ERC project RIVERS– Water/human rights beyond the human? Indigenous water ontologies,
plurilegal encounters and interlegal translation (2019-2024), University Carlos III de Madrid
(SPAIN)- seeks a PhD researcher to join an international and interdisciplinary research team led
by the Principal Investigator, Prof. dr. Lieselotte Viaene. LawTransform affiliate Rachel Sieder is one of the scientific advisory board members to the project.
PhD POSITION “UN, human rights to water & indigenous peoples”
ref. 2020/262 – Deadline: 7 November 2020 – Apply here.
RIVERS’s main challenge is to produce ground-breaking knowledge, from an empirical,
interdisciplinary and dialogic perspective, about the contentions and challenges intrinsic to
reconceptualising human rights with different ways of understanding and relating to water.
RIVERS’s overarching research question is: To what extent can international human rights law
come to grips with plurilegal water realities? This project engages with one of the most pressing
questions of this century: the relationship between humans and “nature”. RIVERS tackles two
intertwined core objectives: 1) analysing different ways of knowing and relating to water and
life among indigenous peoples and their understanding of its (potential) violation by extractive
projects; 2) discussing the contributions, challenges and pitfalls of interlegal translation of
differing water natures in plurilegal encounters at domestic and international levels. RIVERS will
develop a multi-sited analysis and empirical case-studies in three contexts: Guatemala,
Colombia, Nepal and the United Nations human rights protection system.
More info: www.rivers-ercproject.eu
Photo: www.rivers-ercproject.eu