DEMOCRATIC CONSTITUTIONALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS GREENING: CHALLENGES AND COMMON CONSTRUCTIONS

José Adércio Leite Sampaio,João Batista Moreira Pinto

doi:10.18623/rvd.v13i26.805

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing the phenomenon of democratic constitutionalism and human rights greening, listing some of their common challenges and, especially, the possibilities and urgencies of a more integrated performance among them so as to favor full participation and citizenship, and, as a consequence, to strengthen one another. The contradictions of neoliberal globalization are the starting point for the assessment of the position of the constitutional theory - from the perspective of democratic constitutionalism - and of the field of human rights - including the analysis of the different understandings surrounding this concept -, as well as the impacts of its progressive greening. The ambiguities of the international protection of human rights as an indivisible system, characterized by the deficits of effectiveness regarding economic, social and cultural rights, and enlarged by the inclusion of the environmental speech, can only be overcome by their links with the ideas and instruments of the democratic constitutionalism and, especially, through the mobilization of the claiming and fighting energies of the society.

Highlights

INTRODUCTIONThe correlation between democratic constitutionalism, environmental protection and human rights is made more and more often among political and constitutional theoreticians
José Adércio Leite Sampaio & João Batista Moreira PintoThe correlation between democratic constitutionalism, environmental protection and human rights is made more and more often among political and constitutional theoreticians
Globalization mobilizes the constitutional theory in the problematic construction of the democratic constitutionalism and in the field of human rights, understood from a broader perspective, which includes the legal dimension of human rights, not limited to it, once it involves the social-historical performance of social and political actors around that reality

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The correlation between democratic constitutionalism, environmental protection and human rights is made more and more often among political and constitutional theoreticians. The construction bases for those social fields are distinct, they have common challenges in the context of the neoliberal globalization and they have complementary points Those often unexplored articulation points are going to be clarified from the analysis of the strategic aspect of the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR) and the incorporation of the environmental speech at an international level. The logical structure of the text is organized into four moments: the first one, in which the challenges around the contradictions of neoliberalism are pointed out; the second one that addresses the constitutional perspective from the standpoint of democratic constitutionalism, its challenges and its fundamental positions in face of democracy and its driving elements, that is, participation and citizenship; the third moment is a rescue of the perspective of human rights as a specific field, in its integration with democratic constitutionalism, from three references: the International Bill of Human Rights, the Vienna Declaration and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and in the final considerations, the proximities, the integrations and the possibilities between the democratic constitutionalism and the social and political field of human rights are going to be highlighted

CHALLENGES IMPOSED BY THE NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION

THE INTERNATIONAL BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS

THE VIENNA DECLARATION AND THE NEW PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Refer to the debate in the North American context

Findings

THE NECESSARY ARTICULATION BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT