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Paper short abstract:

The colonial governance and vision of nature of the Chinese mining company Las Bambas leads resistant communities to a behaviour resulting from the intersectionality between practices of good living and the imposition of modernity.

Paper long abstract:

The energy transition requires enormous amounts of materials; an electric car needs at least four times more copper than a fossil fuel car. Peru is heavily dependent on mineral exports and the world's second largest copper extractor. China is the main buyer of Peruvian copper, either through its own mining companies or by purchasing it from other companies. Governments deploy mining extraction projects to respond to the demands of the global social metabolism and impose the projects with an arsenal of laws above popular decisions or without any prior consultation or with incomplete information. In the case of Las Bambas, owned by the Chinese mining company MMG, there are disputes over territory. The company's colonial governance seeks monetary compensation for the environmental and territorial claims of the affected populations. Although the social cohesion of the communities and their culture are threatened and many are criminalized, resistance continues unabated. In this proposal we will evaluate how companies and government act from a colonial vision of nature, and how the behaviors of resistance reflect the intersectionality resulting from centuries of coloniality of knowledge and power in which the search for the good life is confused with chrematistic claims determined by modernity and material needs.

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Paper short abstract:

In response to environmental injustice related to extractivism in territories of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, various-scale civil resistance campaigns have emerged as a strategy to achieve environmental justice. In this study, some of these civil resistance campaigns are analyzed as case studies.

Paper long abstract:

The research aims to identify variables that determine the initiation, development, and outcomes of civil resistance campaigns in the Global South related to extractivism, specifically in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile since 1990. The methodology used is the case study, for which three cases with heterogeneous characteristics in the three study countries have been chosen. Data collection has involved documentary techniques and interviews with key civil actors in civil resistance processes, as well as on-site observation.

Preliminary findings indicate the significance of civil resistance in achieving objectives, as it serves as a strategy to highlight conflicts and demands, gather supporters, and exert pressure on institutions making environmental decisions. Furthermore, the variables influencing the commencement of campaigns, the outlined demands, institutional and non-institutional strategies employed by civil society, and the outcomes of the processes in terms of project execution or remediation of damages resisted are elaborated upon. This also includes social, cultural, economic, and/or political consequences at various scales.

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Paper short abstract:

Faced with the prospect of global climate crisis, humanity responds with an intense debate between "colapso" perspectives and energy transitions. Addressing processes of ecosystemic vulnerability is an urgency in the context of the global environmental crisis that affects the Earth.

Paper long abstract:

As a place of reference, we are going to take two vulnerability laboratories, two of the most biologically complex seas and with a longer history of the process of extraction of matter and energy: the Gulf of California in Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea in Europe (taking into account the coast of Andalusia). Both have in common bioclimatic similarities but with different historical paths that converge in a current reality of intense extractivism processes (sociometabolism fractures).

To this end, we are going to propose the elaboration of a research work.

a) Time line on the extractivism process in which the transfer of knowledge of land, sand and water (irrigation ditch systems, etc) has been implemented.

b) Deserts and Vulnerable Coasts and Dunes. In this section we will address the process of historical disarticulation of coastal and/or desert systems through the extension of agriculture models that result in diverse historical trends in terms of resilience in the face of vulnerability.

c) Marine Mammals (Non-Human Beings): For the case of Baja California Sur (México) we propose a study on the history of marine mammals and their interaction processes with human life in the last centuries, from hunting and the cultural representation of marine life to the current ecotourism process of whale watching that pretends to be a community strategy in the face of current vulnerability.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes nonviolent responses to colonial violence in Palestine in socio-environmental conflict processes. It explores the colonial dynamics of domination/subordination and appropriation/dispossession, together with indigenous resistance to them from the environmental justice approach.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyzes nonviolent responses to colonial violence in Palestine in socio-environmental conflict processes. It explores the colonial dynamics of domination/subordination and appropriation/dispossession in the case of Palestine, together with the indigenous resistance to them from the environmental justice approach. First, this paper will map the main socio-environmental conflict trends in the region. Second, it will determine how colonial violence contributes to environmental injustice in Palestinian communities. Finally, it will present some indigenous nonviolent responses to the struggle against colonization, land dispossession, and displacement. This research is based on a theoretical framework informed by environmental justice, settler colonialism, and civil resistance studies. It focuses on socio-environmental conflicts mapped after the Oslo Agreements (1993) in the territory of historical Palestine (West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Israel) dealing with resistance processes using nonviolent methods in their campaigns.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the local resistances towards green energy transition in Thar and examines them with a political ecology lens. It reveals that multiple layers of power, class and creation of alliances horizontally and vertically determines the negotiations and outcomes.

Paper long abstract:

Drylands have been understood by the state as empty homogeneous spaces, waiting to be “civilized”, and home to “unproductive” livelihoods like pastoralism. Such understandings have put these landscapes at the helm of state efforts aimed at controlling these landscapes and transitions that marginalize them and their inhabitants.

India aims to produce 50 percent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. This transition is shifting the energy map of the country from eastern coal belts to the drylands in the western part, i.e. the Thar desert. The landscape was situated as unruly, under the colonial state in India. This along with narratives of desertification, climate change and conservation have put the landscape as a point of amalgamation of multiple simplifications and discourses, which is visible in the efforts of transition that have come up in the landscape. These interventions range from canals, defense projects, sanctuaries, and the contemporary green energy transition.

These interventions have had widespread impacts on the commons in the landscape and the livelihoods dependent on them. In response to the perceived long-term impacts of these interventions, there have been local responses. This paper explores these responses and examines them with a political ecology lens. Contrary to the discourses of 'empty', the local resistances are informed by narratives of conservation and saving local culture. These resistances not only inform about the local agency but further elaborate over the history of the region as a sacrificial zone for developmental goals along with multiple positionalities within the local communities.

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Paper short abstract:

Mar Menor has become the first european ecosystem to be granted legal status as a person thanks to people's initiative. This law learns from the Global South towards ecological justice and environmental peace. Thus, International Public Law should discuss both humans and nature as rights-holders.

Paper long abstract:

The nature rights movement is relatively young in Europe. However, thanks to people's initiative the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin (Spain) has become the first ecosystem in Europe to be granted legal status as a person.

It is not only recognised to have its own rights but also the capacity to exercise them through representation - by the "Mar Menor Defense Office" or any entitled citizen -, that also limits the exercise of others who may deteriorate the ecosystem.

This new law is adopted to address the inefficiency of current environmental regulations and management (local, national, european and international) that refer to nature both as a resource and an object that can be owned. In order to do so, it learns from the Global South's (Latin America's) experiences and joins other local efforts to shift the global paradigm towards ecological justice and environmental peace.

Recognising nature as a rights-holder means reconsidering fundamental law concepts. To this end, International Public Law can be discussed through social justice and ecological justice approaches. As a result of combining both perspectives, not only do nature's rights get to be recognised, but also their interdependency with human rights.