scholarly journals The "Super-Network": Fostering Interaction Between Human Rights and Climate Change Institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Andrea Schapper
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Institutional Interaction ◽  
Youth Groups ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Paris Climate Agreement

This article contributes to understanding unique forms of actor constellations and their tactics in fostering institutional interaction. It explores interaction processes between the human rights and the climate regime, and more specifically, the incorporation of human rights in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. During the Paris negotiations, an inter-constituency alliance comprised of environmental movements, human rights organizations, gender activists, indigenous peoples’ representatives, trade unions, youth groups and faith-based organizations successfully lobbied for the incorporation of rights principles into the new climate instrument. I argue that this alliance can be grasped as a "super-network", a network above several individual transnational advocacy networks (TANs), that works across policy fields and uses information, symbols and stories, as well as accountability and leverage politics to foster interaction between a source institution (human rights regime) and a target institution (climate regime). By employing a package approach, which reiterates a core message of common principles individual networks have agreed on, the "super-network" changed the practices of governments in international negotiations and fostered inter-institutional interaction. Empirically, my research is mainly based on expert interviews and participatory observations at the strategic meetings of TANs at three different climate negotiations in Warsaw (2013), Paris (2015) and Bonn (2017), including follow-up skype interviews with key experts between 2013 and 2020.

Transnational Human Rights Networks: Significance and Challenges

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Peter Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Networks ◽  
Amnesty International ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
New Type ◽  
Global Affairs

Transnational human rights networks refer to a form of cross-border collective action that seeks to promote compliance with universally accepted norms. Principled transnational activism began to draw sustained scholarly attention after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the creation of a new type of information-driven and impartial transnational activism, embodied in organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Scholarship on transnational human rights networks emerged during the 1990s within the subfield of International Relations and as a challenge to the state-centric and materialist bias of the field. In their 1998 book Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink describe the key role that transnational human rights groups play in global affairs. Focusing on rights-based activism, Keck and Sikkink show how transnational advocacy networks (TANs) can influence domestic politics. The concept of TANs is dominated by the purposeful activism of nongovernmental organizations and driven by shared principles, not professional standards. A number of studies have challenged the core assumptions about the effectiveness of principled human rights activism, arguing that international support plays no significant role compared to the autonomous efforts of domestic activists. One way to overcome these challenges and criticisms is for the transnational activist sector, as well as other types of non-state actors, to move beyond the principles/interests dichotomy and take a closer look at the internal dynamics of participant NGOs.

Human Rights and Transnational Advocacy Networks

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Murdie ◽  
Marc Polizzi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Network Characteristics ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Advocacy Network ◽  
Political Networks ◽  
Human Rights Advocacy ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Future Work

Human rights advocates have been argued to be working as part of a larger “network” of actors supporting the respect and security of individuals. However, until recently, much scholarship in this area has used “network” as a synonym for “connected actors” instead of examining the network characteristics of advocacy actors and the ways in which the nature of the advocacy network could influence human rights outcomes. This chapter examines the growing literature that focuses on human rights advocacy using network theory and methodologies. It outlines both global and local data collection efforts and the state of the literature and addresses how this literature has drawn on the larger political networks literature. It concludes with a call for future work on how the network characteristics of advocacy actors influences both which human rights issues receive international attention and whether this attention translates into improvements in human rights practices on the ground.

scholarly journals Climate justice and human rights

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Schapper
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms

Climate change as well as climate policies can have adverse effects on the human rights of certain population groups – and can exacerbate situations of injustice. As it stands today, the human rights regime is not set to sufficiently address these situations of climate injustice. In this article, I suggest a systematization of the normative climate justice literature that can be used as an analytical framework to evaluate current developments in human rights law and policy, and their potential to diminish inter-national, intra-societal and inter-generational climate injustice. I argue that further advancing procedural and substantive human rights obligations and corresponding enforcement mechanisms constitute one important way of establishing climate justice practices. Moreover, I suggest that the normative climate justice literature can be fruitfully used in International Relations to evaluate policy developments at the intersection between climate change and other policy fields.

12. Social Movement, Trade Unions, and Advocacy Networks

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico M. Rossi ◽  
Donatella della Porta
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Networks ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between social movements, trade unions, and transnational advocacy networks of resistance to non-democratic regimes in the global wave of democratization. It considers views from social movement studies within the democratization literature as well as views of democratization within the social movement literature. It also examines the diverse roles played by movements, depending on the type of democratization process and the stage in which mobilizations emerge (resistance, liberalization, transition to procedural democracy, consolidation, expansion). The chapter identifies a host of factors that produce the most favourable setting for democratization, including a non-syndical strike wave and/or a pro-democracy cycle of protest; increased political organization in urban areas, and a relatively dense resistance network; and the existence of pro-democratic elites able to integrate the demands for democracy coming from below (at least until transition is well initiated).

Concealed Repressions: Labor Organizing Campaigns and Antiunion Practices in the Apparel Industry of Guatemala*

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin Delpech
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Apparel Industry ◽  
Global South ◽  
Preventive Strategies ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
Advocacy Networks ◽  
Labor Organizing ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Labor Control ◽  
Labor Conflicts

Research on antisweatshop mobilizations and labor-organizing campaigns in the countries of the global South has shown that under the pressure of transnational advocacy networks, notably NGOs and trade unions, US brands and retailers intervene in labor conflicts in their outsourced factories, in order to escape shaming campaigns. However, little attention has been paid to the responses of local employers to the emergence of labor organizations in their factories, partly as a result of these campaigns. This article, based on a two-year fieldwork project in the Guatemalan apparel sector, shows how the local managers of this industry manage to reconcile the demands of brands with the continuation of repressive labor control in the workplace by means of “concealed repression”; namely, preventive strategies, subtle antiunion discrimination, “opportune inaction,” and deliberate illicit transactions involving state officials.

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