Global South

The Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law invites contributions to a special issue on the Energy Justice Framework: Perspectives, Reinterpretation and Implementation in Africa and the Global South. We welcome submissions, particularly from Global South scholars, exploring the concept of energy justice and its framework from multiple situated contexts, together with strategic legal approaches toward its implementation in energy systems.

In the recent past, discussion on the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) has intensified. As the discourse continues, the extent to which competition agencies in the Global South are regulating digital markets has received limited visibility. This is despite competition agencies such as India Competition Commission and the Competition Commission of South Africa having undertaken tremendous steps in the regulation of digital markets.

This Call for Papers, hosted by the Afronomicslaw.org and convened by PhD students (Karin Frodé, Christopher Yaw Nyinevi, and Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew) and affiliates of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, Australia, seeks to examine the broader challenges, opportunities, and debates of digital solidarity in international law and policy. We welcome contributions from both established and emerging scholars with an interest in the topic. We highly encourage submissions from Global South scholars and critical voices addressing these topics in ways that raise matters of concern to Global South communities.

This brief contribution intends to analyse the three proposals, with a particular focus on how each proposal provides for, or fails to provide for (as the case may be), the participation of global south voices in the due diligence processes. Ultimately, I argue that as the draft makes its way through the legislative process, it appears that the EU seems to have taken one step forward but two steps backward as regards the provisions on the participation of global south rightsholders.

The 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly was convened on September 13, 2022 to September 26, 2022. Even as the globe faces a polycrisis driven by the global slowdown, the war in Ukraine, shortages of energy, fertilizer and food, rising interest rates and debt levels, and climate change, the Global South’s leaders joined leaders from around the world to discuss these pressing development issues and work with the relevant global partners to find solutions to these challenges.

The Fair Trade Advocacy Office speaks out on behalf of the Fair Trade Movement for Fair Trade and Trade Justice, aiming to improve the livelihoods of marginalised producers and workers in the global South. It plays a key role in spearheading the global Fair Trade movement’s political and advocacy agenda. It catalyses collaboration within the international Fair Trade movement on policy, advocacy and campaigning activity; facilitates knowledge co-creation and sharing on Fair Trade policies and practices; and leads advocacy work on European Union legislation, policies and their implementation.

In the globalised world that we inhabit, replete with its complex private transnational institutions and multinational corporations, energy law is often far from “national”. That is to say, hard legal problems arising in relation to energy issues within a particular country will often have a remarkably international character that can substantially transcend the immediate jurisdictional confines of the country in question.

The genuine character of our struggles and the originality of our claims are the tests that we must take to shed the accusation of imitation. The ridicule of Westernization has been best described by post-colonial feminists as ‘triple colonization’ which means that we are colonized first by the colonial power, followed by patriarchy and then by Western feminists. When accused of such a mis-step, there is a massive watering down of our concerns. In the words of Spivak: ‘Can the subaltern speak?’

Academic inquiry can be varied, but some of the most streamlined and institutionally regulated ones are those which we conduct during our doctoral studies. The challenge with doctoral studies is not only in bringing out novel findings to disciplinary knowledge but also to present a likeable, marketable, and innovative piece of work. The whole doctoral experience is further enriched but also complicated by the life of the candidates, the geographical location they are working from, and, obviously, the issues that they are studying. In this post, I would like to highlight how international law as a subject is perceived in India, the academic processes surrounding the completion of a PhD, and some of the structural issues and problems faced by the candidates at various stages of the degree.

I’m privileged that my time as an early career researcher (ECR) has been a positive experience. I’ve worked with and been helped by brilliant lawyers and researchers in a collegial, welcoming environment. I’m indebted to them for their time, knowledge, and guidance. Yet, despite this, since I began my doctoral research, I have the unshakable sense that I simply do not belong among these people.