Direitos humanos como discurso emancipatório? O caso das ONGs que atuam no Brasil

Abstract

Although different actors use today the term "human rights", no one knows for sure what they mean by human rights. Moreover, many authors of International Law and of the Philosophy of Law take this concept for granted. The present work aims to tackle this problem by analyzing the hegemonic concept of human rights and its main criticisms, as well as by studying what means human rights for two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work in Brazil - Conectas and Amnesty International. We will also analyze how both NGOs use this discourse through Discourse Analysis methodology so as to test the current hypothesis: the NGO can give a different meaning to the adopted concept by using the discourse to emancipate vulnerable or marginalized groups of society. In the end, we hope to contribute to both the study of the concept of human rights as well as for the use of human rights discourse. As a consequence, we also aim to contribute to the strengthening of human rights struggle in Brazil.