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• W2087822892 abstract "Edward Cleary begins with the assertion that there is a distinctive human rights tradition in Latin America, dating from Bartolomé de Las Casas’s defense of the Indians after Spanish conquest. Jumping forward, Cleary then notes the role of Chilean Hernán Santa Cruz in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after World War II. Perhaps without Latin American insistence and participation, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would not have emerged from the initial actions of the United Nations. Pushing this idea even further, he asks, “Why is it that every country that suffered state repression in Latin America has done something about its past, while no other region has done so?” (p. 2).Cleary’s celebration of Latin America’s distinctive human rights tradition and its recent progress in furthering human rights, and his contention that other regions have done little or nothing in this regard, is somewhat misleading. For most of Latin America’s history, human rights for the poor and racially and ethnically subordinated have been an illusion. The same has been true for opponents of incumbent political regimes, whether personalist dictatorships, military regimes, or many elected civilian governments. Furthermore, jumping forward, as does Cleary, in the last two decades African and Asian nations (Chad, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, East Timor, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, among others) have created truth commissions and attempted to deal with legacies of massive human rights violations and to make reparations to some of the victims.Rather than stick with the past, however, Cleary wishes to examine present-day “mobilization for human rights” in Latin America. With a very broad brush he outlines chapters on women, street children (mostly in Brazil), indigenous rights, and rights of the landless peasants (mostly the story of the Brazilian MST, Movimento dos Trabalhadores sem Terra), then on policing, torture, and corruption. On these topics the book offers a provocative shotgun inventory of the activities of nongovernmental and transnational human rights organizations. However, other than the claim that Latin Americans themselves have chosen these “targets” (the chapter topics) for human rights mobilization by their activism (p. xiii), there is no analytical frame or concluding chapter that ties these topics together for students or readers uninitiated in the vast literature on international and regional human rights movements.Human rights mobilization in all the areas Cleary addresses is of great ethical, legal, and political significance in Latin America. Post-dictatorship human rights mobilization is a topic that deserves increased attention. Unfortunately, Cleary is not always careful with facts on individual cases. For this reason, I would hesitate to use the book as an introductory text for undergraduate students, and it is not suited to those acquainted with the literature on human rights movements in Latin America and globalization of human rights regimes (for example, Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, by Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, 1998; NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance, edited by Claude E. Welch Jr., 2001; Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Rights, by Aryeh Neier, 2003; State Terrorism in Latin America: Chile, Argentina and International Human Rights, by Thomas C. Wright, 2007).There is no use detailing the many small errors throughout the book. To illustrate quickly, jumping from colonial Peru to Chile in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Charles V’s New Laws (1542) did not “do away with aspects of the latifundium” (p. 5) but sought to outlaw further enslavement of Indians and to abolish the encomienda; the meetings of the agrupación de familiares de detenidos-desaparecidos in Chile were not typically “guided by therapists” (p. 17); the Chilean Mesa de Diálogo (1999 – 2000) was not sponsored by, nor a creation of, the Catholic Church (p. 18); and the Valech Commission on Torture (2003 – 4) was not created by a Christian Democratic government (p. 19).Throughout the book the role of religion and missionaries in defending human rights is emphasized. Cleary claims that the “chief institutions” (along with anthropologists) fostering the resurgence of indigenous social and political movements in Latin America were Catholic and Protestant missionaries (p. 55). Despite the admittedly important role of religious institutions within the human rights movements, I find these claims somewhat overdone. Indigenismo as a motif for political and social movements in Mesoamerica and the Andean region, for example, dates from much earlier than the 1960s, going back to numerous rebellions against colonial rule. Indigenous social and political movements owe as much or more in the twentieth century to support from populist and leftist political parties and secular transnational movements as they do to Catholic and Protestant missionaries. Also missing is the critical role of European, Canadian, and U.S. philanthropic foundations (for example, the Ford Foundation) in financing human rights organizations and other NGOs during and after the recent cycle of Latin American military dictatorships.Cleary cares passionately about human rights and the struggle to realize them in Latin America. Generally, he sees progress on many human rights fronts in the hemisphere. Thus “Latin American governments have worked hard and with some discernible success to increase public security through better policing” (p. 108); and “Torture continues as an occasional practice by some police forces and may be diminishing” (p. 127). Whether there is solid empirical evidence to support these and many other claims made in this vein is questionable. At least implicitly, Cleary recognizes the contradictions. He writes that “apart from Brazil, plans to reform policing in Latin America have mostly disappointed expectations” (p. 106). He also notes that Latin America “stands out from other regions of the world in the high percentage of pretrial prisoners” (p. 101), and he warns that “the threat of violence at almost every turn in, say, São Paulo, permeates the body and soul” (p. 102).Why these conditions merit optimism escapes me. The best empirical research done on police accountability and human rights violations in Chile and Argentina since 1990 concludes that abuse remains common and that “human rights groups have not played a crucial role in making police institutions accountable to the public after reestablishment of democracy” (Contesting the Iron Fist: Advocacy Networks and Police Violence in Democratic Argentina and Chile, by Claudio A. Fuentes, 2005)." @default.
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• W2087822892 title "Mobilizing for Human Rights in Latin America" @default.
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