Category: Publications

Stéphanie de Moerloose, “World Bank environmental and social conditionality as a vector of sustainable development” (Schulthess, 2020)

There has been heated debate regarding the legitimacy and implementation of the World Bank Group’s environmental and social safeguards. These safeguards are nevertheless instrumental vectors of sustainable development in recipient countries, as they are included in conditionality in loan agreements. This book therefore addresses the issue of how to reinforce the safeguards’ role as effective vectors of sustainable development, while avoiding sovereignty infringement and dealing with non-compliance.

In addressing this key question, the book first aims to diagnose the problems faced by conditionality based on environmental and social safeguards. Subsequently, through three case studies, it proposes different avenues for change, e.g. human rights-based harmonization of safeguards across Multilateral Development Banks; institutional changes in the World Bank Group; and a strict assessment of the suitability of the recipient’s context for implementing the safeguards.

Prof. Stéphanie de Moerloose is a Swiss National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin and an Affiliated Professor at the Faculty of Law of Universidad Austral, Argentina (both LDRN partner institutions). She is currently a member of the LDRN steering committee.

Borjana Mikovic & Ajla Skrbic, Pravo glasa i mogucnost participacije u politickom i javnom zivotu punoljetnih osoba pod starateljstvom u medjunarodnim dokumentima i zakonodavstvu Bosne i Hercegovine [The right to vote and the possibility of participation in political and public life of adults under guardianship in international human rights treaties and legislation of Bosnia and Herzegovina], Annals of the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, Serbia, Vol. 68, Year LXVIII, 3/2020, pp. 53-79

Aleydis Nissen, In Kenia is de ene rozenplantage de andere niet: ‘Klagen is ontslag vragen’ [In Kenya, one rose plantation is not like another: ‘Complaining is asking to be fired’], Knack, 24 October 2020.

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LDRN members are welcome to announce their latest publications and/or awards via this list – please send references and links to the Editor by the final Monday of the month.

This book examines the field of ‘law and development’ and asks whether the concept of development and discourses on law and development have outlived their usefulness.

The contributors ask whether the focus on these concepts should rather be shifted to social injustices such as patriarchy, impoverishment, human rights violations, the exploitation of indigenous peoples, and global heating? If we abandoned the idea of development, would this commonly understood (though contested) term be replaced by another, equally problematic one? In raising these questions, the contributors make use of  historical and contemporary case studies to analyse the links between conventional academic approaches to law and development, neoliberal governance and activism.

Dr. Sam Adelman and Prof. Abdul Paliwala are respectively Reader and Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Warwick (an LDRN partner institution). Sam Adelman is currently a member of the LDRN steering committee.

Klaus D. Beiter, Extraterritorial human rights obligations to “civilize” intellectual property law: Access to textbooks in Africa, copyright, and the right to education, Journal of World Intellectual Property, Volume 23, Issue 3-4, July 2020, 232-266 (open access)

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LDRN members are welcome to announce their latest publications via this list – please send references and links to the Editor by the final Monday of the month.

Over the past few months, Dr. Jeff Handmaker of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), an LDRN partner institution, has (co-)authored a number of new publications on the theme of legal mobilization, with a focus on Palestine.

In May 2020, his chapter on ‘Lawfare against Academics and the Potential of Legal Mobilization as Counterpower’ appeared in the book Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel, edited by David Landy, Ronit Lentin, and Conor McCarthy (London: Zed Books, pp. 233 – 260).

Together with Alaa Tartir (IHEID, Geneva), he also contributed a piece on The (Non) Effects of Oslo on Rights and Status to a Symposium on the ICC and Palestine on the widely-read international law blog OpinioJuris .

Finally, Dr. Jeff Handmaker also addressed his research to the International Criminal Court as lead drafter of an Amicus Curiae brief on the question of the Court’s jurisdiction on Palestine, on behalf of Geneva-based organization International-Lawyers.

Dr. Jeff Handmaker is Senior Lecturer in Law, Human Rights and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). He is an LDRN member and co-represents ISS within the network. 

Victor Udemezue Onyebueke et al, Evicting the poor in the ‘overriding public interest’: Crisis of rights and interests, and contestations in Nigerian cities, Cities, Vol. 101, June 2020, 102675 (open access until 19 June 2020)

Maryna Rabinovych, Where Economic Development Meets the Rule of Law? Promoting Sustainable Development Goals Through the European Neighborhood Policy, Brill Open Law, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2020), pp. 140 – 174 (open access)

Apollin Koagne Zouapet & Misha Ariana Plagis, Braamfontein encroaching? An internationalist reading of the South African Constitutional Court judgment on the SADC Tribunal, South African Journal on Human Rights, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2019), pp. 378-403 (published online April 2020)

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LDRN members are welcome to announce their latest publications via this list – please send references and links to the Editor by the final Monday of the month.

Dr. Carolien Jacobs & Bernardo Almeida, Land and climate change: Rights and environmental displacement in Mozambique, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2020

Using the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique as a case study, this socio-legal research report aims to provide a better understanding of how the dynamics of environmental displacement impact land rights and conflict, and the role of international and national legal frameworks in addressing land-related problems caused by this displacement.

Mozambique is a country prone to natural disasters such as floods and cyclones – risks which are increasing with climate change. Resettlement is the major solution undertaken by the government to reduce the number of people living in high-risk areas. But how does resettlement take place? Are people satisfied with their new places of living? Are they compensated for their loss of property and livelihoods? And what about the people who were already using the land allocated for resettlement?

This report, based on both a desk study and empirical research in Mozambique, discusses these questions and shows the realities on the ground. The authors argue that:

• Gaps in legal protection frameworks should be addressed, especially in relation to expropriation processes;
• People’s longer-term needs in displacement should be addressed to ensure that resettlement is a durable solution;
• Collaboration between humanitarian and development actors, as well as considerable resources, are required to address these needs; and
• Close attention should be paid to relations between old and new settlers at resettlement sites to avoid tensions.

Dr. Carolien Jacobs, an LDRN member, is Assistant Professor at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society at Leiden Law School, an LDRN partner institution. Bernardo Almeida is a PhD candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute.

The report is available on the Leiden University website.