New blog series explores ways to navigate law, economies and justice in times of transition
A new series of blogs will invite guest authors to discuss how local actors can engage with and negotiate the law to promote fairer, more sustainable economies.
Farmer watering plants in a vegetable plot in Kathmandu, Nepal (Photo: Sharad Maharjan/IWMI, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Around the world, people are experiencing the social and ecological consequences of economic transformations – from large-scale investments in agriculture, energy, mining, manufacturing and infrastructure, to trading arrangements that integrate small-scale producers in global value chains.
But these transformations can shake established ways of life, drive deforestation, expropriate land and deepen existing inequalities.
Against this backdrop, many are charting alternative pathways and exploring how a law, economies and justice agenda can promote fairer, more sustainable economies and just societies.
From small-scale farmers who are negotiating legal frameworks in ways that work for their needs, to national coalitions demanding law reform and testing approaches to strengthen land rights. Or artisanal miners navigating ways for their priorities to be channelled into global standard setting processes.
In the new blog series 'Law, economies and justice: articulating the role of law for a just transition in 2023 and beyond', guest authors reflect on concrete examples from diverse contexts on how local actors are engaging with and renegotiating the law for social and environmental justice.
Emily Polack, senior researcher, law, economies and justice programmeThe contexts and strategies discussed in the series illustrate the work of negotiating the law to secure rights – complex work that seeks to shift power through exposing and challenging biases in the law, amplifying voices and developing processes to chart change through forming and pursuing alternative visions; ultimately seeking to shape the rules of the game for an inclusive and just transition to sustainable and fair economies.
The series kicks off with a blog from Jagat Deuja, executive director of the Community Self Reliance Centre in Nepal. In the context of Nepal’s alarmingly high dependency on food imports, Deuja explores how renegotiating the law could create a thriving sector of small-scale farmers - increasing productivity and securing food for the nation.
Next in the series, Mutmainnah Adenan and Imran Tumora from TERAS will share how farming communities in North Konawe, Indonesia are engaging with the law as energy transition mineral mining expands onto ancestral lands.
Further bloggers will be confirmed.
Contact
Emily Polack (emily.polack@iied.org) is senior researcher in IIED's law, economies and justice programme
