Global governance/politics, climate justice & agrarian/social justice
An international colloquium - 4-5 February 2016, The Hague
Colloquium Papers
Organizers:
ISS, Transnational Institute (TNI), Foodfirst Information & Action Network (FIAN), ICCO, Ecofair project, Hands on the Land Project, ICAS, LDPI, BICAS, Journal of Peasant Studies
Co-sponsors:
ICCO, NWO, Ford Foundation, European Commission, etc.
Key contacts:
Jun Borras: junborras5@gmail.com Sofia Monsalve: monsalve@fian.org
Date:
4-5 February 2016
Context
The convergence of multiple crises: food, energy, environmental, climate change and finance – as well as the relationship of these with the rise of important global political economic players: BRICS countries and middle income countries (MICs) has, separately and combined, have triggered profound agrarian and environmental transformations in the Global South and North. There is a global rush to control natural resources: land, water, forest in order to produce food, fuel, energy; for climate change mitigation and adaptation purposes; or simply, for money to make more money in the increasing financialization of agriculture, nature, food system and farmland. Commodities are reinvented. The rise of flex crops – crops that have multiple and flexible uses that straddle not only a single value chain, but interlocking value chains; indeed, value web. Old issues requiring conventional international governance interventions have persisted. Land restitution remains a key demand for displaced people. New issues requiring different types of governance instruments and principles have emerged. How does one govern not just a ‘value chain’ – but a more complex and fluid ‘value web’? The character of nation-states and popular claim-making from below by ordinary villagers and grassroots organizations have been transformed, at least partially. Global governance has been interpreted in various ways, competing on most occasions. Same set of international governance principles, e.g. ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC) can be invoked by fundamentally competing interests: by corporate interest or by poor villagers and their allies. All sectors and actor talk about ‘regulation’ and ‘transparency – but they interpret these in competing and even contradictory ways. Key state/non-state actors try to shape others, and/but in turn are themselves shaped in the process of these multi-actor/multi-level encounters. How do we make sense of all these? What can the academics say that are useful to practitioners and activists – and vice versa? Yet, we are keen not just in canvassing what everyone else is saying about this complex converging issues and policy and political questions. Our interest lies mainly in the intersection of social justice and global governance – in the era of climate change and continuing global land rush. That is, if one’s starting point is to seek social justice – partisan, partial and biased in favour of the marginalized social classes and groups in various societies of the world – amidst the changing patterns of social relations partly brought about by the changes in the international political economic and ecological terrain, then where does global governance stand? What/which global governance principles, institutions, actors and instruments can be mobilized to seek, defend, strengthen or extend social justice – and how? What are the contentious debates, and why does it matter for academics, practitioners and activists to take these seriously?