Deusto Journal of Human Rights

Steppingstones in larger struggles. How can we combine colliding struggles in the care crisis?

Bernadett Sebaly — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The question of whether to increase the caregiver benefit is a controversial one among policy experts and movement actors. It is criticized as counterproductive to the emancipation of disabled people and women. At the same time, it becomes the goal of organizing campaigns as it provides immediate solutions, particularly to low-income families. This spotlights two questions: 1. How can activists fight for large-scale, transformative outcomes and achieve real, tangible changes in people’s lives? 2. How can a constituency fight for its liberation without leaving other constituencies behind? Drawing on the analysis of the Hungarian caregivers’ struggle, I reveal prospects for an emancipatory resolution of these two questions. I suggest seeing the struggles of affected constituencies as different dimensions of the care crisis and propose an organizing framework that engages with the deep structural underpinnings of capitalism and takes the issues of power and control inherent in care relations seriously.

Received: 05 July 2022
Approval: 05 December 2022
Published online: Articles in Press, February 2023

The price of protest

Tanya M. Monforte — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Many liberal democracies are presently dismantling the foundations of deep democracy through the construction of a juridified security framework. The expansion of security exceptions that privilege private property interests of a small elite above the human rights that promote democratic accountability such as the freedom of assembly and the freedom of expression has accelerated this anti-democratic tilt. The legislative designation of «critical infrastructure» insulates certain sectors of the economy from protests. Security exceptions that safeguard the normal functioning of the economy effectively insulate the fossil fuel sector from democratic political pressure due to status quo dependency. Fossil fuels are targeted by protester and designated as critical infrastructure precisely because economies are dependent on them. The use of extreme fines to incapacitate disobedient citizens as risk mitigation favors the interests of property holders against the interests of groups that are overwhelmingly young and often Indigenous in North America. This paper maps out a tendency towards harsher economic penalties for protest in the U.S. and Canada and argues that the transition to extreme fines for protesters relies in part on the ramping up of the category of (the kind) of crime protest falls into which could potentially expand the number of sanctioned persons exponentially.

Received: 12 July 2022
Accepted: 17 April 2023

Violations of human rights during Franco´s dictatorship and the transition period: How far does democratic memory reach?

María del Mar Imaz Montes — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Franco’s dictatorship meant the systematic violation of Human Rights in Spain for decades. Therefore, some specialists have stated that the events which took place during this period, as well as those which occurred during the previous Civil War, constitute actions that can be catalogued as blatant violation of human rights within a context of political violence. And which would turn them into imprescriptible and not susceptible to amnesty. After describing such context as a general framework, this article seeks to analyze the repression suffered by the opposition to the regime through the lens of human rights’ violations. And it focuses on its implications for its victims during such a volatile but crucial historical juncture: the period of Political Transition. Politically motivated acts of violence were on a treadmill from the coup d’etat in 1936 until after the approval of the democratic constitution in 1978. Only by means of this approach can the real dimension of the victimization of certain groups during the political transition be fully understood.

Received: 30 June 2022
Accepted: 28 March 2023

Cuba: an awakening civil society and a regime which refuses to die

Laura Tedesco, Rut Diamint — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This article presents an analysis of the increase in acts of repression by the Cuban government targeted especially at young artists. This repression increased the number of Cuban who went into exile and of political prisoners from 2018. We associate this situation to the monsters –in the Gramscian sense of the term– that have appeared both in the opposition and within the government, suggesting that the revolution has lost cultural hegemony now in the hands of a group of young people educated in revolutionary institutions, but convinced of its failure. The «artivists» –those who, through art, exercise activism– show the emergence of an increasing number of Cubans who question a revolution that did not fulfill its promises.

Received: 30 June 2022
Accepted: 02 May 2023

Analysis of female genital mutilation from a human rights perspective. The case of Bilbao

Itxaso Elizondo-Marañón, Arantza Echaniz-Barrondo — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a deeply rooted and highly symbolic traditional practice for the communities that use it. It has been described as a form of violence against women and a violation of human rights. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, to analyse the existing normative framework on FGM, from international treaties of the United Nations to the existing regulations at local level in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, and also taking into consideration declarations, charters and protocols of special relevance. On the other hand, to study the approach to the problem of the city of Bilbao, which can be considered a good practice for the prevention of FGM.

Received: 01 March 2023
Accepted: 06 June 2023

Indigenous and tribal collective property rights

Isabel María Fernández Pérez — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 23:25:47 +0200

The article examines the collective property rights of indigenous and tribal people and how different international organisations have recognised these rights. In particular, the article attempts to summarise the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from the time property rights were first recognised, in order to define the concept of communal property, its interpretation and its requirements. Likewise, and due to their great relevance, the article addresses both prior and informed consultation, and Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights as property-related rights. Finally, the article contains a comparative analysis of property rights in Canada and United States as members of the Organization of American States.

Received: 15 March 2023
Accepted: 11 June 2023

Reguart Segarra, Núria. 2021. Los pueblos indígenas de Canadá y la defensa de sus territorios sagrados. Análisis sociológico y jurisprudencial, Cuadernos Deusto de Derechos Humanos, No. 98. Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto. 115 p.

Felipe Gómez Isa — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Against the background of the historical suffering, social and economic marginalisation, and epistemological exclusion, this publication deals with the rights of those indigenous peoples that face systematic policies of expropriation of their lands, territories and natural resources, particularly in Canada. Professor Reguart starts with the analysis of religious freedom, focusing on the special relationship that indigenous peoples have with their lands and territories. The spiritual dimension of that special relationship is the key pillar of the publication. This spiritual dimension is claimed not only by indigenous peoples themselves, but also by the progressive jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a number of emblematic cases on the rights of indigenous peoples.

Pando Ballesteros, María de la Paz y Elizabeth Manjarrés Ramos. 2023. El derecho a la paz y sus desarrollos en la historia. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch. 241 p.

Encarnación La Spina — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Peace is a keystone for achieving sustainable development and progress in our societies around the international community. The need to study and discuss on peace, in times as convulsive as nowadays, requires reviewing the historical construction and the concept note of peace, the analytical category detached from war or conflicts or its articulation as a third generation right, placing value on the actors’ view, the culture of peace and its theoretical developments in a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary sense. This is the starting point of this collective publication’s approach "The right to peace and its developments in history" carried out by the "History of Human Rights" research group of the University of Salamanca, coordinated by Professors Dr. María de la Paz Pando and Dr. Elizabeth Manjarrés Ramos.