New book: Dr. Kinnari Bhatt, “Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities: Implementing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Land in Transnational Development Projects” (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities: Implementing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Land in Transnational Development Projects, Kinnari Bhatt (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

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. This book:

  • Introduces the phenomenon of transnational development projects as a new field for multi-disciplinary research, policy making and corporate practice
  • Provides fresh, rigorous and real-life case study and documentary illustrations into the interfaces and tensions between technical, algorithmic and hidden contractual and policy mechanisms, neoliberal values and the implementation of customary rights to land
  • Provides practical recommendations for a preventative remedial agenda that can inform those engaged in private sector development, the implementation of land rights issues, and business and human rights

Dr. Kinnari Bhatt is a postdoctoral researcher on the research project ‘integrating normative and functional approaches to the rule of law and human rights’ (INFAR). The project is a cross-disciplinary initative of  the Erasmus University School of Law in Rotterdam and the International Institute of Social Studies in the Hague (an LDRN partner institution).

To obtain a 20% discount on this book, order via Cambridge University Press using the code BHATT2020