Law as Vehicle for Social Change: Mainstreaming Non-Extractive Economic Practices

Project Information

N-EXTLAW

Grant agreement ID: 852990

DOI

10.3030/852990

EC signature date 20 November 2019

Start date 1 August 2020

End date 31 July 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 498 733,00

EU contribution

€ 1 498 733,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - N-EXTLAW (Law as Vehicle for Social Change: Mainstreaming Non-Extractive Economic Practices)

Reporting period: 2023-08-01 to 2025-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The current economic model is due for urgent revision. Environmentally and socially, its extractive tendencies are profound. The relentless focus on economic growth is ravaging the environment, while the concomitant social problems have either already reached glaring levels (e.g. skyrocketing global inequality) or seem poised to do so (e.g. climate displaced persons). Both the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as the Paris Agreement recognise the need to alter the course of global economic development. Yet major disagreement persists on how to achieve these objectives. Those favouring variants of ‘green growth’ hope that increases in energy and waste efficiency, along with an appropriate mixture of ‘tax and transfer’, will prove sufficient to address the socio-ecological problems (initially the European Green Deal). Others suggest that a more radical transformation of the economic system is needed, problematising the concept of ‘growth’ itself, and looking for models to pursue prosperity for all in ways that don’t rely on unsustainable economic growth (Jackson 2009; Raworth 2017; Hinton, J. and Maclurcan, D. 2015, but also PostGrowth Conference, European Parliament, 2018).

The N-EXTLAW Project grapples with the question of how to make even more radical proposals for socio-ecological transformation better contenders for political support and mobilisation. Recognising in this regard the role of law in the attainment of the economic utopias of the past (Polanyi 2002), N-EXTLAW will explore how law could contribute to closing the perceived gap between today’s realities and these more utopian visions of economy, taking as a point of departure those existing economic practices that already embody the values of ‘non-extractive’ economy. By ‘non-extractive’ we mean economic practices that help to sustain and nurture – rather than deplete - the very resources on which they depend, be they environmental (e.g. substances, environment) or social (e.g. labour, localities, communities of users). The objective of this project is thus to answer the question: how can law support the proliferation of non-extractive economic practices - and thereby make socio-ecological transformation a more credible and achievable prospect?

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The N-EXTLAW Project has come a long way in the past two and a half years. We have heavily advanced our conceptual framework, empirical studies and published several pieces of academic output based on our findings.

Conceptual Work:

The N-EXTLAW Project has made substantial headway identifying the underlying features of non-extractive economic practices (N-EXTs), using N-EXTLAW Project publication ‘From an Extractive to Non-Extractive Economy: Disentangling the Building Blocks of Non-Extractive Economic Practices’ as a starting point. In addition to this, we have organised two workshops (Legal Realities of Extraction and Advisory Board Meeting) to further our conceptual understanding. Currently, we are working on a paper that aims to set the legal definition of ‘non-extraction’ in a more theoretical framework.

Participatory Action Communities:

The N-EXTLAW Project adopts Participatory Action Research (PAR) as its core methodological approach. This entails close collaboration with non-extractive entities (NEXTs) as co-researchers, to identify the main (private) legal obstacles they face and collaboratively develop possible solutions. We have successfully established a ‘PAR Community’ in the Netherlands, where we have hosted several PAR sessions to identify, prioritise and articulate solutions to the legal challenges they face. Currently, we are conducting interviews and preparing PAR sessions in Italy.

Output:

In addition to advancing the Project’s conceptual framework and establishing PAR communities, the N-EXTLAW Project has produced several important outputs. These primarily concern the development of private legal infrastructures to better facilitate the operation of N-EXTs, drawing on work done with our PAR Communities. Notable publications include: Towards a New Imaginary of Collective Prosperity in the EU: ‘Reorienting the Corporation’ (Bartl); ‘Internalising the Cost of the Green Transition: A Proposal for a Mandatory Transition Reserve’ (Bartl and Van der Horst); ‘From an Extractive to a Non-Extractive Economy: Disentangling the Building Blocks of Non-Extractive Economic Practices’ (Pijl); ‘New Imaginaries of Organising Work and Governing Work Relations: lessons from worker cooperatives for a progressive labour law research agenda’ (co-authored by Bogeoski); and ‘Experimental Regulation for Social Innovations’ (Janssens).

In addition to this, our work has formed the basis for several important upcoming publications: ‘The Role of Profit Distributions in Purpose-driven Enterprises’ (PhD Manuscript by Van der Horst); The Cooperatives as a Guiding Model of Non-extractive Work Relations in Food Production (Vladimir Bogoeski); ‘Communal Ownership Regimes in Italy’ (Mario Pagano) as well a book manuscript (on contract with CUP) ‘Shared Prosperity: Towards a New Imaginary of Political Economy in the EU’ (Bartl).

Knowledge Exchange:

In addition to written output, the N-EXTLAW Project has organised several workshops and roundtables, including (but not limited to): N-EXTLAW Roundtable on Law & Diverse Economies at the Law and Society Association Global Meeting 2022 (Bartl and Bogoeski); N-EXTLAW Workshop on ‘Translating Visions for Sustainable Food Production into Legal Action’ at the Voedsel Anders Conference 2022 (Bogoeski); and N-EXTLAW Workshop on ‘Legal Realities of Non-Extraction’ at the 26th Ius Commune Conference (Bogoeski).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The N-EXTLAW Project has made significant advancements, and gone ‘beyond the state of the art’ principally in the methodology it adopts. The successful conclusion of our PAR study in the Netherlands has demonstrated that a) PAR can be applied with a focus on (private) law, with b) participants other than those from fully marginalised communities trying to solve very specific problem, and c) that such communities can emerge even where the problems they face are not identical. Furthermore, N-EXTLAW has heavily documented our experiences using PAR and is currently working on two publications that detail how PAR should be applied in legal settings. The first is a paper: ‘PAR: Towards a non-extractive methodological framework’ (Bogoeski and Fry); the second is a blog post: ‘Transformative Alignments between Participatory Action Research and Private Law’ (Lazell). By focussing our efforts on studying the use of PAR, the N-EXTLAW Project has advanced the state of the art regarding use of the PAR methodology in law and the wider social sciences.

Although unexpected at the time of project writing, N-EXTLAW will produce more articles than envisaged and an additional book manuscript. Alongside the N-EXTLAW PhD thesis, focusing on whether profit distributions pose an obstacle in the shift to non-extractive economy (reliant on PAR and ethnography as the method), and the PI's synthesis manuscript on non-extractive private law as a new form of governmentality, the PI will produce also a book on the changing imaginaries of the political economy in the EU. This book argues that we can observe the elements of non-extraction in the current EU’s initiatives and actions, and suggests pathways to strengthen these elements. The latter book is on contract with Cambridge University Press.