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Brazil

ASAP Brazil aims to contribute to the fulfillment of the most basic of the Millennium Development Goals: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Although in Brazil the goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015 has technically already been achieved—while 25.6% of the Brazilian population was living in extreme poverty by 1990, the figure dropped to 4.8% in 2008—this decline conceals the cruel reality: in 2008, 8.9 million Brazilians were still living under less than $1.25 a day.

In this regard, ASAP Brazil aims to stimulate academic research on the various ways to fight poverty, and to encourage further discussion of their effectiveness. The ASAP Brazil launch conference took place in Sao Paulo, in December 2013, and the Superior School of the Brazilian Public Federal Prosecutor’s Office (Escola Superior do Ministério Público da União – ESMPU) sponsored the initiative. The Brazilian Public Federal Prosecutor’s Office (Ministerio Publico Federal – MPF) in partnership with an interdisciplinary academic network organized the launch conference. There was an inaugural lecture by Professor Thomas Pogge and five panels, which included lectures by some renowned Brazilian jurists and researchers.

The Brazilian Public Federal Prosecutor’s Office  (Ministerio Publico Federal – MPF) has been coordinating the ASAP Brazil initiative. Researchers and other institutions are currently joining ASAP Brazil’s research groups, which seek to promote academic research on the structural causes of poverty, at both the global and domestic level. Also, we are currently working on ASAP Brazil’s structure as an ASAP chapter with its own regulation. We have recently begun the process of appointing our Board of Directors.

ASAP Brazil will host 4 research groups: right to education, right to health, access to justice, and right to urban development/right to the city. The coordinators of the panels in the launch conference have been now appointed as the project coordinators in each of these groups. The project coordinators are now working on the outline of their research group’s activities, as described below. The first research outcomes will be presented in the second ASAP Brazil conference.

People

clarice

Clarice Seixas Duarte holds a PhD in philosophy and general theory of law from the  Faculty of Law, University of São Paulo. Her dissertation topic was “the public right to elementary education in 1988 Brazilian constitution”.  She is a professor in the Graduate Program in Political and Economic Law at Mackenzie University, where she leads the research group “Law and Public Policies”. Her research focuses human rights, with particular emphasis on the implementation of social rights and the role of education policy in ending poverty and reducing social inequalities. She is the ASAP Brazil co-chair, and the ASAP Brazil Right to Education Research Group coordinator. (clasduarte@uol.com.br).

 

ThanaThana Cristina de Campos is a DPhil in law candidate at the University of Oxford. Her main areas of research interest are moral and political philosophy, global justice and institutional reforms. Her research focuses on the responsibilities for the global health crisis. Her recent book, Transnational Corporations and Human Rights – Pharmaceutical Corporations as a Case Study (in Portuguese, Ed.Forum, 2012) discusses what kind of moral responsibilities pharmaceutical firms have in relation to the right to health, focusing on the debates within the United Nations (particularly within the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, where was a research intern in 2008). Thana is the ASAP Brazil co-chair, and the ASAP Brazil Right to Health Research Group coordinator. (thana_campos@yahoo.com.br)

 

InesInês Virgínia Prado Soares is Regional Federal Prosecutor in São Paulo/Brazil. She holds a MA (2000) and  PhD (2007) in law from the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). She was a post-doctoral researcher (2009/2010) at the Center for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo. Her research focuses on human rights in Brazil and the possible link between cultural heritage, social rights, human rights, and access to justice.   Inês Soares is the ASAP Brazil chair, and the ASAP Brazil Access to Justice Research Group coordinator. (inespradosoares@hotmail.com).

 

imagesSandra Akemi Shimada Kishi is Regional Federal Prosecutor in São Paulo/Brazil. She holds a BA in law, and a MA in environmental law. She is guest professor in environmental law at the Piracicaba Methodist University (2005-2014). She is the coordinator of the courses on Human Rights and Public Policy for Federal Prosecutors (2010-2011) and on Rights of Cultural Heritage in the Union Prosecution Office’s Superior School (2013-2014). She was a researcher on DFG-project on Access and Benefit-Sharing of Genetic Resources in Brazil, Germany and Kenya – 2007/2009, in Bremen University/Germany. She represents the Federal Prosecution Office on the National Council of Management of Genetic Resources of Ministry of Environment in Brazil since 2010. She coordinates the working group of prosecutors on Water Resources of the Federal Prosecution Office (4th Chamber of Coordination and Revision) since 2009. (sask22@gmail.com).

 

ClaudiaClaudia Moraes de Souza is a historian, holding a Ph.D. in social history from the University of São Paulo/USP, lecturer in the history of contemporary Brazil at the São Paulo School of Politics and lecturer in business at the University of São Paulo Federal.  She is a faculty member and advisor to the Masters Program  “Humanities, Law and other Sources of Legitimacy” at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences at USP. She is a researcher for Diversitas–Center Studies of Diversity, Conflict and Intolerance. Diversitas operates in the areas of research State and Society with studies of social movements, social policy and cultural policy.

Projects

Right to Education Research Group

Efforts:

1) Project on the right to education and public policies to reduce inequality and promote development and poverty reduction in Brazil

Research on educational public policy from a legal perspective demonstrates that certain factors influence the implementation of rights to education. Of major relevance is the presence or absence of mechanisms connecting the stages and actors involved in the process. The purpose of this research group is to identify unique initiatives and strategies with the goal of disseminating successful practices, expanding the implementation of the right to education. Our focus is, in particular, the impact of educational public policies aimed at reducing poverty, by decreasing social inequality and promoting economic development.

Leaders

Clarice Seixas Duarte holds a PhD in Philosophy and General Theory of Law, Faculty of Law, University of São Paulo, with a dissertation bout “The public right to elementary education in 1988 Brasilian Constitution”.  She is a Professor in the Graduate Program in Political and Economic Law from Mackenzie University where she leads the Research Group “Law and Public Policies”. Her research focuses human rights, with particular emphasis on the implementation of social rights and the role of education public policies to end poverty and reduce social inequalities. (clasduarte@uol.com.br).

Maria Paula Dallari Bucci, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of São Paulo – USP. Professor of Public Law at USP (2012), PhD (2000), MSc (1994) and BA in Law (1987) USP, and Professor of the Graduate Program in Political and Economic Law from Mackenzie University, in São Paulo. She is also the Secretary of Higher Education at the Brazilian Ministry of Education (2008-2010), and counselor of the MEC (2005-2008). She is the author of “Foundations for a Theory of Legal Public Policy” (Saraiva, 2013), “Administrative Law and Public Policy” ( 2000) and “Public Policy: Reflections on the Legal Concept” (2006), among others. She has extensive professional experience in the area of Public Law, acting on the following topics: public law, public policy, education law, administrative law, higher education and technological innovation.

Alessandra Gotti graduated from the Law School of the Pontific Catholic University of São Paulo – PUC-SP (1997) Master and Doctor in State Law, in the Constitutional Law sub-area, respectively (2003 and 2009), both by PUC-SP. Professor of Constitutional Law at Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco. Consultant of the “Todos pela Educação” Movement (Everyone for Education in the translation to English) in the “Justice for Quality in Education” Program. Member of the Inter-Institutional Workgroup on Childhood Education (GTIEI). Author of various articles and books “Direitos Sociais: fundamentos, regime jurídico, implementação e aferição de resultados” (2012) and “Direitos Sociais: eficácia e acionabilidade à luz da Constituição de 1988” (2005).

2) Project on the right to education as a means to combat poverty and gender inequality

This project is focused on the relationship between education, gender equality and racial equality. It assesses educational policy as a means to combat poverty and fix the inequalities that still strongly mark Brazilian society, despite government efforts made in recent years in order to reduce them. Considering that Brazil is still one of the most unequal countries in the world, it is extremely important to assure that education will no longer be a mechanism that legitimates these inequalities. Thus a non-sexist and non-racist education as well as an appropriate training of education professionals not to perpetuate these inequalities is a key factor in building a more fair and pluralistic society. This is the path to bring into effect the objectives of the Republic as stated in the Brazilian Constitution.

Leaders

Patrícia Bertolin holds a PhD in Labor Law from Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Vice-Director of the Faculty of Law at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie (UPM) and Professor of the Graduate Program in Political and Economic Law at UPM . (ptmb@uol.com.br)

3) Project on public policy, fundamental rights, and education analyzed from the perspective of jurimetrics

Themes such as public policy, fundamental rights and education are examined in this project from the perspective of jurimetrics. The discipline of jurimetrics makes use of  statistical analysis and survey data in the analysis of judicial decisions to contribute to the formulation of better public policies. Project leader Felipe Chiarello de Soza Pinto supervises theses in the educational law area and also coordinates the research project “State and Economy”, whose objectives are to understand the central role of the state in explanations of political and social change, respecting the historicity of social and political structures; to understand the implications at the national level of development in a global context of change; and to understand the history, the regularities and (un)structural continuities of modern states.

Leaders

Felipe Chiarello de Souza Pinto holds a doctoral degree and Master degree in Law from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. Was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Higher Council and the Area Law Committee CAPES-MEC, where headed the Classification Committee Books. Currently he is the Coordinator of Extension, Professor of Graduate and Professor of the Stricto Sensu Post-Graduate Program in Law of Mackenzie Presbiterian University, Member of the Scientific Committee of the Journal of ANPG: “Science, Technology and Education Policy, institutional scientific journal published by the National Association Post-graduate and member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Attorney General of the Central Bank, the referee Area  Law of CAPES-MEC and Assistant Secretary of CONPEDI. (chiarello.felipe@gmail.com )

The ASAP Brazil Right to Education Group is coordinated by Clarice Duarte. If you would like to be involved in our projects, please contact Clarice at (clasduarte@uol.com.br).

The Right to Health Research Project

Efforts:

1) Project on global health governance and institutional reforms

There is an important discussion of the legal and moral duties of wealthy states, individuals, pharmaceutical companies and research universities in relation to the protection of intellectual property rights over essential drugs and the human right to health. Access to medicines and access to medical knowledge are problematic when it comes to the so-called ‘neglected diseases’, which are diseases afflicting only or mainly poor populations and which cause 2.6 million deaths every year. Since these diseases afflict the poorest populations, who have little or no purchasing power, the pharmaceutical industry lacks market incentives to invest in research and development for drugs addressing them. This leads to the so-called ‘10/90 gap’, meaning that neglected diseases account for 90% of the global diseases burden, but only 10% of all global health research and development addresses them.

The ASAP Brazil Right to Health Research Project calls for the reform of institutional rules and practices that, unlike charity-based strategies and poverty eradication outcomes, are directly within the control of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful global players. When it comes to addressing neglected diseases and violations of the right to health, there are certain reforms to institutional rules and practices, both globally and domestically, that could have a major impact: (i) intellectual property law, (ii) international trade law; (iii) international human rights law, including in particular the right to health; (iii) domestic human rights laws, including in particular health care legislation and court decisions.

The ASAP Brazil Right to Health Research Group aims to produce a collection of papers on these topics. Many of these papers will discuss these topics in relation to the Health Impact Fund — a promising institutional alternative to the current TRIPs regime. (You can find our op-Ed on the HIF, in Portuguese, at Folha de Sao Paulo here: (http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/opiniao/2014/01/1401433-thana-campos-jose-augusto-barreto-filho-e-thomas-pogge-democratizar-a-industria-farmaceutica.shtml). The papers will be presented at the second ASAP Brazil conference, and then co-edited by Thomas Pogge and Thana Campos. The idea is to publish the collection either as a book or as a special edition in a relevant international journal.

Right to Health Research Team:

Project on a Health Impact Fund Brazilian Pilot:

ASAP-Brazil Right to Health Group is led by Thana Campos. If you would like to be involved in our projects, please contact Thana (thana_campos@yahoo.com.br)

The Access to Justice Research Project

Efforts:

The Access to Justice Project by the Brazilian Public Prosecutor’s Office

The Access to Justice Project, led by the Brazilian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF), aims to select certain judicial and extrajudicial activities undertaken by members of the MPF that contribute to poverty alleviation, and disseminate them among academic researchers. The Brazilian Constitution gives to the Brazilian Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) a much broader scope compared to other countries: the activities within the MPF deal with civil procedures involving collective rights, and, as such, it may impact public policy. On top of that, the MPF also deals with its more customary roles related to criminal procedures. Both civil and criminal law activities that are relevant for the purposes of ASAP Brazil will be shared and debated among the ASAP academic community.

The Right to the City Research Group

The city is a “human work”, presented as a common living space, and simultaneously it is built from strong symbolic and/or material relations that constitute borders, create hierarchy, and subordinate classes and social groups in their social, economic or cultural relations.

In the contemporary city, the poor, migrants, the displaced, the homeless, and the immigrant workforce are a constant presence, playing key roles in the economy. Latin America built its cities in a context of extensive human mobility and with the world of work closely tied to the world of capital.

The theme “the Right to the City” is related to major contemporary issues in cities and social conflicts that constitute the struggle for the city and for rights. We understand the city as the special and temporal manifestation of the dilemmas of unequal and subordinate, on scales of national and transnational, cultural, economic, social and political boundaries.

This perspective is what we call the Right to the City. The right to the city is a utopia, a political platform to be built and utilized by all. It is the law that results from the popular struggle against the logic of production, which commercializes the city and transforms urban space into a locus of the socio-metabolism of capital. The Right to the City is undertaken by people in struggle for a new social praxis, that democratizes the city, overcomes the hegemony of the logic of exchange value, and requalifies social relations in the urban areas

Efforts:

1) Globalization and poverty criminalization: networks and strength of solidarity among displaced people in São Paulo

Researchers from the School of Economics, Politics and Business (Eppen)/ UNIFESP, proponents of the research project Globalization and poverty criminalization are investigating the relationships between internationalization, poverty, and social mobilization. The project emerges from three concepts:

    • Capital Globalization: the role of emerging economies and the social reproduction of inequalities.
    • Poverty in the City: the criminalization of poverty and the fight for the right to citizen defense.
    • The Poverty of The Other: immigrant presence, welcoming citizens, and human rights struggles citizens and their human rights.

The axis Capital Globalization seeks to relate the current stage of development of historical capitalism—globalization—to the internationalization of the work, its contradictions, and the widening of social divisions into peripheral realities.

In the axis Poverty in the City, the aim is to deepen the analysis of the practices of stigmatization and criminalization of poverty, based on what Wacquant (2001) termed social panopticism, surveillance, and enforcement policies of the state on so-called “sensitive populations”.

Finally, in the axis The Poverty of The Other, we focus on the relationship between poverty, human mobility, and the struggle for the right to the city. In our view, before the whole complexity of the subject, an important dimension of globalization is reflected in international migration and the tendency of countries of destination towards generating privileged social spaces in the presence of (im)migrant labor. The work proceeds with a focus on unveiling the economic and political position of international migration and spaces that receive immigrants.

Leaders

Claudia Moraes de Souza, is a historian, holding a Ph.D. in social history from the University of São Paulo/USP, lecturer in the history of contemporary Brazil at the São Paulo School of Politics and lecturer in business at the University of São Paulo Federal.  She is a faculty member and advisor to the Masters Program  “Humanities, Law and other Sources of Legitimacy” at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences at USP. She is a researcher for Diversitas–Center Studies of Diversity, Conflict and Intolerance. Diversitas operates in the areas of research State and Society with studies of social movements, social policy and cultural policy.

Analia Ribiero, psychologist, coordinator of projects and programs relating to protection of victims and threatened witnesses, human trafficking, human rights, conflict mediation, violence prevention, advocacy, and international policy.  Analia graduated in Psychology from the University of Human Science of Olinda FACHO. She is a specialist in witness protection, for Scotland Yard and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. She is a specialist in human rights and witness protection at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro/UFRJ. She has certificates in conflict mediation from the Secretary of Justice and Defense of Citizenship/São Paulo Government, the Open University of Environment and of the Peace Culture, and the Brazilian Center for Studies and Legal Research. She did post-graduate work at Diversitas.

Esther Solano has a Ph.D. in Social Science in Complutense University of Madrid. She teaches international relations at the São Paulo School of Politics and Business of the University of São Paulo Federal. She is a researcher for Diversitas.

Past Events

The Public Attorney’s Office – 3rd Region (hereinafter PPR-3) makes available to the public the videos of the launch in Brazil of ASAP–Academics Stand Against Poverty, an international platform and academic network against poverty.

The first ASAP Brazil Conference took place in Sao Paulo, on the 5th and 6th, December, 2013. The list of 23 videos bellow shows the topics and respective speakers in the event.

List of videos in chronological order:

PANEL I

THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION AND PUBLIC POLICY FOR THE REDUCTION OF INEQUALITY, PROMOTION OF DEVELOPMENT AND FOR THE FLIGHT AGAINST POVERTY

PANEL II

ACCESS TO HEALTH FOR PEOPLE IN POVERTY CONDITIONS

PANEL III

THE RIGHT TO URBAN DEVELOPMENT: INTERNATIONALIZATION, POVERTY AND CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL CHALLENGES

PANEL IV

POVERTY, ACCESS TO JUSTICE and UNIVERSAL RIGHTS IN BRAZIL

PANEL V

SOCIAL SECURITY AND CONVERGENCE POLICIES FOR THE ELIMINATION OF POVERTY IN BRAZIL

Welcome to ASAP

Established in 2010, Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) is an international community of academics confronting the rules and practices that perpetuate global poverty. Our evidence-based approach provides:

• alternatives to conventional analysis by media and governmental organizations,
• proposals for reforming national and supranational rules and policies,
• public education encouraging citizens to understand and engage with critical issues.

Academics Stand Against Poverty is registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the United States (EIN #32-0324998)

Our Board

Our board includes leading academics from a variety of fields, all with a passionate interest in poverty alleviation.
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Our Mission

We seek the elimination of global poverty, as guided by rigorous evidence-based and normative scholarship.
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We gladly accept all media inquiries, general inquiries, inquiries for national ASAP Chapters and other suggestions.
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