The International Journal of Human Rights

ISSN: 1364-2987 (Print) 1744-053X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjhr20

Democracy, social authoritarianism, and the

human rights state theory: towards effective
citizenship in Brazil

Ulisses Terto Neto

To cite this article: Ulisses Terto Neto (2017) Democracy, social authoritarianism, and the human
rights state theory: towards effective citizenship in Brazil, The International Journal of Human
Rights, 21:3, 289-305, DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2017.1298733

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2017.1298733

Published online: 30 Mar 2017.

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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS, 2017
VOL. 21, NO. 3, 289–305
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2017.1298733

Democracy, social authoritarianism, and the human rights

state theory: towards effective citizenship in Brazil
Ulisses Terto Netoa,b
a
Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL), University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland,
UK; bDepartment of Law, Centro Universitário IESB, Brasília, Brazil

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Human rights have advanced since Brazil’s re-democratisation, but Social authoritarianism;
social authoritarianism prevents more advancements. Progress human rights state;
requires structural changes. I argue that human rights state theory citizenship; politics of human
might work as a ‘realistic utopia’ for human rights defenders to rights; Brazil
persuade the Brazilian nation state to fully embrace human rights
norms. But it ignores the role international human rights law can
play. Beyond Gregg, I propose the development of a human rights
state that seeks the internalisation and socialisation of
international human rights law in Brazil’s domestic jurisdictions. I
advance that theory to incorporate international human rights law
towards establishing a human rights culture. I draw on empirical
evidence from a specific case study to undergird my argument
and develop a political strategy on how further human rights
change could perhaps be brought to Brazil with the help of the
idea of a human rights state.

Introduction
Brazil has become a constitutional democracy, but human rights are still widely and reg-
ularly violated. This is because Brazil’s structures are still deeply marked by social author-
itarianism, which reflects a scenario of poverty, inequality, exclusion and violence. More
human rights progress is therefore dependent on deep-rooted structural changes and
human rights defenders (activists, militants, groups and human rights non-governmental
organisations (NGOs)) have an important role to play. There is consequently the need for
a new project of sociability towards effective citizenship, which reflects the urgency for
human rights defenders to lead the way towards socially constructing a human rights
culture. The theory of a human rights state, as a political project, is helpful since it calls
for collective political action to be achievable. However, I argue that for the human
rights state theory to be effective as a political strategy on how further human rights
change in Brazil’s case, the importance of international human rights law has to be
considered.
Undertaking an approach that combines theoretical perspectives such as international
human rights law, constitutional law, and normative legal philosophy, I go beyond Gregg
to propose the development of a human rights state that seeks the internalisation and

CONTACT Ulisses Terto Neto ulisses.terto.neto16@aberdeen.ac.uk

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
290 U. TERTO NETO

socialisation of international human rights law in Brazil’s domestic jurisdictions. Inter-

national human rights law provides core arguments to human rights defenders for ways
to change domestic cultures that, like Brazil’s social authoritarian culture, are not
human rights cultures. This is an original approach since human rights state theory under-
values the importance of international human rights law for achieving its own goals. In the
first section I provide a brief analysis of Brazil’s human rights context. The analysis pro-
ceeds from the assumption that violence and inequality are structural problems that
directly influence how Brazil observes international human rights norms. In the second
section, I shed light on the theory of a human rights state1 and explain why it is a political
project to pursue. I argue that human rights state theory offers human rights defenders a
resource for persuading the Brazilian nation state to advance human rights domestically
by changing the existing cultural politics and creating a new sociability with effective citi-
zenship. The analysis has been conducted considering the work of Dagnino,2 Clark et al.,3
Brinks,4 Somers,5 Isin,6 and Alvarez et al.7 Further, going beyond Gregg, I develop human
rights state theory to incorporate international human rights law towards establishing a
human rights culture in Brazil. Then, drawing on empirical evidence from a specific
case study to undergird my argument, I develop a vision, a political strategy how
further human rights change could perhaps be brought to Brazil with the help of the
idea of a human rights state. Finally, in the third section, I present a brief conclusion.

To make Brazil fully compliant with international human rights law, social
movements and human rights NGOs – under human rights defenders’
leadership – need to radically change the current cultural politics that
reproduces social authoritarianism and prevents citizenship
Brazil is a post-colonial society with a historical legacy of social authoritarianism.8 With
the fall of democracy in the 1960s, it became infamous for grave human rights violations.
It was only in the late 1970s that the country started its return to democracy, and human
rights could once again rise up the agenda.9 Despite considerable progress since its re-
democratisation (1985), there still remains much to be done, especially if we consider
economic, social and cultural rights.10 Notwithstanding the efforts of various post-1985
governments, the necessary structural changes towards a less violent and more egalitarian
Brazilian society are yet to come.11
Although Brazil’s transition to democracy can be explained through the lens of the
spiral model of human rights change,12 we need to look deeper into the country’s
current complexities if we want to understand the obstacles to further human rights pro-
gress. In this regard, drawing on Dagnino’s work, I conduct the analysis considering that
human rights activism – under human rights defenders’ headship – is seeking new roles
such as (1) fighting for improving democratic institutions, and (2) addressing the struc-
tural problems such as poverty, social exclusion, inequality and violence or, simply put,
social authoritarianism.13
The analysis proceeds from the assumption that democracy and the rule of law per se
have not yet been enough to bring about meaningful structural changes. Brazil is still
deeply marked by social authoritarianism. Dagnino coined this term to conceptualise
the fight for redefining Brazilian democracy. According to her, the notion of democracy
needs to be redefined in order to intensify its fundamental egalitarian meaning and
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 291

socialise it beyond political institutions, reaching out to social and cultural practices. A
decisive contribution to this redefinition of democracy, she argues, arose from the role
played by social movements in recent democratisation processes in Latin America,
especially in Brazil’s case.14 She contends that ‘Brazilian society is one in which economic
inequality and extreme levels of poverty have been only the most visible aspects of the
unequal and hierarchical organisation of social relations as a whole – which can be
called a social authoritarianism’.15 This means that class, race and gender differences
still dictate a hierarchical social classification of people that reproduces inequality at all
levels of social relations in Brazilian society.16 Hence, ‘the achievement of full citizenship
is possible if the structural constraints to citizenship are overcome’ in Brazil.17
Although post-1985 democratic governments ratified international and regional
human rights instruments,18 these norms have not yet been socialised into all governmen-
tal practices to make Brazil fully compliant with international human rights law. This pre-
sents significant obstacles to the construction of a new citizenship, especially because the
structures of social authoritarianism have so far frustrated efforts to build the political will
to affect (bringing further) human rights (progress) nationwide.19 As a result, ‘the thinking
of citizenship as always, everywhere, unfinished/imperfect is a powerful way of keeping the
location of citizenship in practices and processes visible’20 so that this new project of citi-
zenship towards a new sociability via social struggles is imaginable, possible and achievable
in Brazil’s case.21 Although progress has been made concerning governmental practices
directed at the advance of human rights conditions, it cannot be argued convincingly
that respect for human rights is genuine in all levels of government. Thus, it is rather unli-
kely at the moment that Brazil is going to move from commitment to full compliance with
international human rights law.22
To make Brazil, that is, state officials and institutions at federal, state and local levels of
government, fully compliant with international human rights law, social movements and
human rights NGOs – under human rights defenders’ leadership – need to radically
change the current cultural politics that reproduces social authoritarianism and prevents
citizenship. I argue that human rights state theory offers human rights defenders a
resource for persuading the Brazilian nation state to advance human rights domestically
by changing the existing cultural politics and creating a new sociability with effective citi-
zenship. That is to say, effective citizenship means that everyone under Brazil’s jurisdiction
would be able to fully enjoy their constitutionally guaranteed human rights.23 With the
1988 Constitution, this means specifically that Brazil needs to provide new rights
bearers (dominated groups) with all of the formal and practical mechanisms they need
in order to access rights and face up to the resistance coming from new duty bearers
(the establishment or dominant groups).24

Under human rights defenders’ leadership, social movements and human

rights NGOs can create a collective political engagement to push forward
the human rights agenda in Brazil
Progress requires structural changes and human rights advocates have an important role
to play. Their role can be facilitated by the spiral model theory, at least with respect to
advancing human rights through democratisation.25 Still, the spiral model theory is
inadequate to address other contributing factors of Brazil’s poor human rights record,
292 U. TERTO NETO

such as poverty, exclusion, inequality and violence.26 As explained earlier, the country is
yet to be fully compliant with international human rights law. Hence, the work of human
rights defenders towards the construction of a new sociability is necessary since they
pursue a human rights project that allows everyone to enjoy effective citizenship.27 In
this regard, I argue that the development of a human rights state can help Brazil move
from commitment to full compliance with international human rights law.28 For that to
occur, however, it is important to advance the theory of a human rights state so that
the significance of international human rights law for improving Brazil’s domestic
human rights regime can be also considered. Before doing so, however, let us first
examine the theory.

The human rights state theory

A human rights state is a political project to be socially constructed by human commu-
nities. This is because concepts, behaviours and institutions that promote, create and
provide justice are social constructs that are not originally undisputed. They are socially
constructed into universal values to be pursued in society. Hence, a human rights state
has to be understood within a ‘nonidiosyncratic perspective’, in the sense that it is appre-
hended or accepted consensually by individuals and human communities.29 As a socially
constructed political project, a human rights state produces ‘contingent, fallibilistic, and
locally embedded’30 norms that are consensually validated by human communities.31 It
demands cultural socialisation that leads to members of human communities freely
embracing that political project. Cultural socialisation in the sense that new values such
as truth, justice, and so forth can reach all members of society who freely embrace
them in order to socially bring about human rights change. This is because taken
in this relativist sense, truth and justice are neither impossible nor drained of their capacity to
motivate behavior. Rather, both truth and justice are driven not by some epistemological
imperative for objectivity but by a pragmatic imperative for desired results.32

The embrace of being truly free needs occur at both communal and individual levels. This
demands ‘institutionalized socialization’, that is, those contingent, fallibilistic, and locally
embedded norms become ingrained in the social institutions (as, for instance, the legal and
educational systems) of human communities and this could generate ‘individual human
rights personalities’33 who, based on mutual solidarity and expectation, exercise their
self-granted human rights and recognise the self-granted human rights of others.34
A human rights state allows for a human rights project to be pursued through collective
political action.35 In this respect, it is another tool to help individuals grow ‘assertive self-
hood’ and ‘human rights personality’ since ‘someone socialized into assertive selfhood
acquires the capacity to author his or her own human rights’.36 This involves institutiona-
lised socialisation as well as cultural socialisation of human rights.37 It also involves the
empowerment of members of human communities to be able to author their own
human rights. In fact, a human rights state, as a political project, involves transmuting
nation states that violate human rights norms into ones that are fully compliant with
human rights norms. This metamorphosis occurs via the active participation in social
struggles of all individuals who self-grant human rights and recognise the self-granted
human rights of others. Ultimately, these individuals seek institutionalised socialisation
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 293

of their demands vis-à-vis the enjoyment of their self-granted human rights or, putting it
differently, the formal recognition by nation states of individuals’ self-granted human
rights via nation states’ full compliance with cosmopolitan human rights standards
already internalised into the domestic legal system.
To be sure, as Gregg argues, once juridified or formally institutionalised by nation
states, human rights norms can become part of national constitutions and this helps
protect vulnerable, oppressed and socially marginalised groups against mistreatment,
oppression and marginalisation by dominant groups. In this sense, the pursuit of a
human rights state via collective political action might eventually lead to self-conscious
individuals accomplishing ‘human rights within a nation state’.38 Thus, a human rights
state, as a political project, generates commitment to human rights. It calls for collective
political participation that ‘involves constructing, discussing, interpreting, and vernacular-
izing the human rights idea’39:
[…] by human rights state I mean a metaphorical polity constituted by interested, self-
selected members of a corresponding nation state. Members constitute themselves as a
human rights state by authoring their own human rights and mutually recognizing that
authorship among themselves. A human rights state seeks to advance a free embrace of
human rights in the corresponding nation state. It seeks to advance human rights as an
internal feature of the nation state, in short, to encourage local politicians and legal
systems to generate domestic legal obligations to abide by human rights.40

A human rights state goes beyond the territorial claims of a nation state as well as sur-
passes being a legal citizen of that nation state. In fact, by making the human being
central as a rights bearer, it defends a progressive logic of inclusion in which self-conscious
citizens of a nation state put in practice or exercise a corresponding human rights state.41
In this sense, the collective political participation leads to a consensually validated human
rights idea in the corresponding nation state.42 In this regard, a human rights state, as a
political project, makes available a reformist programme for self-conscious individuals
to defend, respect and promote human rights as an inner aspect of the corresponding
nation state.43 Thus, a human rights state, as a political project, pursues the full adoption
of human rights by the corresponding nation state. It provides a human rights advance-
ment project aligned with cosmopolitan human rights standards to be formally institutio-
nalised by human communities’ institutions and socialised among self-granting human
rights individuals domestically.

How human rights state theory can help change Brazil’s authoritarian culture by
constructing a new cultural politics of human rights
Although Brazil has opened itself up to international organs’ criticism and cooperation on
human rights issues,44 violations of human rights persist countrywide. Democracy and the
rule of law per se have not yet been enough to bring about structural change.45 Hence, it is
important to establish a new cultural politics if the historically unjust and violent struc-
tures are ever to be radically changed, social authoritarianism overcome and effective citi-
zenship achievable.46 The consolidation of democratic institutions and the protection,
promotion and respect of human rights are key issues in the construction of this new cul-
tural politics; and human rights defenders play a significant role in this collective socio-
political process, for they are frontrunners in the social struggles for democracy and
294 U. TERTO NETO

human rights.47 These social struggles together with the force of the human rights doctrine
have somehow contributed to the social movements’ purpose of pursuing the establish-
ment of a new sociability. They seek not only incorporation and effective participation
in the political system, but also ‘a more egalitarian format for social relations at all
levels, including new rules for living together in society (for the negotiation of conflicts,
a new sense of a public order and public responsibility, a new social contract, and so on)’.48
The project towards a new sociability demands social relations to be less hierarchical
and more egalitarian so that individuals recognise each other as rights bearers and the
right to have rights (effective citizenship) is fully enjoyed.49 This involves placing consti-
tutionally guaranteed human rights as public parameters for social relations, which chal-
lenges the structures of social authoritarianism.50 This project towards a new sociability is
a very complex task due to its politically and culturally changing characteristics and will
require enormous efforts from both organised civil society and the state.51 Moreover, the
positivisation52 and socialisation53 of international human rights law into, respectively,
Brazil’s legal system and society play an important role in pursuing a new sociability, par-
ticularly in making a venue for a standardised domestic human rights regime. In a broad
sense, therefore, the recognition by the world of Brazil as an emerging middle power54
depends not only on the strengthening of its democratic institutions, but also, and
more importantly, on its taking effective measures to promote, protect and respect
human rights. Consequently, it is paramount that Brazil’s human rights discourse be in
harmony with its actions.
Gregg’s proposal of a human rights state can help advance the project for a new socia-
bility since it calls for the establishment of a new human rights culture domestically. A
human rights state demands cultural socialisation that leads to individuals and commu-
nities freely embracing that political project. It envisions a human rights development
project aligned with cosmopolitan human rights standards to be formally established by
institutions and socialised among self-conscious individuals who, based on mutual soli-
darity, exercise their self-granted human rights and recognise the self-granted human
rights of others. It allows for a human rights project to be pursued through collective pol-
itical action. In this sense, a human rights state, as a political project, interfaces with the
project towards a new sociability that would change the current cultural politics since both
contain an ethical dimension for egalitarian social relations that calls for collective political
action. Consequently, the potential of a human rights state (as a political project) to help
bring about human rights change rests on the fact that it adds up to the project for a new
sociability at the ideological level, in the sense that it challenges the social-symbolic struc-
tures.55 To be sure, it aligns with the human rights trend that started in the 1970s and has
been pushed forward by organised civil society and the state since the country’s re-demo-
cratisation. Brazil has chosen the human rights path, but still needs to bring its practices
into line with its human rights discourse. It is exactly in this context that the idea of a
human rights state can be powerful. The vision of an egalitarian and democratic society
guided by self-conscious individuals who recognise each other as rights bearers and
behave according to human rights standards is appealing and can be straightforwardly
adopted by social movements led by human rights defenders locally. A human rights
state is, in this sense, a ‘realistic utopia’ to be accomplished via collective political action.56
Human rights defenders can keep leading the way and enhance the debate vis-à-vis
socially constructing a human rights state in line with the project for a new sociability
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 295

in which social relations are less hierarchical and more egalitarian and individuals, com-
munities and formal institutions behave according to cosmopolitan human rights stan-
dards. This is because current Brazilian cultural politics contains a set of beliefs and
values that disregard human rights standards. They represent the establishment and, as
such, they reproduce beliefs and values that reiterate the current scenario of exclusion,
poverty, inequality and violence or, simply put, social authoritarianism. To change this
cultural politics we need events that cause external and internal dissonance.57 External dis-
sonance occurs via accessing new information, which in Brazil’s case is manifest in the
construction of new ideas of Brazilian society. In this sense, the project for a new sociabil-
ity together with a human rights state, as a political project, represents a dissonance in
relation to the establishment since it challenges the structures of social authoritarianism.
It presents a new vision of Brazilian society and, this way, it epitomises a ‘realistic utopia’.
Internal dissonance occurs via the realisation of this ‘realistic utopia’ through collective
political action that exposes Brazil’s contradictions and brings about social change.
Here as well, the project for a new sociability together with a human rights state, as a pol-
itical project, is helpful because it calls for collective political action. In Brazil’s case, there-
fore, ideological arguments (external dissonance) by human rights defenders are likely to
bring about human rights change (internal dissonance) in the social construction of a new
cultural politics.

Going beyond Gregg: developing human rights state theory to incorporate

international human rights law towards establishing a human rights culture
Although Gregg rejects international human rights norms in favour of locally defined
human rights norms,58 I argue that it is important for a human rights state theory to recog-
nise the role international human rights law can play in changing Brazil’s cultural politics.
First, it should be noted that the country has already ratified the majority of inter-
national human rights treaties,59 so the problem is really about full compliance with inter-
national human rights norms at all levels of government: federal, state and local.60
International human rights law becomes in this sense a robust legal tool with which organ-
ised civil society and social movements in partnership with transnational advocacy net-
works61 can demand that the state fulfils its human rights obligations.
Second, there is a human rights trend that started in the 1970s and turned out to be
significant for Brazil’s re-democratisation. Human rights have thus become part not
only of organised civil society and social movement discourse, but also of official rhetoric
since Brazil has ratified international human rights treaties to send out a signal that it pays
attention to international pressures and hence wants to be fully compliant with inter-
national human rights law.62
Third, it is important to consider that international human rights law encompasses
values such as truth, justice, equality, fairness and so forth that promote democracy,
human rights and social justice. It becomes in this sense a key political tool for organised
civil society and social movements to pursue cultural socialisation as well as institutiona-
lised socialisation of those values at all levels of society. This is so that those values reach all
members of society who freely embrace them as well as become ingrained in social insti-
tutions so that individuals exercise their self-granted human rights and recognise the self-
granted human rights of others.
296 U. TERTO NETO

Fourth, it should be borne in mind that the ratification of international and regional
human rights instruments by post-1990 democratic governments demonstrates a strong
connection between these governments,63 the positivisation of international human
rights law64 and human rights public policies (internal and foreign policy) throughout
the ongoing democratic period. This indicates that a yet-to-be-fully-consolidated
human rights governmental culture together with efforts from organised civil society
and social movements towards the improvement of human rights conditions, democracy
and social justice make the project for a new sociability accomplishable.

Why international human rights law provides core arguments to human rights
defenders for ways to develop human rights cultures
I draw below on empirical evidence from a specific case study to undergird my argument
and develop a vision, a political strategy how further human rights change could perhaps
be brought to Brazil with the help of the idea of a human rights state.
The analysis of interviews with human rights defenders, civil society actors and state
officials involved with the public policy for the protection of human rights defenders
reveals that Brazilian social movements and human rights NGOs have not only
adopted the human rights terminology from the United Nations (UN) and OAS in
their social struggles, but also contributed to the institutionalisation of international
human rights norms and their socialisation towards constructing a new cultural poli-
tics. The socio-political process that led to the creation of the Brazilian Programme
for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (PPDDH) is a good case study since
it resulted from domestic and foreign pressures exerted by organised civil society in
partnership with transnational advocacy networks and UN and OAS human rights
mechanisms on the Brazilian State.65 As explained by Darci Frigo, head of Terra de
Direitos,66
[The PPDDH] was created because […] the Lula Government opened its doors to the rec-
ognition and signature of international [human rights] treaties, giving responses to this inter-
national dimension of the Brazilian Government’s actions, [revealing] that the Lula
Government was interested in protecting human rights.67

The PPDDH’s creation advertised Brazil’s commitment to international human rights law
and sent a signal to transnational advocacy networks, UN and OAS human rights mech-
anisms and domestic organised civil society vis-à-vis the protection of human rights
defenders. The federal government wanted to demonstrate willingness to fulfil the coun-
try’s human rights obligations. According to former Federal Deputy Nilmário Miranda,
then head of Brazil’s Human Rights Secretariat,68
[The main reasons for the PPDDH’s creation] without doubt were [1] first, Brazil’s Human
Rights Secretariat, [which] with its development […] [helped give] sequence [to human
rights policies]; all Ministries of State […] sought to advance […] citizenship, and [2] here
[at Brazil’s House of Representatives] there is a group of parliamentarians linked to
human rights, [3] a very strong pressure from popular and social movements, and from
the UN system, from entities linked to human rights, [4] the national human rights confer-
ences, all of which made hard and necessary demands, but also [5] pressure from the inter-
national system which is a call […] from these groups that act worldwide and that demand
[the fulfilment of human rights obligations by] Brazil.69
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 297

Organised civil society constructed a special forum named the Brazilian Committee of
Human Rights Defenders (CBDDH) in order to discuss international human rights
norms related to the protection of human rights defenders and their internalisation and
socialisation domestically. The CBDDH became an important venue for organised civil
society to exert pressure on the state over public policies related to the protection of
human rights defenders. As Sandra Carvalho, coordinator of Justiça Global,70 said:
The [National] Human Rights Conferences point in this direction […] we witnessed many of
our peers being killed, threatened, and vulnerable. […] [The protection of human rights
defenders] was bodying up [with] […] the necessity to think about protection policies
[…]; and then some organisations from Brazilian [human rights] movements started to
look at [political] processes in Latin America. […] An important landmark is the process
of Latin American Consultations [about Human Rights Defenders], which happened in Gua-
temala, Mexico and the third and last one in Brazil in 2004. I think that with the more insti-
tutionalised instruments such as the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the
creation of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, the creation
of OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Unit for Human Rights Defenders,
and the European Union’s Guidelines for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders […].
So, […] we started using these instruments and conducting a discussion, exactly when the
III Latin American Consultation about Human Rights Defenders occurred in August
2004, in São Paulo. […] This is a landmark for us […] because it was in the III Latin Amer-
ican Consultation about Human Rights Defenders that we constituted the CBDDH, which
until today […] conducts the monitoring of PPDDH’s implementation […].71

The external and internal pressures exerted on the state led to the PPDDH’s creation, the
publication of Presidential Decree 6.044/2007,72 which regulates the national public policy
for the protection of human rights defenders, and the submission of the PPDDH Bill (PL
4.575/2009)73 by the Executive in Congress.74 In this regard, the analysis of those quota-
tions reveals that Brazilian social movements and human rights NGOs adopted inter-
national human rights norms’ principles and terminology to exert effective pressure on
the state, especially due to the fact Brazil had been ratifying international human rights
treaties since its re-democratisation and, thus, acquired human rights obligations to
fulfil. The socio-political process that led to the creation of the PPDDH shows that inter-
national human rights norms and UN and OAS human rights mechanisms provided
social movements and human rights NGOs with the legal instruments and human
rights rhetoric they need in order to make their claims much stronger domestically.75
To be sure, empirical evidence demonstrate, particularly regarding the PPDDH’s creation,
that international human rights norms and UN and OAS human rights mechanisms
worked as reference points from which Brazilian organised civil society and transnational
advocacy networks demanded effective protection for human rights defenders from the
state.76
The evidence suggests that human rights NGOs and social movements – under human
rights defenders’ leadership – are effective and powerful actors that have proven able to
mobilise significant political leverage for human rights change. They are, therefore,
well-suited as actors to pursue the institutionalisation of human rights norms and their
socialisation domestically by constructing a new cultural politics through social struggles
for democracy, human rights and social justice. It is in this sense that I argue a human
rights state has the potential to work as an ideological argument (‘realistic utopia’) with
which human rights defenders can enhance their efforts to construct a human rights
298 U. TERTO NETO

culture in Brazil. By adopting a human rights state as a political project to be socially con-
structed, Brazilian social movements and human rights NGOs would have a ‘realistic
utopia’ with which to employ external and internal dissonance vis-à-vis the current estab-
lishment and exert effective pressure on the state about fulfilling its human rights obli-
gations. Brazil already ratified the majority of international human rights treaties. It is
thus committed to international human rights law. Brazil’s problem is not about commit-
ment, but, instead, about the lack of full compliance with already internalised international
human rights norms. In this regard, the vision of a human rights state can serve as a
powerful tool to conceptually underpin a campaign for changing the cultural politics
and close the gap between official commitment and full compliance with international
human rights law since it calls for collective political action to make human rights a pri-
ority for individuals, communities and state institutions. But how could a human rights
state be socially constructed in Brazil?
Organised civil society – social movements and human rights NGOs under human
rights defenders’ leadership – campaigning and lobbying for state institutions’ full compli-
ance with international human rights law and for self-granting human rights individuals
and communities adjusting their behaviours according to human rights standards (human
rights norms socialisation) is the best strategy to be employed in Brazil’s case. Campaign-
ing and lobbying would involve all stakeholders – human rights defenders, civil society
actors, and state officials. It would be a political process designed to engage individuals,
communities and state institutions in socially constructing a human rights state. It
would call for reforms politically and legally. The legal reform would involve the fulfilment
and/or enforcement by state institutions of already internalised human rights norms,
whereas the political reform would involve assessing and redesigning the state–civil
society relationship vis-à-vis the management, operationalisation, monitoring, and full
implementation of human rights public policies at federal, state and local levels. Here,
the aim is to make individual and communal behaviours align with cosmopolitan
human rights standards.
Additionally, organised civil society would create a political dynamic or engagement
involving various civil society organisations in order to push forward the social construc-
tion of a human rights culture. Such a political dynamic would amplify its political articu-
lations or engagements and reach out to as many civil society organisations working on
human rights themes as possible. It would also engage with the National Human Rights
Council77 as well as state human rights councils78 to gain their political support. The
aim here is to strengthen the initial political dynamics around a much stronger political
coalition of social movements, human rights NGOs and any other civil society organis-
ations or human rights state bodies that conduct similar activities and, thus, have a
common interest in implementing a human rights culture.
Once the political engagements are settled and the political shield is in place, then the
political coalition would plan, organise and carry out a national campaign for changing the
structures of social authoritarianism towards a new project of society or a human rights
state. It would launch this national campaign publicly and reach out to the biggest –
TV, radio and social – media channels in Brazil. The aim here is to advertise the national
campaign to turn public opinion in favour of the human rights cause. Once the campaign
is out there, the political coalition then seeks further political engagements to build new
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 299

partnerships in order to increase their effective power to exert pressure on the state vis-à-
vis achieving the needed human rights reforms.
The partnerships would occur with the state and private sector (or civil society as
opposed to political society). In the public sector, the political coalition would build up
partnerships with state actors from the executive, legislative and judiciary powers at
federal, state and local levels. The aim here is to reach out to much more progressive
state actors from all three state powers and other people occupying strategic positions,
federal and state deputies, progressive federal and state judges. These state officials
would help face and overcome bureaucratic intricacies and institutional resistances in/
to the pushing of human rights reforms at all state levels. In the private sector (civil
society sphere), the political articulation would build up partnerships with key civil
society institutions and actors who work locally, regionally and nationally. The aim
here is to reach out to civil society institutions and actors with strong influencing
power or those strongly capable of exercising social control over state practices such as
the Catholic Church, the Brazilian Bar Association, the Brazilian Press Association,
leftist political parties, and social movements that still control thousands of militants/acti-
vists who work at the grassroots level. These civil society institutions and actors might help
push human rights reforms even further once they are directly involved in the politics of
human rights domestically.
These reforms would occur through democratic participation in civil society and be
monitored by civil society. Participation and monitoring would permit the assessment
and redesigning of the state–civil society relationship vis-à-vis human rights public pol-
icies at federal, state and local levels. For this to occur, as I argue in Brazil’s case, it is
important to advance human rights state theory so that the significance of international
human rights law for improving the country’s domestic human rights regime is con-
sidered. The majority of international and regional human rights treaties have already
been ratified so that the issue now refers to moving Brazil from commitment to full com-
pliance with international human rights law.79
There are nonetheless obstacles to accomplishing further human rights change with the
help of the idea of a human rights state in Brazil. First, after the country’s re-democratisa-
tion civil society organisations divided into different human rights agendas per specific
struggles for political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights. Human rights NGOs
and social movements have since then been pursuing their own specific agendas and
often disputing funding and political space with each other. This makes concrete
changes more difficult in the face of the structures of social authoritarianism since
human rights NGOs and social movements are divided more weakly than otherwise.
Second, civil society organisations’ partition into different human rights agendas has pro-
duced hierarchies between different groups of rights, for instance, civil and political versus
social, economic and cultural rights. Bearing in mind the Vienna Declaration and Pro-
gramme of Action’s determinations regarding state human rights universality, indivisibil-
ity, interdependence and interrelation,80 this has been not only misleading, but also
detrimental to a unified human rights project for Brazil. The convergence of these different
agendas into a unified political project (human rights state) is thus important for pursuing
a new sociability based also on international human rights law that interprets human
rights as universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.
300 U. TERTO NETO

Conclusion
In this article I argued that, to make Brazil fully compliant with international human rights
law, social movements and human rights NGOs need to radically change the current cul-
tural politics that reproduces social authoritarianism and prevents effective citizenship.
Under the leadership of human rights defenders, social movements and human rights
NGOs (organised civil society) can create a collective political engagement to push
forward the human rights agenda. Human rights state theory might help in this socio-pol-
itical process because it can be deployed towards changing Brazil’s current authoritarian
culture into a new human rights culture. In this respect, I went beyond Gregg and devel-
oped the human rights state theory to incorporate international human rights law towards
establishing a human rights culture in Brazil. I showed that by emphasising the impor-
tance of international human rights law towards establishing a human rights culture in
Brazil, a human rights state provides human rights defenders with a strong ideological
argument that can be combined with the legal argument vis-à-vis the fulfilment of
Brazil’s human rights obligations. To be sure, I demonstrated that international human
rights law provides core arguments to human rights defenders for ways to change dom-
estic cultures that, like Brazil’s social authoritarian culture, are not human rights cultures.
This increases the power of social movements and human rights NGOs – under human
rights defenders’ headship – to persuade the Brazilian nation state to limit its sovereignty
to the extent necessary for a full domestic embrace of human rights norms, that is, to make
human rights norms an integral, internal element of its very constitution and to act in
accordance with it.

Notes
1. Benjamin Gregg, The Human Rights State: Justice Within and Beyond Sovereign Nations
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
2. Evelina Dagnino and Ana Claudia Chaves Teixeira, ‘The Participation of Civil Society in
Lula’s Government’, Journal of Politics in Latin America 3 (2014): 39–66; Evelina
Dagnino, Alberto Olvera, and Aldo Panfichi, eds, La Disputa por la construcción democrática
en América Latina (Juárez, Mexico: CIESAS, 2006); Evelina Dagnino, ‘Civic Driven Change
and Political Projects’, in Civic Driven Change. Citizen’s Imagination in Action, ed. Alan
Fowler and Kees Bierkhart (The Hague: Institute of Social Studies, 2008); Evelina
Dagnino, ‘Conceptualizing Culture: A Perspective from the South’, Cultural Processes News-
letter of the Research Network Sociology of Culture, European Sociological Association 1
(August 2008): 18–23; Evelina Dagnino, ‘Dimensions of Citizenship in Contemporary
Brazil’, Fordham Law Review 75, no. 5 (2007): 2469–82; Evelina Dagnino, ‘Citizenship: A
Perverse Confluence’, Development in Practice 17, no. 4/5 (2007): 549–56; Evelina
Dagnino, ‘“We All Have Rights But … ”: Contesting Conceptions of Citizenship in Brazil’,
in Inclusive Citizenship. Meaning and Expressions of Citizenship, ed. Naila Kabeer
(London: Zed Books, 2005), 147–63; Evelina Dagnino, ‘Os movimentos sociais e a construção
da democracia no Brasil: Tendências recentes’, JILAS – Journal of Iberian and Latin Amer-
ican Studies 7, no. 1 (2001): 75–104; Evelina Dagnino, ‘Cultura, Cidadania e Democracia:
a transformacao dos discursos e praticas na esquerda latino-americana’, in Cultura e Politica
nos Movimentos Sociais Latino-Americanos: novas leituras, ed. Sonia E. Alvarez et al. (Belo
Horizonte: UFMG, 2000); Evelina Dagnino, ‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy: Changing
Discourses and Practices of the Latin American Left’, in Culture of Politics, Politics of Culture:
Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements, ed. Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, and
Arturo Escobar (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998); Evelina Dagnino, ‘Os Movimentos
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 301

Sociais e a Emergência de uma Nova Noção de Cidadania’, in Anos 90: Politica e Sociedade no
Brasil, ed. Evelina Dagnino (Sao Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1994); Evelina Dagnino, ‘An
Alternative World Order and the Meaning of Democracy’, in Global Visions: Beyond the
New World Order, ed. Jeremy Brecher, John Brown Childs, and Jill Cutler (New York:
South End Press, 1993).
3. John Clark, Kathleen Coll, Evelina Dagnino, and Catherine Neveu, Disputing Citizenship
(Bristol: Policy Press, 2014).
4. Daniel M. Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America: Inequality and the
Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
5. Margaret R. Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship: Markets, Statelessness, and the Right to Have
Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
6. Engin Isin, Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2002).
7. Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar, eds, Culture of Politics, Politics of
Culture: Re-visioning Latin American Social Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1998).
8. Dagnino et al., La Disputa por la construcción democrática en América Latina; Dagnino,
‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy’; Dagnino, ‘An Alternative World Order and the
Meaning of Democracy’.
9. Luis Viana Filho, O Governo Castelo Branco (Rio de Janeiro: Jose Olympio, 1975); William
C. Smith, ‘The Political Transition in Brazil: From Authoritarian Liberalization and Elite
Conciliation to Democratization’, in Comparing New Democracies: Transition and Consoli-
dation in Mediterranean Europe and the South Cone, ed. Enrique A. Baloyra (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1987); Thomas E. Skidmore, The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil:
1964–85 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
10. Economic, social and cultural rights are those related to family life, the work place, social
security, participation in national cultural manifestations, access to housing, access to integral
health, access to potable water, access to public quality education, etc. See Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Fact Sheet No. 33: Frequently
Asked Questions on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Geneva: OHCHR, 2008.
11. ‘Just as there was much legal continuity from democracy to authoritarianism, however, the
transitions to democracy in the 1980s did not entirely dismantle the repressive legal appar-
atus that had been constructed under the military rule. For example, the verdicts of the pol-
itical trials in Brazil and Chile were never repudiated by the state, even after the transitions to
democracy. Some of the laws on which the trials were based – and the institutions that pro-
secuted and tried political defendants – still exist’, in Anthony W. Pereira, Political (In)Jus-
tice: Authoritarianism and the Rule of Law in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), 8. See also Francisco Panizza and Alexandra Barahona
de Brito, ‘The Politics of Human Rights in Democratic Brazil: A Lei não Pega’, Democratiza-
tion 5, no. 4 (1998): 20–51; Manuela Lavinas Picq, ‘The Politics of Human Rights in Brazil:
Imposition of Norms From Without or Innovation From Within?’ (PhD International
Studies Dissertation, December 2004, University of Miami).
12. Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, The Persistent Power of Human
Rights: From Commitment to Compliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013);
Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, eds, The Power of Human Rights:
International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999). For an analysis of Brazil’s re-democratisation under the spiral model see Ulisses
Terto Neto, ‘Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil: A Legal and Socio-Political
Analysis of the Brazilian Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defender’s’
(PhD Thesis, University of Aberdeen, UK, 2016); Ulisses Terto Neto, ‘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?’, Revista Quaestio
Iuris 9, no. 4 (2016): 2263–311; Ulisses Terto Neto, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights:
302 U. TERTO NETO

A Call for the Monitoring of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Brazil’, Revista Direitos
Humanos Fundamentais 15, no. 1 (2015): 13–34.
13. Dagnino, ‘An Alternative World Order and the Meaning of Democracy’, 240; Alvarez et al.,
Culture of Politics, Politics of Culture.
14. Dagnino, ‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy’; Dagnino, ‘Os Movimentos Sociais e a
Emergência de uma Nova Noção de Cidadania’; Dagnino, ‘An Alternative World Order
and the Meaning of Democracy’.
15. Dagnino, ‘An Alternative World Order and the Meaning of Democracy’, 240.
16. Dagnino et al., La Disputa por la construcción democrática en América Latina; Dagnino,
‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy’; Dagnino, ‘An Alternative World Order and the
Meaning of Democracy’.
17. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, ‘Democratic Consolidation and Human Rights in Brazil’ (Working
Paper 256, The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, 1998): 1–45, 22; Ajay Guda-
varthy, ‘Introduction: Why Interrogate Political Society?’, in Re-framing Democracy and
Agency in India: Interrogating Political Society, ed. Ajay Gudavarthy (London: Anthem
Press, 2012), 10.
18. The military dictatorship (1964–1985) ratified only two United Nations human rights instru-
ments (CERD and CEDAW), whereas post-1985 democratic governments ratified/acceded
several human rights instruments from the United Nations (CAT, CRC, CCPR, CESCR,
CEDAW-OPT, CRC-OPT-AC, CRC-OPT-SC, CAT-OPT, CRPD, CRPD-OPT, CCPR-
OPTI, CCPR-OPT2, and CPED) and the Organization of American States (ICPPT,
ACHR, ICPPEVAW, AP-ACHR-ESCR, and OP-ACHR-ADP) systems. See the United
Nations Human Rights Treaties: http://www.bayefsky.com/; and the Organization of Amer-
ican States (OAS): http://www.oas.org/ (accessed 19 January 2017).
19. Hillebrecht, Courtney, ‘The Domestic Mechanisms of Compliance with International
Human Rights Law: Case Studies from the Inter-American Human Rights System’,
Human Rights Quarterly 34, no. 4 (2012): 959–85; Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police Kill-
ings in Latin America; Dagnino, ‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy’.
20. Clark et al., Disputing Citizenship, 11. The authors draw on the point of ‘citizenship as imper-
fect’ by Etienne Balibar, Nous, citoyens d’Europe? Les frontieres, l’Etat, le peuple (Paris: La
Decouverte, 2001).
21. Clark et al., Disputing Citizenship, 11; Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin
America; Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship; Isin, Being Political.
22. Risse et al., The Persistent Power of Human Rights, 9–10. See also Beth Simmons, ‘Compli-
ance with International Agreements’, The Annual Review of Political Science 1 (1998): 75–
93; Beth Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Beth Simmons, ‘Treaty Compliance and Vio-
lation’, Annual Review of Political Science 13 (2010): 273–96.
23. Ingo Wolfgang Sarlet, Dignidade da pessoa humana e direitos fundamentais na Constituição
Federal de 1988 (Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado, 2004); Ingo Wolfgang Sarlet, A eficácia
dos direitos fundamentais (Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado, 2005).
24. For more details on this argument see Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin
America.
25. Risse et al., The Persistent Power of Human Rights; Risse et al., The Power of Human Rights.
26. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil; Terto Neto, ‘Making the Human
Rights Talk Matter’.
27. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil; Clark et al., Disputing Citizenship;
Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America; Somers, Genealogies of Citi-
zenship; Isin, Being Political; Alvarez et al., Culture of Politics, Politics of Culture.
28. Gregg, The Human Rights State; Risse et al., The Persistent Power of Human Rights.
29. Gregg, The Human Rights State, 3.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.; Benjamin Gregg, Human Rights as Social Construction (New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2012).
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 303

32. Gregg, The Human Rights State, 3.

33. In the sense that individuals are socialised into values of solidarity on the grounds of mutual
expectations as, for instance, the mutual expectation to have their self-granted human rights
recognised by others.
34. Gregg, The Human Rights State, 6.
35. In the sense that it is an accomplishable political project or a ‘realistic utopia’ as in Gregg, The
Human Rights State, 45.
36. Ibid., 7.
37. Ibid.: ‘To claim rights is the first step toward eventually gaining them, and assertive selfhood
both reflects and motivates this moral autonomy. The human rights project facilitates the
development of a personality structure of assertive selfhood. That project is one of collective
political action. As such, it is one more resource for helping individuals develop assertive self-
hood and a human rights personality. In part, the individual develops by recognizing others in
their self-granting activity. And he or she develops by collectively challenging nation state
authorities to recognize and respect the self-granted human rights.’
38. Ibid., 8.
39. Ibid., 11.
40. Ibid., 13, all original emphases.
41. Ibid., 26.
42. Ibid.; Gregg, Human Rights as Social Construction.
43. Gregg, The Human Rights State, 36.
44. For more details see Antônio A. Cancado Trindade, ed., A Incorporação das Normas Inter-
nacionais de Proteção dos Direitos Humanos no Direito Brasileiro (San Jose, CR: Instituto
Interamericano de Direitos Humanos, Comitê Internacional da Cruz Vermelha, Alto Comis-
sariado das Nações Unidas para os Refugiados, e Governo da Suécia (ASDI) 1996); Paulo
Sergio Pinheiro, ‘Brazil and the International Human Rights System’ (Working Paper
CBS-15-00 (P), University of Oxford Centre for Brazilian Studies, 1999), 1–46; Pinheiro,
‘Democratic Consolidation and Human Rights in Brazil’; Flavia Piovesan, Direitos
Humanos e o Direito Constitucional Internacional (Sao Paulo: Editora Saraiva, 2008).
45. ‘As part of Brazilian society’s authoritarian and hierarchical social order, to be poor means
not only economic and material limitations, but also to be submitted to cultural rules that
implicate a total lack of recognition of poor persons as subjects, as someone entitled to
rights. […] In this sense, the fight for rights, for the right to have rights, revealed what, in
fact, had to be a political struggle against a diffuse culture of social authoritarianism, estab-
lishing the basis from which the urban popular movements could establish a connection
between culture and politics as something constitutive of their collective action’, in
Dagnino, ‘Cultura, Cidadania e Democracia’, 82–3.
46. Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police Killings in Latin America; Dagnino, ‘Culture, Citizen-
ship, and Democracy’; Alvarez et al., Culture of Politics, Politics of Culture.
47. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil; Ulisses Terto Neto, A Política
Pública de Assistência Jurídica: A Defensoria Pública no Maranhão como Reivindicação do
Campo Democrático Popular (Juruá: Juruá Editora, 2010); Maria da Gloria Gohn and
Breno M. Bringel, eds, Movimentos sociais na era global (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 2012);
Maria da Gloria Gohn, História dos movimentos sociais no Brasil: a construção da cidadania
dos brasileiros (Sao Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2012); Maria da Gloria Gohn, Teorias dos Movi-
mentos Sociais: paradigmas clássicos e contemporâneos (Sao Paulo: Edições Loyola, 1997);
Alvarez et al., Culture of Politics, Politics of Culture: Re-visioning Latin American Social
Movements.
48. Dagnino, ‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy’, 52.
49. Terto Neto, A Política Pública de Assistência Jurídica; Brinks, The Judicial Response to Police
Killings in Latin America; Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Har-
court Books, 1994).
50. Dagnino, ‘Culture, Citizenship, and Democracy’; Alvarez et al., Culture of Politics, Politics of
Culture.
304 U. TERTO NETO

51. Leonardo Avritzer, ‘Civil Society in Latin America in the Twenty-First Century: Between
Democratic Deepening, Social Fragmentation, and State Crisis’, in Civil Society and Democ-
racy in Latin America, ed. Richard Feinberg, Carlos H. Waisman, and Leon Zamosc (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Alberto Olvera and Leonardo Avritzer, ‘El concepto de sociedad
civil en el estudio de la transicion democratica’, Revista Mexicana de Sociologia 54, no. 4
(1992): 227–48; Antonio Gramsci, Escritos políticos (Volume I) (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização
Brasileira, 2004); Giovanni Semeraro, Gramsci e a sociedade civil: cultura e educação para
a democracia (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 1999); Alvarez et al., Culture of Politics, Politics
of Culture; Ivete Simionatto, Gramsci: sua teoria, incidência no Brasil, influência no serviço
social (Sao Paulo: Cortez, 1995).
52. Positivisation is a legal-formal procedure through which international norms are
implemented into national legal systems; whereas socialisation would be a socio-political
process through which international human rights norms are widespread and accepted by
individuals within national states. See Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, ‘The Socialisation
of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practices: introduction’, in Risse et al.,
The Power of Human Rights; Gilmar Ferreira Mendes, Inocêncio Mártires Coelho, and Paulo
Gustavo Gonet Branco, Curso de Direito Constitucional (Sao Paulo: Editora Saraiva 2008).
53. Ibid.
54. For more details on Brazil as a middle power see Sean Burges, ‘Mistaking Brazil for a Middle
Power’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19, no. 2 (2013): 286–302,
doi:10.1080/13260219.2013.85335; Daniel Flames, ‘Emerging Middle Powers’ Soft Balancing
Strategy: State and Perspectives of the IBSA Dialogue Forum’ (GIGA Working Paper 57,
2007): 1–30; Eduard Jordaan, ‘The Concept of a Middle Power in International Relations:
Distinguishing between Emerging and Traditional Middle Powers’, Politikon: South
African Journal of Political Studies 30, no. 1 (2003): 165–81, doi:10.1080/
0258934032000147282.
55. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1977); Pierre Bourdieu, Razões Práticas sobre a Teoria da Ação (Campinas: Papirus 1996);
Pierre Bourdieu, A Miséria do Mundo (Petrópolis: Vozes 1997); Pierre Bourdieu, O Poder
Simbólico (Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil 1998).
56. For details on how Gregg develops his argument for a human rights state, see Gregg, The
Human Rights State, 45.
57. François Facchini and Mickaël Melki, Ideology and Cultural Change, Seminar Sepio, 21 June
2011, Mse, Paris 1, France; and Association for the Study of Religion, Economics & Culture,
ASREC Annual Meeting, 7 –10 2011, Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, Washington DC.
58. For details on Gregg’s normative localism see Gregg, Human Rights as Social Construction.
59. See the United Nations Human Rights Treaties: http://www.bayefsky.com/; and the OAS:
http://www.oas.org/ (accessed 19 January 2017).
60. For details see Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil; Jeffrey W. Cason
and Timothy J. Power, ‘Presidentialization, Pluralization, and the Rollback of Itamaraty:
Explaining Change in Brazilian Foreign Policy Making in the Cardoso-Lula Era’, Inter-
national Political Science Review 30, no. 2 (2009); 117–40; Pinheiro, ‘Brazil and the Inter-
national Human Rights System’; Pinheiro, ‘Democratic Consolidation and Human Rights
in Brazil’; Piovesan, Direitos Humanos e o Direito Constitucional Internacional.
61. See Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in
International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
62. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil; Cason and Power, ‘Presidentializa-
tion, Pluralization, and the Rollback of Itamaraty’; Pinheiro, ‘Brazil and the International
Human Rights System’; Pinheiro, ‘Democratic Consolidation and Human Rights in Brazil’;
Piovesan, Direitos Humanos e o Direito Constitucional Internacional.
63. See the United Nations Human Rights Treaties: http://www.bayefsky.com/; and the OAS:
http://www.oas.org/ (accessed 19 January 2017).
64. See Risse and Sikkink, ‘The Socialisation of International Human Rights Norms into Dom-
estic Practices’; Mendes et al., Curso de Direito Constitucional.
 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS 305

65. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil.

66. Terra de Direitos: http://terradedireitos.org.br (accessed 19 January 2017).
67. Interviews with Darci Frigo conducted at the headquarters of Terra de Direitos in Curitiba,
PR, in April 2013, and of Caritas Brasil in Brasília, DF, in September 2015.
68. Secretaria de Direitos Humanos da Presidência da República: http://www.sdh.gov.br
(accessed 19 January 2017).
69. Interview with former Federal Deputy Nilmário Miranda conducted at his office in Brasilia/
DF, in November 2013.
70. Justiça Global: http://global.org.br/en/ (accessed 19 January 2017).
71. Interviews with Sandra Carvalho conducted in Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro/RJ, in April
2013, and in the headquarters of Caritas Brasil in Brasília/DF, in September 2015.
72. Presidência da República: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2007-2010/2007/
Decreto/D6044.htm (accessed 19 January 2017).
73. Câmara dos Deputados: http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/fichadetramitacao?
idProposicao=422693 (accessed 19 January 2017).
74. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Secretaria de Direitos Humanos da Presidência da República: http://www.sdh.gov.br/sobre/
participacao-social/cddph (accessed 19 January 2017).
78. Ibid.
79. Terto Neto, Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Brazil; Risse et al., The Persistent Power of
Human Rights; Risse et al., The Power of Human Rights.
80. OHCHR: http://www.ohchr.org/en/professiona-linterest/pages/vienna.aspx (accessed 19
January 2017).

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Professor Benjamin Gregg (University of Texas, USA), René Wolfsteller
(University of Glasgow, UK), Dr Angela Pires Terto (UnB, Brazil), and Dr Juan Carlos Ruiz
(CEDEUS-PUC, Chile) for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
The present work has been realised with the support of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal
de Nível Superior (CAPES Brazil).

Note on contributor
Ulisses Terto Neto holds a PhD in Law from the University of Aberdeen, UK, and a Master’s Degree
in Public Policies from the Universidade Federal do Maranhão (UFMA), Brazil. Ulisses is a human
rights lawyer and lecturer in law at the Centro Universitário IESB, Brasília, Brazil. He is affiliated to
the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law (CISRUL), University of Aberdeen, UK,
and the Research Group Direito, Sociedade Mundial e Constituição (DISCO), Universidade de Bra-
sília (UnB), Brazil. His research interests focus on human rights theory, protection of human rights
defenders in Latin America, and international human rights law.