CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Cutter, Spring Kristen |
|---|---|
| Title | Between Progress and Stagnation: Environmental Rights of Indigenous Peoples |
| Summary | This thesis assesses progress and continuing challenges facing the contemporary indigenous rights movement in relation to the substantive right to own, use and occupy traditional lands. The articulation of collective environmental rights in terms of culture, property and self-determination is examined, and the scope of protections offered in a multi-level system is measured. Further, the mutually reinforcing dynamics of the multi-level system is elaborated upon as one court looks to another for guidance across international, regional and domestic contexts. The breadth of protections is first investigated on the international level, focusing on specialized instruments including soft law mechanisms, from a human rights-based approach as well as through international labor law and environmental law. Regional protections of the Inter-American and African Systems are then compared, focusing on jurisprudential developments and the extent to which regional systems may effectively ensure rights. Additionally, the degree to which international normative standards can shape domestic jurisprudence is analyzed, as well as precedential rulings with which domestic systems may provide indigenous protections in their own right. Beyond the cross-fertilization of progressive jurisprudence in the multi-level system, structural obstacles to rights protections are critically assessed. The backward-looking nature of human rights law is problematized in relation to the destruction of ancestral lands, and thereby culture, of indigenous peoples, calling for a greater emphasis to be placed on preventative action. Finally, the extent to which States may effectively provide for protections given the fact that activities of non-state actors pose the primary threat to indigenous rights, is critically examined, necessitating accountability on the part of the non-state actor, and assessing advancements therein. |
| Supervisor | Steinorth, Charlotte |
| Department | Legal Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/cutter_spring.pdf |
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