The importance of cultural diversity and local perceptions in ensuring the effective protection of human rights: a study of the Sawhoyamaxa case
The importance of cultural diversity and local perceptions in ensuring the effective protection of human rights: a study of the Sawhoyamaxa case
Date
2018
Authors
Park, Giovanna
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Abstract
In order for human rights to be relevant to all and to ensure the protection of the most
vulnerable members of society, it is necessary that human rights to be considered
from a local perspective.
There is limited research regarding the effectiveness of the impact that a dialogue
between the local and the global can have on the effective protection of rights.
Seeking to investigate this concept further, this thesis explores how human rights and
their violations are viewed, and how the consideration of such nuances by
international protection mechanisms can have an impact, at local level.
These questions are answered through a case study of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous
Community v. Paraguay case deliberated by Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
This case is an example of the Court’s progressive jurisprudence regarding its
consideration of the cultural and spiritual connection that indigenous peoples have
with their land in its interpretation of the right to property.
In order to explore the above concepts, this thesis focuses on the impact that the
violation of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community’s right to property, in the form
of the expropriation of their land, had on their culture and the subsequent impact of
the Inter-American Court’s sentence.
Description
Second semester University: University of Deusto, Bilbao
Keywords
indigenous peoples,
Paraguay,
Inter-American Court of Human Rights,
human rights,
local government,
right to property,
international law,
municipal law