Symposium Posts

The heightened movement of financial capital across the globe, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis, has breathed new life into three long-standing, yet until recently side-lined, debates: the value of cross-border capital controls (increasingly discussed under the banner of ‘macroprudentialism’); dependency theory (key elements of which manifest in the emerging literature on ‘subordinate financialization’); and the role of the state in a capitalist system (discussed in various critical political economy literature, including the influential critical macro-finance scholarship). Alami’s book Money, Power, and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets: Facing the Liquidity Tsunami is a critical intervention into all three debates and serves as fertile ground for a critique of the capitalist state in a highly financialized global system.

I wrote this book as an attempt to think politically about the cross-border movement of money and financial flows in developing and emerging economies, in Africa and elsewhere. Much of the economics literature, whether mainstream or more critical, and whether scholarly or policy-oriented, tends to conceive of this topic as a technical question. If only emerging markets attracted the right amount of financial capital (neither too little nor too much) with the right quality-mix (a healthy balance between long-term and short-term flows), then financial crises, speculative bubbles, overborrowing, and other negative effects could be avoided, and global finance could be harnessed for development purposes. From this perspective, then, what is at stake for emerging markets is to implement the right policies, regulations, and institutions.

Proponents of market-based solutions to social injustice argue that environmental, social, and governance integrated investing (‘ESG investing’) has been able to achieve what courts and legislatures worldwide have not: catalyse the rapid disinvestment from extractive industries infamous for human rights abuses. Critiques of ESG investing primarily make predictions about its impact on corporate conducts in the future. Little research exists linking ESG investing to contemporary community struggles for justice over past and continuing harms. Drawing on my work as a paralegal for the South African social movement Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), and specifically my efforts supporting the Phola Community in its claims against multinational mining giant South32, I argue that ESG investing may decrease the likelihood that communities who have suffered due to corporate misconduct will have their livelihoods and homes restored or receive comparable redress.

Using the question of justice in the digital space to assess current liability regimes, we interrogate the conventional liability regime based on liberal political theory, identify its shortcomings for dealing with the questions of justice raised by the digital space, and propose an alternative to address the identified shortcomings through an alternate perspective of responsibility inspired by the African ethics of duty. This perspective can contribute to the improvement of access to justice and re-center the African ethics of duty in the conversation around quest for justice.

The transnational pursuit of redress for corporate human rights violations in Africa has been partly premised on Western courts providing such redress. Their perceived failures to do so are thus susceptible to being understood as judicial and legal inaction, as may be observed in early responses to the UK Court of Appeal decision last year in Kalma v African Minerals Ltd (Kalma). That decision unanimously upheld the judgment of Mr Justice Turner of the High Court, which dismissed a civil action brought by 142 Sierra Leonean claimants for human rights violations in the vicinity of the UK-domiciled defendant’s iron ore mine in Sierra Leone.

While multinational companies at times play a notable role in conflicts and mass atrocity events, there is an ongoing debate on how and where to acknowledge their involvement when countries seek to come to terms with past wars or human rights violations. Should economic crimes and other types of corporate complicity be addressed within the Transitional Justice (‘TJ’) process? And considering that corporate involvement in conflicts is often transnational, what States and (domestic or international) judicial bodies should be involved in providing justice?

There is the potential to create regional or sub-regional frameworks, which through agreements can handle claims against companies within their territories. This may strengthen local regional capacity, alleviate the allegations of complicity of the state and exemplify the cooperative spirit embodied in more recent collaborative African action. It would demonstrate an attempt at African solutions which are not dependent on home states. Nevertheless, it may not be enough to counter the lack of legally binding responsibility grounded in international law, as it would not be able to bring parent companies, who reside outside the African jurisdiction, within its scope.

L'accès à la justice et à un recours effectif est un principe important reconnu par les systèmes juridiques nationaux, régionaux et internationaux. En Afrique du Sud, par exemple, ce principe est consacré par l’article 34 de la Constitution qui affirme le droit de toute personne à ce que sa cause soit entendue publiquement et équitablement devant une cour ou tout autre tribunal ou forum indépendant et impartial. Au plan régional, les différents instruments de protection des droits de l’homme contiennent tous, une disposition relative au droit d’accès à la justice. Dans ce sens, l’article 7 de la charte africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples affirme le droit pour chaque personne à ce que sa cause soit entendue (Voir aussi l’article 6 CEDH et l’article 8 CADH). Ce principe a aussi été repris par certains textes internationaux récents tels que les Principes directeurs relatifs aux entreprises et aux droits de l’homme (p. 31) ou encore les Objectifs de développent durable (objectif n°16)

Notre propos entend déconstruire le narratif sur la responsabilité des entreprises multinationales porté par les vainqueurs de l’ordre international économique établi depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Nous entendons ainsi mettre en lumière les rapports dominants/dominés, pour ne pas dire les nouveaux rapports coloniaux, déterminant la distribution de la justice dans cet ordre. Il va s’agir plus précisément d’identifier les logiques sous-tendant la justice pour les victimes des multinationales françaises dans les États d’Afrique noire francophone à l’aune du Point de contact national de la France pour les Principes directeurs de l’OCDE à l’intention des entreprises multinationales (ci-après PCN)

This symposium aims to encourage a more systematic and critical scholarly engagement with the delocalization of justice in BHR cases involving harms suffered in African states, and the Global South more broadly. It is our contention that until now, with some notable exceptions, scholarly debates in the BHR sphere have insufficiently focused on the justification for, effectiveness of, and alternatives to this uprooting strategy. Yet, this delocalization lies at the heart of many legal processes and regulatory mechanisms aimed at delivering justice (or corporate accountability) in the Global North for harms that occurred in the Global South. Interrogating this delocalization, and imagining alternative strategies that would enable local populations to gain greater agency through local political and legal processes, should be at the core of scholarship and activism in the BHR field.