You are here: Institute People Academic Staff et al. Viveros Uehara, Thalia
CURRENT POSITIONS
Senior Research Fellow at the MPIL
Postdoctoral Researcher at TransLitigate Project, Public Law and Governance Department, Tilburg University (Netherlands)
Project Affiliated Researcher of the Global Health and Human Rights Project at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School (USA)
Global Fellow at the Centre on Law and Social Transformation (Norway)
EDUCATION
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Global Inclusion and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston (USA) (2019-2023).
Diploma in Human Rights Law (Social and Economic Rights and Distributive Justice) at the European University Institute (Italy) (2018).
Master of Science (MSc) in Environmental Policy and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) (2011-2012).
Bachelor of Laws (LLB) at the University of Veracruz (Mexico) (2006-2011).
DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
My doctoral thesis examines how, through the growing trend of climate change litigation, litigants and domestic courts in Latin America understand and address the coupling of two pressing issues: the severity of climate change and the region's pervasive poverty and social exclusion, particulary the lack of or inadequate access to healthcare—a confluence conceptualized as "health crises."
Drawing on the Latin American transformative constitutionalism framework and using a multi-method approach, the thesis explores the complex interplay between the legal and socio-political factors that influence the outcomes of climate litigation. Through systematic content analysis, as well as doctrinal and empirical research on 77 domestic climate change lawsuits across the region—including interviews with claimants and judges from five case studies in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico—this work assesses the roles of claimants' and courts’ profiles, motives, resources, and political contexts in shaping their responses to the health vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change.
The thesis argues that although claimants and domestic courts have recently begun to invoke and interpret the right to health in light of the region's transformative constitutionalism and international climate change law as a tool in climate litigation, the outcomes often fail to comprehensively address how climate change and health are complexly and distinctively entangled. Leveraging the transformative potential of Latin American constitutionalism to tackle the region’s health crises through constitutional courts appears to be facilitated by claimants pursuing community lawyering anchored in wider social movement structures, the broadening of legal standing rules, the implementation of comprehensive remedial designs, and a deeper judiciary understanding of claimants' social contexts, including knowledge of climate science. Such possibilities are especially promising in countries with progressive legal traditions, such as Colombia and Ecuador.
The conceptual and analytical framework of this study drew inspiration on the ICCAL. The research benefited from the learnings, exchanges, and insights acquired at the MPIL (2021-2022), the Bergen Exchanges, and was further enhanced by the support of the SERA-LSA Research Grant.
Tilburg University (Tilburg, Netherlands)
MPIL (Heidelberg, Germany)
University of Freiburg (Freiburg, Germany)
University of Lisbon Law School (Lisbon, Portugal)
Clínica de Medio Ambiente y Salud Pública, Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia)
2023 Annual Meeting on Law and Society: Separate and Unequal. Presentation: "Inequality and Climate Change: Exploring the Boundaries of Judicialization," at paper session "Inequality, Legal Change and Social Transformation: A South-South Perspective." , San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA, 01.06.2023 - 04.06.2023
2022 HDCA Conference: Capabilities and Transformative Institutions. Paper presentation "Climate Litigation and Health Crises in Latin America: Assessing the Role of Courts through the Capability Approach," at paper session 3.10 "Climate change - adaptation and litigation.", Antwerp, Belgium, 19.09.2022 - 22.02.2024
2022 Global Meeting on Law and Society: Rage, Reckoning, & Remedy. Paper presentation: "The Right to Health in Climate Litigation," at paper session "Legal Actors and Climate Change.", Lisbon, Portugal, 13.07.2022 - 16.07.2022
Dissertation Research Grant (2023, SERA-Law and Society Association, USA).
Carol DeSouza Award (2022, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA).
Chevening Award (2011-2012, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK).
International Society for Public Law ICONs
Law and Society Association (USA)
Red Internacional sobre Cambio Climático, Energía y Derechos Humanos
Graduate Researcher (2021-2022) at the Boston Human Rights Commission (Boston, USA).
Director of Advocacy and Civil Society Participation (2017-2019) at the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico).
Deputy Director of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights Program (2015-2017) at the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico).
Legal Adviser to the Environment and Natural Resources Commission (2013-2015), Senate of the Republic (Mexico City, Mexico).
Member of the Climate Impacts Advisory Committee (2023-2026), Wellcome Trust (London, UK).
Special Rapporteur on Climate Litigation in Mexico at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (2022-2024).
President of the Mexican Chevening Alumni Association (2014-2015).
Spanish, English, German, and French.
