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- Convenors:
-
Boris Braun
(University of Cologne)
Katharina Gröne (University of Cologne)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Anthropology (x) Law (x) Inequality (y) Futures (y)
- Location:
- Philosophikum, S84
- Sessions:
- Saturday 3 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
This panel invites African perspectives on environmental and human rights legislation, policy articulation and standard setting, i.e. EU's upcoming HRDD directive or Fairtrade Standards. It contributes African perspectives on the debate about a Just Transition in Global Production Networks.
Long Abstract:
Africa and the rest of the world are ever more tightly connected through supply chains within Global Production Networks. Yet, there is little global dialogue on solutions for unfair trade relations and the uneven distribution of resources and profits within these supply chains outside of international organisations, such as the UN or the G20. African academia's perspectives on environmental, resource and climate justice are still broadly missing in the debates on justice in Global Production Networks and a Just Transition, despite the continent being the hot spot for many human rights atrocities and environmental problems attributed to corporate business.
This panel invites African perspectives on what a Just Transition could mean and how it might be achieved. It shall conceptualize human and environmental rights legislation, policy articulation and standard setting, such as the EU's upc0ming HRDD directive, the EU's Deforestation Regulation, the German supply chain law, international CSR standards, and the Fairtrade system, as cultural and political processes of negotiation about norms and values. This panel invites African perspectives from different disciplines on ideas of justice within African intellectual tradition, theory and history of ideas. Imaginaries, expectations and visions will be discussed in hindsight of their potential to contribute to the future of corporate engagement in Africa and its meaning for human and environmental rights.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 3 June, 2023, -Dennis Agelebe (Jindal Global Law School, India) Richard Byron-Cox (UNCCD)
Paper short abstract:
Please refer to the extended abstract. I had severe technical issues with pasting the short abstract here.
Paper long abstract:
Creating economic blocs amongst the African states was seen as a way of stimulating faster, competitive economic development for the continent. Most of these blocs were conceptualized and birthed when environmental concerns were not a justified discussion area compared to the rising poverty rate in African countries. But Africa continues its remodelling to become a relevant player in the Western-designed globalization canopy by reorganizing the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) to become the African Union (AU) and creating the African Continental Free Trade Area AfCFTA. The question of how the competing interest for development and environment will shape African trade laws under a globalized market remains a veiled topic not often given concrete talk time in African continental meetings. Sub-regional blocs concentrate more on how a free market regime under AfCFTA can benefit their economies while leaving States to decide how their trade laws may affect their commitments under the Paris Agreement. This paper examines how the sub-regional blocs can play a more decisive role in pursuing a fair-trade deal for African countries with legal instruments that guarantee environmental justice for present and future generations. A critical assessment of the treaties and declarations that make up the legal instruments establishing the trade relationships of the African states per sub-regions intends to understand the extent of the consideration for local and global legal commitments to temperature reduction goals.
Keywords: Africa, Sub-regionalism, Environment, Trade
Hebatallah Adam (O.P. Jindal Global University)
Paper short abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to present a gender analysis framework of the just transitions in Africa. Using an intersectionality analysis, we investigate the state of gender inequality and green transition initiatives in Africa.
Paper long abstract:
The concept of just transition, which was officially recognised in the Paris Agreement at COP21, has grown in importance in recent years. It is about establishing a green and equal future. The transition to a green economy presents enormous potential for development. The transition to a low-carbon economy may generate US$26 trillion in GDP and over 65 million new jobs by 2030. However, because climate change is gendered, women will not gain equally from the green transition. In Africa, informal jobs account for 70 per cent of employment in the agriculture and extractive industries sectors (ILO, 2019), with women and young people accounting for 90% of these informal workers. African women account for 90% of agricultural employment in many countries (African Union, 2022). Low earnings and a lack of social protection further marginalize them.
The purpose of this paper is to present a gender analysis framework of the just transitions in Africa. Using an intersectionality analysis, we investigate the state of gender inequality and green transition initiatives in Africa. The study shows that unless these concerns are addressed, there is a significant risk that the just transition to a green economy may exclude women from skilled, decent labour prospects in the formal economy. African countries must pledge to a gender-responsive equitable transition in which both men and women gain equally from green growth.
Jana Rülke (Osnabrück University)
Paper short abstract:
NGOs such as Fairtrade seek to trigger sustainable development through the complinace of standards to address social, environmental and economic precarities. This research uses an extensive database collected using a mixed-methods approach to analyze the effects this has on Ghanaian cocoa farmers.
Paper long abstract:
The fact that cocoa products and chocolate are accessible to a large part of humanity has been achieved not only through colonialism and globalization, but also through the acceptance of inequalities within the respective global production network (GPN). Decades of imbalances in the spatial distribution of labor steps and associated value capture evoke social, environmental, and economic precarities that are exacerbated by the perpetuation of postcolonial systems and structures. Sustainability labels and programs, international projects and initiatives, NGO and GO actors attempt to mitigate these effects. NGOs such as Fairtrade, the oldest voluntary certification system, attempt to initiate sustainable development through the modeling, evaluation, and compliance of standards. Based on empirical data collected in 2021/22 - including a quantitative survey of 210 Ghanaian cocoa smallholder farmers in different cocoa growing regions, 52 qualitative interviews with various GPN actors in Ghana and Europe, and a 150-page field diary with information from 37 informal conversations - the study explores the aforementioned linkages by analyzing what impact these standards actually have on smallholders' life realities and environments. The results are very heterogeneous: We were able to show that there are benefits of the Fairtrade standard, such as smallholders self-organizing into cooperatives to send representatives to relevant government and standard meetings. Simultaneously, only a quarter of the respondents who are Fairtrade certified knew that they are part of the Fairtrade system, which is numerically problematic, because in the course of this, three quarters of them are i.a. not aware of what rights they have.