ABSTRACT
The urban commons represent an excellent example of the convergence of claiming the commons and commoning, and significantly contribute to the analysis from a legal perspective. The search for a definition guided or influenced the work of several actors working on the commons. However, the data collected remained available and hence represent a rich, though not exhaustive, database of what activists and scholars interviewed think about the commons, and which is representative of informants’ perspective and backgrounds. In the struggles for community land rights, while reshaping internal power dynamics, these women act as human rights defenders. The elements of resistance against commodification and neo-liberal policies, and, in some cases, of actual social struggle, are embedded in the idea that commons and human rights are strongly interconnected. The human rights discourse is clearly mentioned by the work of the Rodota Committee and finds its correspondence in International law.
