MAKING THE HUMAN RIGHTS TALK MATTER: Are the Brazilian State’s practices really following its rhetoric towards the protection of human rights defenders in the country?

Abstract

This paper considers the interplay of international law, politics and national law in the politics of human rights in Brazil through post-1985 Brazilian democratic governments with reference to the foundation of a governmental culture of human rights as well as the institutionalization from 1964 to 2010 of international human rights law into the country's legal system. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), it compares, on the one hand, international human rights instruments ratified by Brazil and, on the other hand, significant samples of human rights documents related to the Brazilian transition to democracy. By unveiling influences of the political, economic, social and cultural shifts (developments) towards the creation of the unprecedented Brazilian Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (PPDDH), it finally engages with the questions of whether the Brazilian State's practices follow its human rights rhetoric as well as whether the Brazilian State's practices are really following its human rights rhetoric towards the protection of human rights defenders in the country.