5th Global Conference
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Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Monday 3rd July - Thursday 6th
July 2006
Mansfield College, Oxford
Session 1: Targets, Laws and Global Warming
Chair: Ram Vemuri
The Mobilisation of Norms for
Legitimacy in the Global Warming Debate
Cassandra
Star
Department of Economics and Resources Management, University of Southern Queensland,
Australia
Contemporary debates surrounding global commons issues
and their amelioration are inextricable linked with a parallel discourse
of environmental justice. This
paper examines the normative discourse of rights and justice in the international
arena, particularly in relation to the climate change debate. It
is argued that the discourse of environmental justice has served to focus
negotiations on the issue of climate change. The terms “justice” and “rights” have
been mobilised by numerous stakeholders in the debate over climate change
as they seek moral legitimacy for their understandings of environmental
justice regarding emissions reduction proposals, and justice for the
currently, and potentially, affected populations. Differing claims
within the discourse pivot on arguments over equity versus equality and
what might constitute them in the atmospheric politics arena.
In particular,
this paper focuses on the claims of non-governmental environment groups
campaigning on the climate change issue in the Asia-Pacific region. The
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and others argue that this humanitarian
impact of global climate change presents significant issues for the Asia
Pacific region. These groups draw significant
connections between environmental justice and human security in their
advocacy for vulnerable populations in the Pacific, arguing for environmental
justice for these potential “environmental refugees”. The
understandings of this term embraced by environmental NGOs, and their
perception of the implication of population movements caused by climate
change lead them to construct an “environmental citizenship” approach
to climate change issues. These elements are used to gather and mobilise
legitimacy in the global warming debate.
How many Koalas are there on Kangaroo Island?
Sarah
Wilks
Department
of Biological Sciences,
Macquarie University,
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
This study demonstrated how an apparently clear-cut
wildlife management issue was hijacked by a minority group.
Media
coverage and efforts by the Australian Koala Foundation have ensured
Koala populations on Kangaroo Island, (where18 Koalas were introduced
in 1920), remain a topic of debate. Public statements and opinion pieces
by “experts” abound; “farmers” are periodically
quoted as illegally killing koalas; the AKF effectively and regularly
mobilizes a large support base; and the government, having made political
capital of the issue whilst in opposition, is mindful of the political
consequences of any eventual course of action. Meanwhile, the opportunity
to propose expensive high-tech fixes was taken up by some scientists,
to the dismay of the local populace, who have only two sealed roads. As
the debate continues, over 30 000 herbivores are quietly and steadily
chewing the trees to death, spreading silently along riparian zones and
remnant vegetation, leaving dead and dying trees and Koalas behind them.
Using
an Actant Network Theory approach, different actors’ understandings
of Koalas, each other, and the Island’s ecology were explored. Of
particular interest were the means by which knowledge and information
became transformed, and how different constructions became devices to
influence management outcomes.
Several groups/alliances of actors were
discerned, each with its own sense of identity, expertise and concept
of conservation; defined not solely in terms of what a group was, but
also in terms of what it was not.
In particular, ascribed motivations provided definition. There were alliances
and some common grounds between some groups.
Four separate images of a
Koala were constructed and promulgated by groups. It is shown that
one image (soft, cuddly and harmless) had been effectively constructed
for many constituencies, (domestic and international) and has been employed
to influence the outcome of the management debate.
The current management
solution serves no group well, especially the animals themselves.
The Final Frontier: International Environmental Law
and Multinational Corporations
Kristy
Buckley
Department of International Law, Brussels
School of International Studies, Brussels, Belgium
The nature and structure
of international law and the means it has for responding to modern conflict
is antiquated in respect to the types of conflicts that have evolved. The
past three decades have seen an increasing trend towards intra-state
conflict, especially in weak and failed states that are rich in natural
resources including diamonds, timber, copper, and the like; goods that
the developed world pays a premium for in order to indulge their consumer-driven
societies.
Unlike developed countries, which have the ability to
set strict regulations and monitor corporations operating in their country,
these states do not have the structural or political means to regulate
multi-national corporations operating in their territories. Attempts
at state regulation are undermined by corruption of state officials colluding
with corporate managers; it is the people and land that suffer while
a handful of decision-makers profiteer from the resources and their plight.
Often
times this lack of regulation results in local conflicts- about ownership,
land use, population displacement, and access to vital resources. As
of yet, international law and organizational bodies have largely failed
to bring about any substantial regulation over corporations. Recently,
however, there has been a movement by international organizations such
as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
to establish social and environmental “principles and guidelines” for
corporations operating in the natural resource sector.
This paper
will examine the role that extracting industry corporations play in instigating
and fueling conflict in weak and failed states throughout Africa with an
eye to social and environmental repercussions. It
will review the existing body of international law (or lack thereof) that
governs these activities and finally argue that “principles and guidelines” in
the face of violent conflict, social erosion, and environmental degradation
are simply not enough. It is time that international law explore
the final frontier: the environment and multinational corporations.