2021 Juan E. Méndez Book Award Ceremony

The Water Defenders: how ordinary people saved a country from corporate greed (Beacon Press, 2021) by Robin Broad and John Cavanaugh is the winner of the 2021 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America.

This is the 13th year of this prestigious award. The award is supported by the Duke Human Rights Center@the Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Human Rights Archive at the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscripts Library.

The Water Defenders tells the story of courageous El Salvadorans who fought together to combat the exploitation of their country's natural resources. As the writers note, while this story is about El Salvador, as importantly, it is "also about how global corporations-be they Big Gold or Big Pharma or Big Tobacco or Big Oil or Big Banks-move into poorer communities in countries all over the world."

Broad and Cavanagh will accept the award during the ceremony and talk about their work.