LaDawn Haglund

Test of Our Progress: The Translation of Economic and Social Rights Norms Into Practice

The application of the language of “rights” to the economic and social conditions of the worlds impoverished populations has gained a great deal of momentum in recent years. Yet, given the continuing pervasiveness of basic deprivations for the worlds poor, there is a pressing need to examine precisely how economic and social rights norms (as reflected in international treaties and other multilateral documents) are translated into practices. This article seeks to synthesize the theoretical literature on economic and social rights (ESR) and to examine the variety of legal, institutional, and political mechanisms that facilitate their realization. We utilize legal, anthropological, and sociological theory to identify institutional and cultural factors that affect norm translation, as well as adaptive, processual, and emergent dynamics that may alter outcomes. In moving from theory to method, we conceptualize a number of factors that contribute to rights realization, operationalize them by describing how translation mechanisms of each might manifest in real-world settings where rights are at stake and compile a list of questions and indicators that can be used to measure them. We hope this overview will assist in expanding and enriching human rights theory, facilitate the empirical study of economic justice and thereby contribute to efforts for making economic and social rights a reality.

New Forms of Environmental Governance in São Paulo Implications for Human Rights

The democratic transition and constitutional reforms in Brazil raised hopes that critical environmental challenges and egregious social deficits could finally be remedied through law, but political and legal legacies, fragmentation among actors, and disarticulation between and within institutions and between the state and citizens have complicated this transformation. Examination of the emerging role of the courts and the law in promoting social rights and environmental protection in the water and sanitation sectors in São Paulo reveals how long-standing urban problems are reified or altered through legal means. It also shows that ongoing challenges have prompted a search for new, proactive strategies of coordination, tested old assumptions about state/society relationships, and provoked broader conversations about difficult socioeconomic and political questions at the heart of creating sustainable, just societies. A transição para a democracia, e as reformas constitucionais, no Brasil crearam a esperança de que puder-se corrigir os desafios do meio-ambiente e as deficiências sociais dos mais flagrantes por meio da lei. Infelizmente essa transformação se complicou pelas heranças políticas e legais, pelas divisões entre os atores, e a desarticulação entre as instituições e dentro delas, e o afastamento entre o Estado e os seus cidadãos. Um exame do papel emergente dos tribunais e da lei na promoção dos direitos sociais e em proteger o meio-ambiente nos setores do abastamento de água e do saneamento na Grande São Paulo mosta como se mudam ou se reificam os problemas urbanos de larga duração pelo meio do sistema legal. Revela também como os desafios consistentes estimularam a procura de novas estratégias proativas de coordinação, põem à prova as velhas assumções sobre a relações entre o Estado e a sociedade, e provocaram conversações mais amplas sobre essas questões socio-econômicas e políticas que jazem no coração do esforço de crear as sociedades sustentáveis e justas.

Contested Water: The Struggle Against Water Privatization in the United States and Canada:

Water privatization has been with us at least since the 1980s, when the debt crisis in the Global South and the rise of Reagan/Thatcherism in the United States and United Kingdom created openings for radical shifts away from state-owned enterprises in public goods sectors. Corporations and international financial institutions led the charge, extolling the virtues of business efficiency while obscuring the shift in power that accompanied increased private control over public assets and precious resources. A great web of actors—economists, corporate leaders, investors, and ministers—worked together to promote the alluring ideology of marketled development, at times uncontested. But in the water sector, the rumblings of discontent were earliest and strongest, and have remained the most strident to the current day. There’s just something about water. That ‘‘something’’ is the starting point for Joanna Robinson’s analysis in Contested Water: The Struggle Against Water Privatization in the United States and Canada. The book outlines two water privatization resistance movements in places one might not expect to find social upheaval: Stockton, California and Vancouver, British Colombia. Robinson documents how these struggles emerged from a similar motivation to protect water as a public good, but diverged in activists’ tactics and strategies, as well as in outcomes. In Stockton, a city council vote to privatize preempted an anti-privatization ballot initiative, but was subsequently nullified in court. In Vancouver, citizens convinced representatives to abandon privatization before any such costly battles unfolded. Robinson seeks to explain these different trajectories utilizing comparative case studies based on interviews with anti-privatization activists, media reports, and activist materials. Her theoretical concerns emerge from the social-movements literature and include rethinking the role of ideology, frames, opportunities, and networks in influencing processes and outcomes of resistance in a field (water) that is simultaneously global and local. The characteristics that Robinson deems important for influencing outcomes in Stockton are, in brief, a political context where a popular conservative mayor, a largely conservative city council, and a long-standing conflict between conservatives and liberals created blockages to citizen voice; shallow and fragmented movement networks, with few resources, little experience, and a lukewarm attitude toward coalition-building; and politically inexperienced leaders who made tactical errors, were reluctant to engage with ‘‘radical’’ forms of resistance, and failed to seize global frames to create new openings for solidarity and political opportunities. In particular, Robinson faults the anti-privatization coalition for framing the problem as one of democracy and political corruption, rather than as a common threat from global corporate power, a framing that ostensibly would have allowed activists and politicians to build solidarity and a shared understanding of the issues at stake. This also meant that they were constrained by the already-existing opportunity structures, which were limited. In Vancouver, on the other hand, the political context included a more receptive city council, a more accessible politicalinstitutional structure, and a more globally aware population; its preexisting movement networks were broader, better resourced, and more densely interconnected; and its leaders were more politically astute and enthusiastic about strengthening coalitions, as well as utilizing a range of strategies, both traditional and creative, to influence politicians and public opinion. Robinson credits the ability of activists to harness global discourses about corporate power to shape local framing strategies and create new opportunities for political leverage. The author illustrates the power of a wellconceived social-movement unionism campaign, as utilized by BCPSEU, as well as the importance of a ‘‘bridge’’ (in this case CAL) between different actors and frames to create movement solidarity. Indeed, it is intriguing Reviews 243

After the Victory, Sobering Realities

the negative balance of trade contributes to the rise of the current accounts deficit, which is also related to the flow of remittances. As it happens, remittances finance the consumption of many imported goods and services, but on the other hand, they are important resources that prevent abrupt increases in poverty. The new government assumed power with an unprecedented shortage of resources, with the recession causing a sharp fall in tax revenue. For that reason, the incoming FMLN government and the outgoing ARENA administration held talks before the handover of power to agree on certain measures in the face of the fiscal problem. As a result, they obtained loans from international agencies, expecting that these resources would finance public activities for a few years. Nevertheless, it seems that it will be insufficient, and the new government therefore wants to push forward with a modest tax reform. The announcement of this plan has already generated protest among some in the private sector who contend that the Funes government should not promote changes in