2022
Guest lecture “RIVERS, indigenous peoples and non-human rights: A South-South Dialogue”
Date: 4th December 2022 – Surkhet (Nepal)
Organizers : Mid-Western University – Central Department of International Relations and Diplomacy, Conflict and Peace Studies in Collaboration with all Graduated Schools of MU
Participant: Lieselotte Viaene (IP RIVERS/UC3M)
More info here
Symposium Indigenous Peoples, Water and Human Rights: Dialoguing Encounters
Date: October 4th 2022, Casa de América, Madrid
Organizers: Ana Paula García Nieto, Manuel May, Lieselotte Viaene – RIVERS/UC3M
Last 4th October 2022 we organized the Symposium Indigenous Peoples, Water and Human Rights: Dialoguing Encounters. The aim of this Symposium was to trigger a south-north intercultural dialogue on the values of water and its potential to contribute to global debates on governance and human rights. The event took place at Casa de América (Madrid) and it also occurs online through the Zoom platform with Spanish-English interpretation.
The Symposium started with the screening of the short-Muu Palaa, la abuela mar, co-directed by Olowaili Green Santacruz and Luzbeidy Monterrosa, from SentARTE Productions.
More info here
The European Night (and day) of Researchers in Madrid 2022
What does a researcher like yourself do in a place like this?
Date: 30th September 2022
Convinced on the relevance of scientific communication, the RIVERS project team participated on the events of The European Night of Researchers in Madrid (funded by the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon Europe Its main objective is to bring the researchers closer to the general public in order to create an understanding of the impact of researchers’ work on daily life.
More info here
Presentation of research report: AGUAS TURBIAS. Extractivism (neo)liberal, indigenous legal action and transformation of the State in Guatemala
Date: 22th March 2022
In the framework of the International Water Day, 22 March, the first open access collaborative publication with complementary perspectives on the issue of water and indigenous peoples in Guatemala is presented at the Rafael Landívar University in Guatemala.
2021
II Webinar for Young Researchers “Nature and its Rights”
Date: December 15th and 16th, 2021
On December 15th and 16th, 2021 the RIVERS project held the second edition of the seminar for young researchers “Nature and its Rights”. On this occasion we were honored to have seven speakers and six commentators from different parts of the world.
The session on December 15th was hold in Spanish and the session on December 16th in English.
Participants – 15th December:
Pablo Serra-Palao, Universidad de Murcia, Spain – El panorama emergente del “Earth system law”: una revisión bibliográfica
Héctor Herrera and Juliana Galindo, IOB, UANTWERP: Guernica 37 Centre – La naturaleza como víctima del conflicto armado colombiano
Celeste Quiroga Eróstegui, Universidad Católica Boliviana, Bolivia – Acceso a la tierra en el Valle Alto de Cochabamba de mujeres indígenas campesinas
Participants – 16th December:
Lauren Tarr, State University of New York, USA – Representing RON: A reflexive thematic analysis of rights of nature websites
Juan Antonio Samper, Lund University, Sweden – Memory and territory: social leadership and the defense of the territory in the Putumayo
Julia Torres, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand – The Te Urewera forest legal entity, decolonizing relationships?
Moderators:
Digno Montalván Zambrano, Ecuador/GIDYJ-UC3M
Stella Terjun, Lund Universty, Sweden
Miradas críticas al litigio sobre el agua: un diálogo entre Colombia y Guatemala
Date: November 23rd, 2021
El día 23 de noviembre se organizó el primer conversatorio de RIVERS en Guatemala “Una mirada crítica a los litigios sobre el agua. Un diálogo entre Colombia y Guatemala”. Para este conversatorio, contamos como panelistas con María Ximena González-Serrano, abogada colombiana, investigadora pre-doc RIVERS/UC3M; Carolina Ángel Botero, antropóloga colombiana, investigadora post-doc RIVERS/UC3M; Simón Antonio Ramón, Prensa comunitaria; Juan Castro, del Bufete de pueblos indígenas y Juan Gabriel Ixcamparij, de la Asociación de abogados Mayas-Nimajpu.
En la moderación participó el Investigador del Instituto de Investigación y proyección sobre el estado (ISE), Diego Padilla.
Webinar on empirical research in the UN Human Rights system
RIVERS online seminar on empirical research in the UN Human Rights system took place on 17 May 2021. It addressed the epistemological and methodological challenges of conducting qualitative research and legal ethnography within the human rights institutions of the United Nations.
The event featured Julie Billaud, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Miia Halme-Tuomisaari, Associate Professor of Human Rights Studies at Lund University, and Maria Sapignoli, Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Milan.
The session is available on RIVERS Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leviGezS6fw
Seminario Permanente Jesús G. Amuchastegui con Ramiro Ávila: La utopía del oprimido. Los derechos de la Pachamama (Naturaleza) y el Sumak Kawsay (buen vivir) en el pensamiento crítico, el derecho y la literatura
El jueves 28 de enero de 2021 Ramiro Ávila Santamaría, profesor de Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar y juez de la Corte Constitucional de Ecuador, participó en el Seminario Permanente Jesús G. Amuchastegui para debatir su libro: La utopía del oprimido. Los derechos de la Pachamama (Naturaleza) y el Sumak Kawsay (buen vivir) en el pensamiento crítico, el derecho y la literatura (2019, Akal).
En la sesión participaron como comentaristas:
- Prof. Joxerramon Bengoetxea.
- Profª. Isabel Wences.
- Profª Lieselotte Viaene.
- Prof. Digno Montalván.
Modero: Prof. José María Sauca.
2020
Círculo de la palabra: reparación del territorio y la naturaleza como víctima
Fecha: 14 de agosto de 2020 – 4pm hora de Madrid; 9am Colombia y Ecuador; Brasil 11am; Guatemala 8am
La Comisión Étnica-Racial de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP) de Colombia y el Proyecto ERC RIVERS (UC3M) organizaron el Círculo de la Palabra. Armonía de la Madre Tierra: reparación del territorio y la Naturaleza como víctima en el marco de la semana de los Pueblos Indígenas en el Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y No-Repetición de Colombia.
Webinar
La juridificación de la política: derecho y los pueblos indígenas
I seminario de jóvenes investigadores
28.04.2020
Os dejamos información sobre el seminario que el proyecto RIVERS organizó en colaboración con el Grupo de Investigación de Justicia y Derecho (www.derechoyjusticia.net) el pasado 28 de abril.
La ponente principal fue Rachel Sieder (CIESAS, México), que centró su ponencia en la movilización legal alrededor de los derechos colectivos de los pueblos indígenas, y la transformación de identidades indígenas que la juridificación conlleva en el proceso de desplazamiento de disputas políticas y sociales hacia los tribunales. Los comentaristas que participaron enriqueciendo el debate fueron María José Fariñas (UC3M), Salvador Martí i Puig (Universidad de Girona), Isabel Wences (UC3M)
Webinar
La naturaleza y sus derechos
I seminario de jóvenes investigadores
16-18.04.2020
El 16 y 18 de Abril RIVERS organizó su primer seminario de jóvenes investigadores, en el marco del día internacional del agua el 22 de marzo. La temática de este año es la Naturaleza y sus Derechos. Cada día, dos ponentes presentaron sus investigaciones y los comentaristas y oyentes pudieron interactuar con ellos y hacer preguntas a través del webinar.
Ponencias:
Jueves 16 de abril:
Ecocentrismo y Derechos Humanos: una aproximación desde la jurisprudencia de la Corte IDH. Digno Montalván Zambrano (UC3M)
Ríos como sujetos de derechos: claves de reconocimiento jurídico y desafíos de implementación. Ximena González (Investigadora independiente)
Sábado 18 de abril:
El derecho humano al agua: protección en un contexto de extractivismo hídrico en Brasil. Vanessa Rebello Horta (UC3M y fiscalía de Minas Gerais, Brasil)
Construir un río común: historia de un río sujeto de derechos. Carolina Ángel Botero (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia)
La política del antirracismo en estado(s) de negación
Silvia Rodríguez Maeso, Centro de Estudios Sociales, Coimbra (Portugal)
14.01.2020
Frantz Fanon afirmaba, en 1956, que “el racismo nunca es un elemento agregado, descubierto al azar de una investigación en el seno de los elementos culturales de un grupo. La constelación social, el conjunto cultural son profundamente transformados por la existencia del racismo” y, por tanto, “una sociedad es racista, o no lo es. No existen grados de racismo”. En este seminario dialogaremos con las implicaciones teóricas, analíticas y políticas de esta constatación y su “obviedad” en la formación del pensamiento construido desde la experiencia histórica de las poblaciones racializadas, como el pensamiento radical negro. En este sentido, debatiremos la relevancia de nociones como “racismo institucional”, “supremacía blanca” y “Estado racial” y cómo los discursos hegemónicos desde el poder institucionalizado las han negado al tiempo que declaran su voluntad de combate al racismo y la discriminación.
Ilustraremos el trabajo de estos regímenes de negación en los dispositivos legales y las políticas públicas antidiscriminación en contextos europeos (así como en relación con procesos en América Latina) y, más específicamente, mediante la experiencia de analizar procesos legales de brutalidad policial antinegra y antigitana en Portugal, y su relación con procesos en otros contextos como el del estado español.
2019
Empirical Dialogues in Human Rights
Hacia la Indigenización del Derecho Internacional: Antropología Jurídica Inversa en la Era de los Dobles Vínculos Jurisdiccionales
Paulo Ilich Bacca.
03.12.2019
Esta conferencia presenta críticamente la trayectoria con la que el derecho occidental en general y el derecho internacional en particular han construido doctrinas legales en relación con los derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Con este objetivo, la conferencia propone tomarse en serio el derecho de los pueblos indígenas y, consecuentemente, indigenizar el derecho internacional.
Inside Rwanda´s Gacaca Courts. Seeking Justice after Genocide
Bert Ingelaere ,University of Antwerp (Belgium)
19.11.2019
Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid
After the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, victims, perpetrators, and the country as a whole struggled to deal with the legacy of the mass violence. Neighbor had attacked neighbor, and once the killing was over, genocide survivors often lived near those who had murdered their family members or friends. Rwanda’s government attempted to deal with this situation by creating a new version of a traditional grassroots justice system called gacaca. This seminar examines what the gacaca courts set out to do, how they worked, what they achieved, what they did not achieve, and how they affected Rwandan society. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Rwandan countryside, I rely on vivid firsthand recollections, interviews, and trial testimony from victims and perpetrators, witnesses and lay judges alike. The findings demonstrate how this grassroots process got rerouted under the weight of the Rwandan state and through the pragmatism of the Rwandan peasantry. By providing rich evidence from the Rwandan grassroots, this seminar will discuss what – at the grassroots and beyond – is at stake for next generations and – also beyond Rwanda – what can make a difference when societies worldwide attempt to deal with the legacies of mass violence and human rights abuses.
Bio:
Bert Ingelaere is assistant professor at the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), University of Antwerp (Belgium). He chairs the Great Lakes of Africa Centre. His research focuses on the legacy of mass violence, mobility and the process of knowledge construction. He has undertaken over 40 months of fieldwork in Africa’s Great Lakes region. He was advisor or expert for international NGOs, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The World Bank, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and a postdoctoral fellow at the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (FWO) and the Program on Order, Conflict and
Violence (OCV), Yale University.
International Seminar
The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution or Ontological Conflicts?
08.11.2019
Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid
On the third day of the launch of the RIVERS project, the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), hosted in its Main Hall, the opening ceremony and international seminar ‘The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution or Ontological Conflicts’. With a welcome remark of the representative of the vice-chancellor and the director of the Department of Social Sciences, who expressed their gratitude and congratulations to the team of the ERC RIVERS project, the seminar was introduced by professor Lieselotte Viaene. Lieselotte, RIVERS’ principal investigator, narrated the vital and academic journey that gave birth to the project as well as its main goals and challenges. Talking about the Colombian context, Belkis Izquierdo, indigenous magistrate of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace, shared her experience to foster the recognition of indigenous territories as victims of the armed conflict. For his part, Dambar Chemjong, head of the anthropology department of Tribhuvan University in Nepal, talked about both his personal and academic experience dealing with indigenous territorial rights. In the context of international law, Victoria Tauli-Corpus, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, critically approached how the rights of nature are being approached by ‘conservationists’ who do not take indigenous rights seriously. Subsequently, Anne Nuorgam, chair Of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, tackled how Sami people are relating with their ancestral lands as well as their resistance processes against the fishing ban in Finland. The seminar was moderated by Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado, deputy representative of OHCHR-Colombia.
Photo Credits: Carlos Argueta
International Seminar
International Indigenous Knowledge Brokers at the UN: Impact, Challenges and Pitfalls
Vicky Tauli-Corpus and Anne Nourgam
8 November 2019
Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid
As part of RIVERS launch, Vicky Tauli- Corpus (Kankanaey Igorot, Philippines), UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and and Anne Nourgam (Sami, Finland), the Chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues have given a seminar in Getafe campus called “International Indigenous Knowledge Brokers at the UN: Impact, Challenges and Pitfalls”. This seminar was also part of the graduate course “Social movements and transnational Actors” of Prof. Dr. Viaene.
During the seminar, the participants discussed the political struggles of indigenous people and how they were able to obtain a more prominent presence in the higher-level bodies within the UN universal human rights protection system, including the story of their own communities and how they took their struggles in international level. Tauli-Corpus, who has been involved in the negotiation processes in UN from the beginning stated that indigenous people have tried very hard to gain their rights and they are one of the most successful social movements in terms of utilizing the UN, although most things are still not implemented the way they want. Nourgam similarly mentioned the story of Sami people and how the first Sami parliament in Finland was established and how they found their way into the UN system. At the end of the seminar, the students asked questions about many issues such as the biggest challenges they encountered during their struggles, the most successful states in terms of respecting indigenous peoples rights, the role of European Union in the process. You can watch the whole seminar from our YouTube channel.
Seminario Internacional
Seminario internacional: Pueblos indígenas y justicia transicional en América Latina: logros y desafíos
7. 11.2019
Getafe, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
En el segundo día del lanzamiento del proyecto RIVERS, la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid fue la anfitriona del seminario internacional ‘Pueblos Indígenas y Justicia Transicional en América Latina: Logros y Desafíos’. Moderado por el profesor Javier Dorado Porras (Instituto de Derechos Humanos Bartolomé de las Casas), el panel contó con la presencia de Lieselotte Viaene, investigadora principal del proyecto RIVERS, quien evaluó críticamente el eurocentrismo que ha sustentado las reflexiones en torno a la justicia transicional y propuso herramientas metodológicas para descolonizar su aparato epistemológico. Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado, representante adjunto de OHCHR-Colombia, expuso su experiencia con los sistemas de justicia transicional de Guatemala y Colombia, señalando los logros y desafíos más prominentes para alcanzar verdad, justicia, reparación y no repetición en contextos transicionales latinoamericanos. Por su parte, Belkis Izquierdo, magistrada indígena de la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz de Colombia, compartió su experiencia al interior de la Sala de Reconocimiento de Verdad y de Responsabilidad, llamando a un diálogo intercultural que tome las culturas indígenas en serio. El último ponente, Alejandro Quiceno, expuso el trabajo de la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición de Colombia, como funcionario la alta entidad para la construcción de una paz estable y duradera. Después hubo un debate con el público sobre diversos aspectos de los logros y desafíos de la justicia transicional en territorios indígenas.
Human Rights Research Methods and Across Disciplines: Interdisciplinary and Multimethods Research
Siri Gloppen, University of Bergen (Norway)
17.10.2019
Getafe, University Carlos III Madrid
Abstract
Traditionally there has been a major cleavage between legal scholars and the social sciences: the former have examined the structure and normative content of law from the perspective of legal theory and jurisprudence. The social silences, on the other hand, to the extent that they have been concerned with the law at all, have largely disregarded the normative content. Focus has been on explaining judicial decision and legal developments based on factors beyond the law (such as who appointed the judges), and on the social and economic consequences of various forms of legal ordering. More recently this has started to change. Increasingly disciplinary barriers are growing more porous. Legal scholars are collaborating with political scientist, anthropologists, psychologists, economists, computer scientists and others, to integrate empirical methods with legal scholarship. This lecture will present some examples of interdisciplinary and multimethod work into human rights from projects based at the CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation, focusing on the right to water; land; health; and sexual and reproductive rights. As well as projects enquiring into the role of courts and law in democratic backlash.
Bio note
Siri Gloppen is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute for research on global development and justice, and Director of the CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation. She has been research coordinator at PluriCourts (Oslo University Law School); visiting researcher at Harvard University and affiliated researcher at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi. Gloppen’s main focus is theory building and empirical research into the social function of law and courts. This includes the dynamics and effects of lawfare processes: the use of law as a political strategy where social contestation is played out by mobilizing rights and law in different spaces. This ranges from litigation in domestic and international courts and tribunals to legislation, constitution-making and ‘rights talk’, and is engaged by actors within government and political parties as well as civil society actors.
