Bhatt: Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities: Implementing Indigenous Peoples' Rights to Land in Transnational Development Projects

Kinnari I. Bhatt (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam) has published Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities: Implementing Indigenous Peoples' Rights to Land in Transnational Development Projects (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020). Here's the abstract:

Unrelenting demands for energy, infrastructure and natural resources, and the need for developing states to augment income and signal an 'enterprise-ready' attitude mean that transnational development projects remain a common tool for economic development. Yet little is known about the fragmented legal framework of private financial mechanisms, contractual clauses and discretionary behaviours that shape modern development projects. How do gaps and biases in formal laws cope with the might of concessionaires and financiers and their algorithmic contractual and policy technicalities negotiated in private offices? What impacts do private legal devices have for the visibility and implementation of Indigenous peoples' rights to land? This original perspective on transnational development projects explains how the patterns of poor rights recognition and implementation, power(lessness), vulnerability and, ultimately, conflict routinely seen in development projects will only be fully appreciated by acknowledging and remedying the pivotal role and priority enjoyed by private mechanisms, documentation and expertise.

Call for Papers: Challenges for Law and Development: Responses

Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, will host the Fifth Annual Conference of the Law and Development Research Network, on September 21-23, 2020. The theme is: "Challenges for Law and Development: Responses." The call for papers is here.

Call for Papers: Resistance to development projects in Latin America: Taking stock of the role of law

A call for papers and active participants has been issued for a workshop on "Resistance to development projects in Latin America: Taking stock of the role of law," to take place August 9, 2019, at the Universidad del Rosario, Faculty of Jurisprudence, Bogotá. The call is here.

Cassan, Mercure, & Abdelwahab Bekhechi: Droit international du développement

Hervé Cassan, Pierre-François Mercure, & Mohammed Abdelwahab Bekhechi (formerly, World Bank) have published Droit international du développement (Pedone 2019). Here's the abstract:

Cette monographie analyse l’ensemble des relations juridiques existant entre les pays en développement et la communauté internationale. Elle étudie les mécanismes par lesquels l’impératif de développement s’incarne dans le droit international positif. Elle présente, de façon synthétique et ordonnée, le panorama des institutions du développement (Etats, organisations internationales, techniques juridiques). Elle aborde ensuite les règles qui président à l’action internationale pour le développement. Dans cette perspective, l’ouvrage met l’accent sur les trois grands axes autour desquels s’oriente cette action : les contrôles (souveraineté permanente sur les ressources naturelles, protection des investissements privés, atteintes au droit de propriété) les transferts (assistance technique, transferts de technologie, aides financières), les échanges (l’OMC, l’Accord de Cotonou, le commerce international des produits de base et des articles manufacturés).

Call for Papers: The Plurality of Law and Development

A call for papers has been issued for the fourth annual conference of the Law and Development Research Network, to be held on September 25-27, 2019 at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The theme is: "The Plurality of Law and Development." The call is here.

Call for Submissions: Law, Governance and Development: Critical and Heterodox Approaches

Contributions are being sought for a bilingual special issue of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies on "Law, Governance and Development: Critical and Heterodox Approaches," co-edited by Mark Toufayan and Siobhán Airey. The call is here.

Eslava & Pahuja: The Nation-State and International Law: A Reading from the Global South

Luis Eslava (Univ. of Kent, Canterbury - Law) & Sundhya Pahuja (Univ. of Melbourne - Law) have posted The Nation-State and International Law: A Reading from the Global South (Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

In this article we re-describe the relationship between international law and the nation-state, reversing the usual imagined directionality of the flow between the two. At its most provocative, our argument is that rather than international law being a creation of the state, making the state is an ongoing project of international law. In the article, we draw on the example of the institutionalised project of development to illuminate the ways in which international law creates, and maintains nation-states, and then recirculates from a point ‘within’ them.

Alacevich: Planning Peace: The European Roots of the Post-War Global Development Challenge

Michele Alacevich (Univ. of Bologna) has published Planning Peace: The European Roots of the Post-War Global Development Challenge (Past & Present, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article explores the European roots of the post-war development discourse. Specifically, it shows how British hegemonic plans for post-war reconstruction of Eastern and Central Europe became central elements of post-war development economics. The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe made those plans obsolete, but their theoretical insights remained valuable. Indeed, they were applied to plans for the development of the Italian South, in a Cold War, anti-Communist framework, with the support of the US government and the World Bank. During the 1950s-60s the Italian case was internationally recognized as a development laboratory, and social scientists and development scholars studied it at length. This article discusses the emergence of visions of development in Europe, which occurred not in some intellectual vacuum, but rather through the pressures of political imperatives and the Cold War, the emergence of post-war international institutions, and the practice of technical missions.

Monebhurrun: La fonction du développement dans le droit international des investissements

Nitish Monebhurrun (Centro Universitário de Brasília - Law) has published La fonction du développement dans le droit international des investissements (L'Harmattan 2016). Here's the abstract:

Ce travail, basé sur une étude normative du développement et non sur une étude économique du droit, démontre que le concept du développement influence dans certains cas l'interprétation et l'application du droit international des investissements. Le concept du développement est utilisé sous diverses acceptions : le développement économique, le niveau de développement des États et le développement sous sa forme durable. Sous ces formes, son influence s'observe à deux niveaux : celui de l'identification et celui de la protection des investissements internationaux. Référence est faite à la contribution d'une activité au développement économique de son État d'accueil pour identifier un investissement ; le concept est, de même, parfois utilisé lorsqu'il s'agit de déterminer l'étendue de la protection due aux investissements internationaux. Ici, c'est le niveau de développement et le développement durable qui sont utilisés pour évaluer la protection effectivement due aux investissements internationaux. La protection est ici considérée dans un sens lato sensu : elle englobe aussi la protection financière. La thèse fait valoir que l'utilisation du concept est très contestable pour identifier un investissement, alors que son influence est plus palpable au niveau de l'application des normes relatives à la protection des investissements. Dans ce sens, le livre explique que le concept produit des effets plus concrets sur le droit international des investissements lorsque son utilisation se fonde sur certains principes ou s'accompagne de certaines techniques juridiques. En filigranes, le travail critique aussi l'approche adoptée par les juristes lors de l'étude du développement.

Sinclair: International Social Reform and the Invention of Development

Guy Fiti Sinclair (Victoria Univ. of Wellington - Law) has posted International Social Reform and the Invention of Development. Here's the abstract:

This paper challenges the standard narrative of the ‘birth’ or ‘invention’ of development, which depicts development as primarily an American invention of the decade following World War II, forged by US policy makers in the context of the Cold War and decolonization. in contrast, the account presented in this paper focuses on the sources of development thinking in the international social reform movement of the early twentieth century. In particular, the paper focuses on the European discourses of social reform and social law that arose in the nineteenth century and were promoted vigorously after World War I by the International Labor Organization (ILO). As this paper shows, the ILO's special contribution to the emergence of development stemmed from its efforts to apply a European model of social government to non-European societies, in both colonial and postcolonial settings; and from its work on scientific management, rationalization, and economic and social planning, at both a national and an international level. Moreover, the ILO was an important vector for transmitting these discourses and practices into the postwar United Nations system.

Symposium: The Future of Law and Development

The latest issue of the University of Toronto Law Journal (Vol. 66, no. 3, Summer 2016) includes a "focus feature" on "The Future of Law and Development." Contents include:

• Mariana Mota Prado, The past and future of law and development
• David M Trubek, Law and development: Forty years after ‘Scholars in Self-Estrangement’
• Michael Trebilcock, Between universalism and relativism: Reflections on the evolution of law and development studies

Karimova: Human Rights and Development in International Law

Tahmina Karimova has published Human Rights and Development in International Law (Routledge 2016). Here's the abstract:

Advertisement

This book addresses the legal issues raised by the interaction between human rights and development in contemporary international law. In particular, it charts the parameters of international law that states have to take into account in order to protect human rights in the process of development. In doing so, it departs from traditional analyses, where human rights are mainly considered as a political dimension of development. Rather, the book suggests focusing on human rights as a system of international norms establishing minimum standards of protection of individuals and minimum standards applicable in all circumstances on what is essential for a dignified existence.

Advertisement

The various dimensions covered in the book include: the discourse on human rights and development interrelationship, particularly opinio juris and the practice of states on the question; the notion of international assistance and cooperation in human rights law, under legal regimes such as international humanitarian law, and emerging rules in the area of protection of persons in the event of disasters; the extraterritorial scope of economic, social and cultural rights treaties; and legal principles on the respect for human rights in externally designed and planned development activities. Analysis of these topics sheds light on the question of whether international law as it stands today addresses most of the issues concerning the protection of human rights in the development process.

Call for Papers: International Business Law Scholars’ Roundtable

The Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School has issued a call for papers for a Scholars’ Roundtable, to be held October 14, 2016. Here's the call:

Call for Papers

2016 International Business Law Scholars’ Roundtable at Brooklyn Law School

Advertisement

The Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law will sponsor a Scholars’ Roundtable on October 14, 2016 at Brooklyn Law School. Scholars writing in a diverse range of fields related to international business, economic, and financial law are invited to submit proposals to present works in progress for an intense day of discussion with other scholars in the field. Participants will be expected to read all papers in advance of the Roundtable and offer commentary on each of the presentations.

Scholars selected for the Roundtable will receive a $500 stipend from Brooklyn Law School to defray the cost of attendance.

Requirements for Submission

• Applicants must hold a fulltime tenured, tenure-track, or visitor/fellowship position at a law school or university. Scholars from outside the U.S. are encouraged to apply.


• Scholars who anticipate holding a faculty appointment in the 2017-2018 academic year are also welcome.


• Applicants should submit a 2-5 - page proposal, abstract, or summary of the paper. All papers presented must be unpublished at the time of the Roundtable. Papers that have been accepted for publication but are not yet in print are welcome.


• Possible topics include:
  
  - Conflicts of laws / private international law
  - Corporate law, securities, and international banking
  - Dispute resolution and arbitration
  - International business transactions
  - International economic law (e.g. trade and investment)
  - International intellectual property
  - International taxation
  - International trade
  - Law and development
  - “Mega-regional” economic integration agreements (e.g. TPP, T-TIP, CETA)
  - Regulation of corrupt business practices

Applicants should submit a proposal to Julian Arato ([email protected]) and Robin Effron ([email protected]) by June 5, 2016. Scholars selected to present at the Roundtable will be notified by July 1, 2016.

Bignami: Theories of Civil Society and Global Administrative Law: The Case of the World Bank and International Development

Francesca Bignami (George Washington Univ. - Law) has posted Theories of Civil Society and Global Administrative Law: The Case of the World Bank and International Development (in Elgar Research Handbook on Global Administrative Law, Sabino Cassese ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

For over two decades, the concept of civil society has informed institutional design in the international realm. Empowering civil society has served as a key rhetorical and policy response to the criticism that the social and economic processes of globalization and the international organizations that have emerged to govern the global realm are illegitimate, elite driven, and anti-democratic. This chapter, which appears in the Elgar Research Handbook on Global Administrative Law, unpacks the concept of civil society with the aim of understanding the institutional reforms that have been undertaken in one important area of global governance — the international development law of the World Bank and other multilateral development banks. The chapter identifies five lines of theoretical argument in favor of civil society: liberal, social capital, multicultural, cosmopolitan, and effective governance. It then canvasses the evolving law of the World Bank, with reference where relevant to other multilateral development banks. The chapter demonstrates that the reforms undertaken in the 1990s — analytical and participation requirements in project planning and funding for civil society groups — were motivated by the social capital and multicultural theories. By contrast, the reforms of the 2000s — transparency and consultation — were driven by the liberal and effective governance theories. Surprisingly, cosmopolitan theories that posit transnational associations as representatives of a global people are largely absent from the law of the World Bank.

Bürgi Bonanomi: Sustainable Development in International Law Making and Trade

Elisabeth Bürgi Bonanomi has published Sustainable Development in International Law Making and Trade: International Food Governance and Trade in Agriculture (Edward Elgar Publishing 2015). Here's the abstract:

The concept of sustainable development has become a fundamental discourse in international decision making. To enable pragmatic sustainable development governance, legally coherent, mutually supportive multilateral treaties are both necessary and important. This timely book provides an accessible insight into how the concept of sustainable development can be made operational for coherent law making through its translation into legal terms.

The book is split into two informative points of inquiry. The first part of the book explores the origins of the sustainable development debate and sheds light on how the international community has inadequately operationalized the concept to utilize its full potential. In this view, Elisabeth Bürgi Bonanomi illustrates how sustainable development can facilitate coherent international law making when it is understood as a multidimensional legal principle and methodical norm. The second part of the book adopts this notion as an analytical lens on the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, placing the focus specifically on food security and food sustainability. The overarching discussion contributes to one of the most intricate debates of international food governance and investigates the unresolved question of what a sustainable and coherent agricultural trade agreement could look like.

Providing a comprehensive overview of sustainable development law, its origins, and its current theories, scholars and students with a background in international public law, trade, and investment law, development and human rights law, international relations, and environmental policy will find this book a valuable reference tool. Practitioners and policy makers will benefit from the insight into the search for politically coherent and sustainable legal agreements.

Lamp: The 'Development' Discourse in International Trade Lawmaking

Nicolas Lamp (Queen's Univ., Canada - Law) has posted The 'Development' Discourse in International Trade Lawmaking. Here's the abstract:

The impact of the idea of “development” in international trade lawmaking is often reduced to the principle of “special and differential treatment”, which exempts developing countries from certain obligations imposed by the trading regime. The article shows that “development” has always presented a much wider challenge to the vision of the trade regime championed by the major trading nations. The development discourse has conceived the trade regime’s historical significance, the regime’s aims, and the relationships among its members in ways that were often fundamentally at odds with the conception preferred by most developed countries. The article explores how the development discourse has informed lawmaking initiatives by developing countries throughout the history of the trade regime. While not all of these initiatives were successful or necessarily fruitful, they show that the development discourse in trade lawmaking has always been more than an effort to seek exemption from trade rules.

SFDI: Droit international et développement

The Société française pour le droit international has published Droit international et développement : Colloque de Lyon (Pedone 2015). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

L’équilibre a été gardé entre un regard rétrospectif sur le passé à la lumière du présent et une analyse en général lucide du droit tel qu’il va. Que l’on soit convaincu ou non par l’idée d’un « droit de la reconnaissance » (E. Tourme Jouannet), que l’on adhère ou non à l’idée d’une « gouvernance globale du développement » (M. Salah ; v. aussi les contributions de B. Gueye et G. Aïvo), que l’on estime la doctrine du security development nexus féconde ou non (M. Dubuy ; v. aussi la contribution d’E. Serrurier sur la gestion du dévelop-pement en situation conflictuelle), ces tentatives de renouvellements conceptuels montrent d’abord que l’on ne peut s’en tenir à l’approche marxisante, essentiellement économiciste, qui inspirait les zélateurs du droit international du développement dont, à sa modeste place, faisait partie le signataire de ces lignes [ndr Alain Pellet] (qui n’en a pas de regret – à l’époque, c’était le bon combat).

Elles montrent aussi que, si l’on peut enrichir la notion, l’objectif d’atténuation des inégalités poursuivi par ce que j’avais appelé jadis le « droit social des nations » demeure incontournable. Le concept de développement durable centré sur l’humain, ce qui en fait un « droit de l’humanité » (C. Le Bris), si central dans les débats de Lyon (v. not., parmi d’autres, les contributions de V. Barral, M. Bennouna, E. Decaux, E. Gaillard, R. Khérad, M-P. Lanfranchi ou I. Michallet), en témoigne de manière éclatante : le développement est l’objectif, mais il est pensé maintenant sur le long terme dans une perspective intergénérationnelle et indissociable de la préservation de l’environnement. Comme celui de maintien de la paix, le concept de développement est devenu de plus en plus « englobant » (H. Hamant) grâce, notamment, à la « fonction unificatrice » du droit au développement (K. Neri), qui ne doit pas, au demeurant, dissimuler l’« irréductible hétérogénéité des approches développementalistes » régionales (L. Burgorgue-Larsen).

La multiplication des acteurs du développement (« mal-développement » ? J-M Thouvenin), leur institutionnalisation (L. Boisson de Chazournes, A. Louwette), la recherche d’une « plurijuridicité » assurant « la participation de tous les acteurs concernés, dans leur pluralité et leur diversité » à l’élaboration des normes pour le développement (A. Geslin), confirment la fin du monopole étatique en ce domaine (mais a-t-il jamais été une réalité ?). Peut-on en déduire la mort de la souveraineté ? Certes, dans les années 1960 et 1970, les pays du Tiers Monde étaient obsédés par la nécessité d’affirmer la leur, minée par les inégalités de développement ; la prégnance dans leurs préoccupations de la « souveraineté permanente sur les ressources naturelles et les activités économiques » est le signe de cette (à l’époque) légitime obsession. Selon la formule célèbre de Louis Henquin, il est assurément prématuré d’envoyer les faire-part de décès ; mais la prise de conscience des indispensables solidarités transfrontières, autant que le fait brut (et parfois brutal) de la globalisation conduisent tout esprit raisonnable à avoir de la souveraineté une conception bien tempérée et à y voir la source de devoirs autant que de droits – mais, des droits et des devoirs qui incombent à l’Etat et, parfois, à lui seul– et d’une « responsabilité partagée » (D. Gnamou).

C’est toute la dialectique – peut-être suffit-il de dire que c’est tout l’équilibre à réaliser ? mais ce qui est trop simple indiffère ! – entre le droit au développement et la responsabilité de protéger, équilibre dont l’aboutissement normatif est encore incertain (v. les contributions de J. d’Aspremont ou d’Y. Nouvel, qui décrit l’effacement – peut-être moins marqué qu’il l’écrit – de la question du développement dans le droit de l’investissement) même si l’on est à la recherche de nouveaux instruments de développement, dont les accords ou les contrats de partenariat économique (M. Cardon et J.-F. Sestier) sont un bon exemple, et de nouvelles techniques contractuelles (notamment en matière de « part locale » – M. Audit) ou conventionnelles (vers une OMC à la carte ? – H. Ghérari).

Les quelques lignes qui précèdent n’ont nullement l’ambition de rendre compte de la richesse des contributions au colloque 2014 de la SFDI. Elles suffisent cependant peut-être à confirmer et les propos introductifs de S. Doumbé-Billé : le développement continue de « hanter » le droit international ; et la conclusion de P.-M. Dupuy : il fallait venir à Lyon ! Mais, si ce n’était pas votre cas, il est encore possible de vous « rattraper » en vous plongeant dans ce volume qui en restitue les Actes.

Call for Papers: Jeunes chercheurs SFDI

La Société française pour le droit international (SFDI) will hold its annual conference at l’Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 on May 22-24, 2014. The theme is "Le développement et le droit international." Within the framework of the conference, SFDI has issued calls for papers for two demi-journées d’études. The first will be on the topic "Développement et Droits de l’Homme" and will take place February 21, 2014, at l’Université Panthéon-Assas Paris. The call is here, and the deadline is January 14, 2014. The second will be on the topic "Développement et maintien de la paix et de la sécurité" and will take place February 25, 2014, at Science Po Lyon. The call is here, and the deadline is December 18, 2013.

Dann: The Law of Development Cooperation: A Comparative Analysis of the World Bank, the EU and Germany

Philipp Dann (Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen - Law) has published The Law of Development Cooperation: A Comparative Analysis of the World Bank, the EU and Germany (Andrew Hammel trans., Cambridge Univ. Press 2013). Here's the abstract:

Development interventions are agreed by states and international organisations which administer public development funds of huge proportions. They have done so with debatable success, but, unlike the good governance of recipients, the rules applying to donors have hitherto received little scrutiny. This analysis of the normative structures and conceptual riddles of development co-operation argues that development co-operation is increasingly structured by legal rules and is therefore no longer merely a matter of politics, economics or ethics. By focusing on the rules of development co-operation, it puts forward a new perspective on the institutional law dealing with the process, instruments and organisation of this co-operation. Placing the law in its theoretical and political context, it provides the first comparative study on the laws of foreign aid as a central field of global public policy and asks how accountability, autonomy and human rights can be preserved while combating poverty.

Call for Papers: Law and Global Governance of Development

A call for papers has been issued for the 10th Global Administrative Law Seminar, to take place in Viterbo, June 12-13, 2014. The theme is "Law and Global Governance of Development." The call is here.