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Contribution short abstract

I argue how the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) present reflexive globalisation through Climate Change litigations, to renegotiate development, by: visiblising and resetting the terms of myopic-capitalist development; and focus-shifting fron the developmental discourse.

Contribution long abstract

Reflexive globalisation has the potential to reveal the capitalist-imperialist substratum of Globalisation. ‘Globalisation’ sedimented the Developed-developing dichotomy, and helped in replacing (and mimicking) the civilised-uncivilised scale, thereby pushing the States to a developmental race. The compromises on Climate were easy to make in the name of ‘development’. The Cartesian detachment had already created a detached view of humans toward their environment, making these compromises with the environment easier. But the recent Climate Change litigations—domestic, regional and international—have revised the landscape of Globalisation, and shown Reflexive globalisation in praxis. In this work, I argue that the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), as a subset of post-colonial developmental States, present reflexive globalisation through recent Climate Change litigation across the globe, to reset the terms of negotiating development. These litigations are significant in: first, visiblising and resetting the terms of the myopic-capitalist development; second, focus-shifting of the developmental discourse to Climate Change (replacing the diametric opposite popular ideas of Climate being attuned to the needs of development).

To set the context, I briefly introduce and refer to two things: first, the artificially constructed dichotomy of developed-developing/underdeveloped; and second, the capitalist-imperial discounts of the Climate (starting with the predatory practices of farming introduced in the colonial era to the establishment of numerous factories in the developing/underdeveloped States). I then contrast these two elements with the recent Climate Change litigation at various courts to weigh their (legal and symbolic) significance as reflexive globalisation praxis and a form of renegotiating development.