Presentation short abstract

The paper explores whether and how law could reorient the distribution of financial resources towards a blue economy that prioritises socio-ecological wellbeing in three registers:value (what is measured as success), risk (how it is allocated), and agency (who controls resources and accountability).

Presentation long abstract

Marine and freshwater ecosystems have become the latest frontiers of impact investing during the last decade. Blue finance transactions like blue loans, blue bonds, and debt swaps aim to support the sustainable use, management, and/or conservation of such environments. The underlying narrative suggests that these products deliver environmental and social benefits while simultaneously raising profit for their investors.

However, there is consistent empirical evidence that the benefits of growth-focused blue finance investments are inequitably distributed. Because of such blue injustices, a growing body of literature on well-being economy and post-growth financial models advocates for a shift away from economic growth and profit maximization towards models that are cognizant of ecological limits, sufficiency, a needs-based economy. While this literature has predominantly focused on financing the well-being economy and post-growth economic activities, legal scholarship on post-growth sustainable finance remains scarce.

Such tension not only raises questions about whether existing blue finance arrangements comply with international environmental law. It also demands international (and transnational) legal imagination for post-growth blue finance legalities. This paper explores whether and how law could reorient the distribution of financial resources towards a blue economy that prioritises long-term socio-ecological wellbeing. To imagine such a (utopian) project, it investigates post-growth legalities in three registers: value (what is defined and measured as success), risk (how it is allocated), and agency (who controls resources and accountability). It argues that legal techniques that place ecological and social reproduction at the center of financial practice can align blue finance with a sustainable blue economy.