2010): 7–22, 9.

26. Gudynas, ‘The New Extractivism of the 21st Century’, 3.

27. Denise Humphreys Bebbington and Anthony Bebbington, ‘Post-What? Extractive Industries, Narratives of Development and Socio-Environmental Disputes Across the (Ostensibly Changing Andean Region)’, in New Political Spaces in Latin American Natural Resource Governance, ed. Håvard Haarstad (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 17–37, 19–20.

28. Mario Blaser, ‘Notes Towards a Political Ontology of “Environmental Conflicts”’, in Contested Ecologies: Dialogues in the South on Nature and Knowledge, ed. Lesley Green (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2013), 13–27.

29. Veltmeyer and Petras, ‘The New Extraction’, 46.

30. Michela Coletta and Malayna Raftopoulos, ‘Whose Natures? Whose Knowledges? An Introduction to Epistemic Politics and Eco-Ontologies in Latin America’, in Provincialising Nature: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Politics of the Environment in Latin America, ed. Michela Coletta and Malayna Raftopoulos (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, 2016), 1–17.

31. Svampa, ‘Resource Extractivism and Alternatives’, 119.

32. Gudynas, ‘The New Extractivism of the 21st Century’, 13.

33. Veltmeyer and Petras, ‘The New Extraction’, 28.

34. Ibid., 2.

35. Gudynas, ‘The New Extractivism of the 21st Century’.

36. Svampa, ‘Resource Extractivism and Alternatives’, 120.

37. Coletta and Raftopoulos, ‘Whose Natures? Whose Knowledges?’

38. Tara Ruttenburg, ‘Wellbeing Economics and Buen Vivir: Development Alternatives for Inclusive Human Security’, Wellbeing Economics and Buen Vivir 18 (2013): 68−93.

39. Thomas Fatheuer, Buen Vivir: A Brief Introduction to Latin America’s New Concepts for the Good Life and the Rights of Nature (Berlin: Heinrich Boll Stiftung Publication Series on Ecology, 2011), 17.

40. Eduardo Gudynas, ‘Buen Vivir: Today’s Tomorrow’, Development 54, no. 4 (2011): 441−7, 443.

41. Roger Burbach, Michael Fox, and Federico Fuentes, Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Socialism (London: Zed Books, 2013).

42. Arturo Escobar, ‘Latin America at a Crossroads’, Cultural Studies 24, no. 1 (2010): 1−65.

43. Eduardo Gudynas, ‘Transitions to Post-Extractivism: Directions, Options, Areas of Action’, in Beyond Development Alternative Visions in Latin America, ed. Miriam Lang and Dunia Mokrani (Quito, Ecuador: Rosa Luxemburg, 2013), 165–88.

44. Gudynas, ‘The New Extractivism of the 21st Century’.

45. Gudynas, ‘Transitions to Post-Extractivism’, 168.

46. Ibid., 165.

47. Ibid., 175.

48. Ibid., 169.

49. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.

50. Arturo Escobar, ‘Whose Knowledge, Whose Nature? Biodiversity, Conservation, and the Political Ecology of Social Movements’, Journal of Political Economy 5 (1998): 53−82.

51. Radcliffe et al., ‘Development and Culture’; Gudynas, ‘Buen Vivir: Today’s Tomorrow’.

52. Christiano Gianolla, ‘Human Rights and Nature: Intercultural Perspectives and International Aspirations’, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 4, no. 1 (2013): 48–78.

53. Alan Boyle, ‘Human Rights and the Environment: Where Next?’, The European Journal of International Law 23, no. 3 (2012): 613–42.

54. Klaus Bosselmann, ‘Environmental and Human Rights in Ethical Context’, in Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment, ed. Ana Grear and Louis J. Kotzé (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2015), 531–50, 531.

55. Lynda Collins, ‘The United Nations, Human Rights and the Environment’, in Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment, ed. Grear and Kotzé, 219–44, 241.

56. Boyle, ‘Human Rights and the Environment’, 617.

57. Gearty, ‘Do Human Rights Help or Hinder Environmental Protection?’, 13.

58. Boyle, ‘Human Rights and the Environment’, 617.

59. Gearty, ‘Do Human Rights Help or Hinder Environmental Protection?’, 17.

60. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, COP21: States’ Human Rights Obligations Encompass Climate Change – UN Expert, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16836&LangID=E#sthash.HnlZV.

61. Polly Higgins, Damien Short, and Nigel South, ‘Protecting the Planet: A Proposal for a Law of Ecocide’, Crime Law Social Change 59 (2013): 251–66, 251.

62. Ibid., 252.

63. Gary Potter, ‘What is Green Criminology?’ Sociology Review (2010): 8–12; Malayna Raftopoulos and Damien Short, ‘A New Benchmark for Green Criminology: The Case for Community-Based Human Rights Impact Assessment of REDD+’, in Greening Criminology in the 21st Century: Contemporary Debates and Future Directions in the Study of Environmental Harm, ed. Matthew Hall, Tanya Wyatt, Nigel South, Angus Nurse, Gary Potter, and Jennifer Maher (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 165–82.

64. Cormac Cullinan, ‘Earth’s Jurisprudence: From Colonization to Participation’, in State of the World, ed. Worldwatch Institute (2010), 142–8, http://blogs.worldwatch.org/transformingcultures/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Earth-Jurisprudence-From-Colonization-to-Participation-Cullinan.pdf.

65. Ibid., 143.

66. Ibid., 144.

67. Ibid., 145.

68. Higgins et al., ‘Protecting the Planet’.

69. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, ‘If God Were a Human Rights Activist: Human Rights and the Challenge of Political Theologies: Is Humanity Enough? The Secular Theology of Human Rights’, Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal 1 (2009): 1–42, 1.

70. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2014).

71. Ibid., 4.

72. Ibid.

73. Cristiano Gionolla, ‘Human Rights and Nature: Intercultural Perspectives and International Aspirations’, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 4, no. 1 (2013): 58–78, 62.

74. Inter-America Commission for Human Rights, ‘Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendent Communities’.

75. Veltmeyer and Petras, ‘The New Extraction’, 248–9.

76. ARTICLE 19, CIEL, and Vermont Law School, ‘A Deadly Shade of Green’ (2016), 1–72, http://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Deadly_shade_of_green_English_Aug2016.pdf.

77. Ibid.

78. Gearty, ‘Do Human Rights Help or Hinder Environmental Protection?’, 7.

79. Forest Peoples Programme, ‘Groundbreaking Win for Indigenous People in Colombia’, 9 February 2017, http://www.forestpeoples.org/topics/mining/news/2017/02/groundbreaking-win-indigenous-people-colombia.

80. Anthony Bebbington, ‘Political Ecologies of Research Extraction: Agendas Pensientes’, European Review of Latin America and Caribbean Studies, 100 (50th Anniversary Special Issue) (2015): 85–98, 86.