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Abstract
Emerging data reveals the COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate impact on historically marginalized communities. Drawing on in-depth interviews with legal empowerment practitioners, this article explores case studies of three communities (in Argentina, India, and the United States) that highlight a grassroots approach to tackling injustice during COVID-19. The article finds lasting insights for human rights practitioners and scholars, with the concepts of translation, trust, and transformation integral to disrupting power structures and creating pathways for communities to become the authors of their own justice and liberation.
Notes
1 The right to access justice is essential to the protection of many human rights and is also a human right itself. Access to justice is protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR; UN General Assembly Citation1966: Article 14) as clarified by General Comment No. 32 to the ICCPR (Human Rights Committee Citation2007).
2 We conducted in-depth interviews with Felipe Mesel of ACIJ (Mesel Citation2020); Tripti Poddar, Jayshree Satpute, and Shreya Sen of Nazdeek (Poddar, Satpute, and Sen Citation2020); and Antonio Gutierrez of OCAD (Gutierrez Citation2020). These interviews occurred via phone and video-conferencing, with additional correspondence via email, from July 6, 2020, to August 6, 2020. All quotes attributed to Mesel, Poddar, Satpute, Sen, and Gutierrez were provided by and verified by the person to which they are attributed. Pseudonyms were used when referencing community members to protect their identities and security. We are deeply indebted to the organizations whose work is highlighted.
3 Experts play an important role in the development of policy responses to COVID-19, and problems arise when governments contradict public health experts, but even when governments listen to experts, “questions remain about how to mitigate … inequalities to support the world’s most vulnerable” (Weible, Nohrstedt, Cairney, Carter, Crow, Durnová, Heikkila, Ingold, McConnell, and Stone Citation2020). This article focuses on that question.
4 The International Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) was hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2005; it was formed to focus on the link between exclusion, poverty, and the law. CLEP’s final report, Making the Law Work for Everyone (2008), was adopted by the UN General Assembly (Citation2008) and was followed up with a report by the UN Secretary-General on “legal empowerment of the poor and eradication of poverty” (Citation2009).
5 Images collected by the community can be viewed on the Google Maps Street View website. For an example of an image taken in Villa 31 in November 2016, see https://www.google.com/maps/@-34.585301,-58.3776946,2a,75y,100.37h,102t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgvEz-qtevT7sftAbRrVqZg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 [18 August 2020].
6 FOIA requests were made to the Chicago Police Department (Non-Commercial Police FOIA Request: P585877-061420), Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and the Chicago Department of Public Health via email on 11 June 2020.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sukti Dhital
Sukti Dhital is executive director of the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, New York University School of Law, and the cofounder of Nazdeek.
Tyler Walton
Tyler Walton is the Tuttleman Legal Empowerment Fellow at the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, New York University School of Law.