Latin America

This case study explores the controversies that arise when conservation groups or specialist companies, often supported by international agencies like the World Bank, arrive with their forest carbon pilot initiatives.

The new report ‘Europe and Latin America Towards More Ambitious Collective Climate Action’ provides an introduction to European and Latin American civil society perspectives on international climate change policy and politics.

Taking a look upon the legacy of the World Cups in Brazil, South Africa and Germany this publication gives detailed information about the financial, political and social impact of the mega-event. 

The international community likes to see Brazil as a socially oriented, economically successful state that is sensitive to environmental and climate-friendly issues – a great power on its way to the top; a champion. But in Brazilian civil society, another perception of its own state and the politics it pursues prevails. This publication takes a closer look at this discrepancy between how Brazil is perceived by those outside of and within its borders.

The study analyzes the way in which an adaptation measure carried out in the Mexican state of Tabasco has contributed to modifying gender relations. In the relocation program analyzed, implemented in response to severe flooding in 2007, the housing units built were granted to women.

The 2007–2008 world food price crisis caused political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. This was only the latest example for a functioning food system being an indispensable pillar of a stable economy and a society capable of reproducing itself. A new study outlines steps how the intergovernmental Committee on World Food Security could be expanded towards a politically relevant international steering committee.

Leftist governments in Ecuador and Bolivia have drawn up new constitutions. Buen Vivir – the right to a good life and the rights of nature – has been enshrined in these documents. Buen Vivir is based on indigenous traditions and sees itself as a concept that departs from Western paradigms of affluence. This essay describes the political genesis of a complex concept.

Publication Series on Ecology 17: A short introduction to new concepts for a good life in South America and to nature's rights by Thomas Fatheuer.

The study analyses existing legal means of holding European transnational companies liable for extraterritorial human rights violations. The authors examine four representative legal cases against European companies in Latin America that revolve around problems typical in the region.