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Can Rights-Based Approaches Enhance Levels of Legitimacy and Cooperation in Conservation? A Relational Account

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Abstract

Rights-based approaches (RBAs) are increasingly gaining favour among practitioners in the field of natural resource conservation and management. RBAs are a non-binding operational framework through which conservation actors can integrate human rights standards and principles into the design, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of projects and programmes. In addition to promoting the human rights of local populations, it is also argued that RBAs may hold benefits for conservation initiatives. This article draws on existing research on the social psychology of procedural fairness to develop a relational account of how and whether RBAs may enhance levels of legitimacy and cooperation in conservation. This relational account stresses the importance of fair experiences for generating positive feelings of legitimacy and associated cooperative behaviour among individuals interacting with organisations or authorities. On the whole, this article suggests that if RBAs can ensure respect for the human rights of local populations, they have the potential to engender fair experiences and related positive institutional effects, thereby significantly strengthening the overall effectiveness of conservation initiatives.

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Notes

  1. This is a view that is commonly adopted in the literature on international norms (see Cortell and Davis 2005).

  2. For an application of these theories to RBAs, see “Limitations and Alternative Explanations” below.

  3. Tyler recognises that the meaning of fairness and justice and its effect on status may differ from one cultural group to another (Tyler 2006, pp. 156–157). At the same time, reporting on the analysis of a survey examining the antecedents of political behaviour in Africa, he nonetheless finds that “people are more likely to participate in the political process […] when they have favourable social motivations—that is favourable attitudes, supportive values, a positive identity, a view that the procedures of government are fait, and a trust in political authorities” (ibid, p. 85).

  4. UNDRIP, art. 18: “Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions”.

  5. Civil and political rights include such rights as the rights to life, security of person, liberty and freedom of movement, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom of association.

  6. Economic, social, and cultural rights include such as rights as the rights to work, an adequate standard of living, health, education, and culture.

  7. Of course, this search for new conservation methodologies should not obscure the fact that many traditional communities have long served as effective stewards of the natural resources within their control (Fearnside 2003).

  8. Another helpful way of distinguishing between these two approaches is March and Olsen’s distinction between logics of consequences and appropriateness (March and Olsen 1989).

  9. Through the Conservation Initiative on Human Rights launched in 2008, a number of large conservation organisations have signed onto a framework that commits them to “support and promote the protection and realization of human rights within the scope of our conservation programmes” (Conservation Initiative on Human Rights 2010, p. 1).

  10. For a similar argument regarding the developing authority of non-state forms of governance, see Bernstein and Cashore (2007).

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Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the support of the Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies for this research and thanks Benjamin Cashore, participants in the Politics, Environment & Markets workshop series at Yale, Jessica Campese, and two anonymous peer reviewers for their feedback and comments. Thanks are also due to Lindsay Buchanan who assisted with proofreading and reference formatting.

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    Sébastien Jodoin

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Jodoin, S. Can Rights-Based Approaches Enhance Levels of Legitimacy and Cooperation in Conservation? A Relational Account. Hum Rights Rev 15, 283–303 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-014-0312-8

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