Symposium Posts

Category

The Political Economy of the European Green Deal, Neoliberalism and the (Re)production of Inequalities

While the law is to a large extent responsible for the overlapping social and ecological breakdowns, translating the above-mentioned principles into law means creating legal frameworks (through the interpretation of existing legal rules and principles and the creation of new legal instruments) that move away from the primacy of market logics and extractive profit-oriented economies embedded in colonial legacies, and reproducing gendered and racialized inequalities. It requires designing legal responses that would enable transformative ways of thinking about economies, justice, and our relationship with the non-human worlds, while embedding law and policies in truly democratic frameworks and practices. It means centering within legal thinking and legal practices the multiple forms of exclusions that are pervasive within and outside the EU, and that EU laws and policies often directly enable. Making a fair and inclusive transition happen requires bold choices and unwavering principles. Right now, the EU is quite far from embracing and practicing them.

European Green Deal, EU’s Global Gateway, and Financing for (un)just green transitions

In this contribution, we demonstrate how the so-called Green Deals initiatives which espouse an increasing drive to “catalyze” private financing by using public resources, including development assistance, may create perverse impacts on sustainable development in developing countries. The move may mean an overarching shift towards reliance on private sector to provide public infrastructure and services in ways that ensure a return for the private sector through buy-back guarantees and favourable contractual conditions. Such moves may create contingent liabilities on developing countries in addition to diverting public resources towards the private sector, including foreign investors, and undermining public oversight.

Global Justice and the Transition: Wellbeing and Differentiation

In this contribution, the author makes three claims. First, just transition interventions around the world are dominantly insular and ‘State-first’. The dominance of nationalist just transition policy making is evident in the America-first emphasis of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the EU-first tilt of the European Green Deal (EGD). Second, the insular nature of just transition policies is hallmarking a new epoch of global injustice that, if not cauterized and dealt with early (if not already late), will become a major sphere of global inequality. Third, human and ecological wellbeing as an organizing principle, and differentiation as an implementation framework, will be key to any meaningful attempt to inject the ‘global’ into just transition.

Digital Solidarity and Human Rights: A Conversation with the Outgoing UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity

In July 2023, Prof Okafor presented a revised version of a document which has formed a key part of the mandate’s work since its establishment in 2005, namely the Draft Declaration on the Right to International Solidarity. This document defines international solidarity as ‘an expression of unity by which peoples and individuals enjoy the benefits of a peaceful, just and equitable international order, secure their human rights and ensure sustainable development’ (draft art 1(1)). It goes on to specify that both individuals and peoples have a right to international solidarity, meaning ‘a right of individuals and peoples to participate meaningfully in, contribute to and enjoy a social and international order in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be realized’ (draft art 4(1)). The Declaration outlines a number of corresponding duties, one of which is the state obligation to ‘to take steps within their respective capacities to facilitate the protection of actual and virtual spaces of communication, including access to the Internet and infrastructure, in order to enable individuals and peoples to share solidarity ideas’ (draft art 8(3)). In this post concluding the Special Symposium ‘You’re Not Alone: Normative Debates on (Digital) Solidarity in International Law and Policy’, we hear Prof Okafor’s reflections on a variety of themes concerning the intersection between the digital sphere, human rights and international solidarity in light of the above work and beyond.

Digital Solidarity in International Criminal Evidence

International criminal practice reflects biases toward high-resource languages, affluent states, and prestigious institutions. Along with its many benefits, digitalization of international criminal evidence has begun to further entrench some of the distance between differentially situated individuals. This post seeks to address the role that digital solidarity should play in the collection and analysis of international criminal evidence. Incorporating aspects of digital solidarity into the field of international criminal law would help address asymmetries in public international law and the digital realm through anchoring digital spaces and connectivity to such spaces in universal human rights and combatting the so-called “digital divide.” Through integrating aspects of digital solidarity into the field of international criminal law, legal practitioners can work to prevent the systematic relegation of already marginalized voices

Digital Solidarity in Action: Paving the Way for Collective Resolution of Sovereign Debt Crises

This post seeks to unravel the intricate dimensions of digital solidarity in the face of crises, with an explicit concentration on the predicaments associated with sovereign debt. It argues that digital platforms have great potential to encourage shared responsibility and facilitate collective action to resolve sovereign debt crises. Through the employment of technology to close gaps, smoothen communication, and facilitate collaborative problem-solving, digital solidarity might lay the groundwork for creating internationally endorsed solutions to sovereign debt crises, thus fostering a more robust and inclusive global economic environment. In addition, the post will examine the challenges of digital solidarity in addressing sovereign debt crises. It will examine the underpinnings of international law and policy, exploring how they may influence or shape the notion of digital solidarity and aims to conceptualise effective strategies to mobilise digital solidarity in crisis response and debt resolution. By shedding light on the transformative power of digital solidarity as a practical tool for global economic reform, this post aspires to contribute to a more balanced and resilient global economy. This post argues that harnessing digital solidarity can lead to more equitable solutions to sovereign debt crises.

Digital Citizenship and Digital Solidarity in Africa

The growth in the popularity of the internet around the world, as evidenced by growing user numbers, particularly in Africa, has enabled citizens to harness its power as a tool of agency, creating new global and transnational spaces for civic participation, advocacy, and social change. Digital technologies have become crucial tools for African citizens to highlight concerns, claim rights, and demand social justice. At the centre of this digital transformation are two key and interconnected concepts: (i) digital citizenship to claim rights; and (ii) digital solidarity to act collectively to secure social change. These twin concepts highlight that citizens exercise their rights and collectively support each other in the digital realm. This post reflects on how these two concepts manifest in the African context and how they are shaping the continent’s socio-political landscape.

At the Intersection of Climate Change, AI, and Human Rights Law: Towards a Solidarity-Based Approach (Part 2)

Across the world, public attention has increasingly turned towards two challenges of global proportions: the catastrophic and unequal impacts of climate change and the kinetic development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Driven by an extractivist growth-oriented economic system with roots traceable to the colonial encounter, climate change has left the world teetering on the edge of ‘irreversible’ breakdown, with marginalised communities particularly impacted by its inequitably distributed and existentially destructive effects. At the same time, fuelled by the extraction of vast amounts of raw materials and data, AI technologies have ushered in intensified forms of surveillance, control, and discrimination dominated by a small number of large technology companies, which have accumulated forms of ‘structural power’ that enable them to influence and circumscribe how communities, corporations and States interact and relate with one another. Despite the intersecting nature of climate change and AI technologies, policymaking has tended to remain remarkably compartmentalised. The EU’s Digital Services package, for example, is notable for neglecting to expressly confront the environmental and sustainability concerns of digital platforms. Where intersections are acknowledged, the relationship is often perceived to be harmonious – with AI invoked as a technological saviour for society’s ecological challenges. While amendments to the EU’s proposed AI Act signal some movement towards confronting the environmental concerns of AI technologies, tensions between the two tend to be defined in narrow technical terms focused on energy costs.

At the Intersection of Climate Change, AI, and Human Rights Law: Towards a Solidarity-Based Approach (Part 1)

Across the world, public attention has increasingly turned towards two challenges of global proportions: the catastrophic and unequal impacts of climate change and the kinetic development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Driven by an extractivist growth-oriented economic system with roots traceable to the colonial encounter, climate change has left the world teetering on the edge of ‘irreversible’ breakdown, with marginalised communities particularly impacted by its inequitably distributed and existentially destructive effects. At the same time, fuelled by the extraction of vast amounts of raw materials and data, AI technologies have ushered in intensified forms of surveillance, control, and discrimination dominated by a small number of large technology companies, which have accumulated forms of ‘structural power’ that enable them to influence and circumscribe how communities, corporations and States interact and relate with one another. Despite the intersecting nature of climate change and AI technologies, policymaking has tended to remain remarkably compartmentalised. The EU’s Digital Services package, for example, is notable for neglecting to expressly confront the environmental and sustainability concerns of digital platforms. Where intersections are acknowledged, the relationship is often perceived to be harmonious – with AI invoked as a technological saviour for society’s ecological challenges. While amendments to the EU’s proposed AI Act signal some movement towards confronting the environmental concerns of AI technologies, tensions between the two tend to be defined in narrow technical terms focused on energy costs.