Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PROPERTY[IN]JUSTICE (Land, Property and Spatial Justice in International Law)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-09-01 al 2023-02-28
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The past decades have witnessed a renewed increase in land acquisitions for food production, resource extraction and development on a global scale. International law plays a multifarious, sometimes contradictory, role in this regard. On the one hand, it facilitates the treatment of land as commodity through trade and investment, while on the other, it recognises the importance of land(scape) as the mainstay for peoples’ livelihoods, culture, environment, and way of life. Despite the recognition of the collective right to property for indigenous peoples, access to justice remains a major challenge for many communities facing destruction of their local landscapes worldwide. PROPERTY[IN]JUSTICE (2020-2025) investigates the role of international law in creating spatial justice and injustice through its conception of property rights in land. In going beyond traditional legal analysis to include interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, the project aims to push the boundaries of property and advocate for more place-based understandings of land across international law. It does this through three main objectives:
1. Analyse the synergies and antagonisms between different spheres of international law affecting access to land and assess the impact of these areas on domestic practice;
2. Assess the use and adaptation of international norms by local communities to access land, claim land or reject development affecting their land; and
3. Apply interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives to advocate for more socially-just interpretations of property in land.
The team is combining traditional legal methods, such as the analysis of international and national instruments, jurisprudence, travaux préparatoires (drafting histories), and case law, with socio-legal methods, including semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in selected case studies in Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The choice of countries reflects the experience and heritage of the project team, who come from Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, and Grenada, respectively. There is also an important historical dimension since land law in our respective jurisdictions was heavily influenced by (British) colonial law. To what extent is international law perpetuating or confronting colonial understandings of land?
The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC), led by Amy Strecker, and hosted by the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin.
The past decades have witnessed a renewed increase in land acquisitions for food production, resource extraction and development on a global scale. International law plays a multifarious, sometimes contradictory, role in this regard. On the one hand, it facilitates the treatment of land as commodity through trade and investment, while on the other, it recognises the importance of land(scape) as the mainstay for peoples’ livelihoods, culture, environment, and way of life. Despite the recognition of the collective right to property for indigenous peoples, access to justice remains a major challenge for many communities facing destruction of their local landscapes worldwide. PROPERTY[IN]JUSTICE (2020-2025) investigates the role of international law in creating spatial justice and injustice through its conception of property rights in land. In going beyond traditional legal analysis to include interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, the project aims to push the boundaries of property and advocate for more place-based understandings of land across international law. It does this through three main objectives:
1. Analyse the synergies and antagonisms between different spheres of international law affecting access to land and assess the impact of these areas on domestic practice;
2. Assess the use and adaptation of international norms by local communities to access land, claim land or reject development affecting their land; and
3. Apply interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives to advocate for more socially-just interpretations of property in land.
The team is combining traditional legal methods, such as the analysis of international and national instruments, jurisprudence, travaux préparatoires (drafting histories), and case law, with socio-legal methods, including semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in selected case studies in Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The choice of countries reflects the experience and heritage of the project team, who come from Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, and Grenada, respectively. There is also an important historical dimension since land law in our respective jurisdictions was heavily influenced by (British) colonial law. To what extent is international law perpetuating or confronting colonial understandings of land?
The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC), led by Amy Strecker, and hosted by the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin.
During the initial phase the team has focused on the role of law in creating spatial injustice, historical patterns of land dispossession, as well as current gaps in the literature. We have initiated an interdisciplinary dialogue with scholars from other fields working on land and spatial justice issues, identified case studies for further analysis, commenced fieldwork research and presented preliminary research at over 17 international conferences and workshops.
-One journal article has been co-authored by PhD student Sonya Cotton, one co-authored book chapter has been published by PhD researcher Sinead Mercier, and postdoctoral researcher Amanda Byer has submitted her book manuscript to Palgrave (under contract) for publication in its Pivot series. The PI has written two book chapters (in press) and is finalizing a journal article for publication on landscape, property and spatial [in]justice in international law. In addition, the team members are collaborating on papers related to land and spatial injustice from comparative and historical perspectives.
-The project has established a monthly research seminar series on Landscape, Law and Spatial Justice, open to postgraduate students and researchers. With a focus on embedding cross-disciplinary perspectives within the law, the aim is to explore, confront, and expand the role of law in landscape scholarship through discussions on property, heritage, commons, custom and community. These seminars have transcended the legal-non legal divide and provide an engaging forum for the researchers to test out ideas, hear from guest speakers, and dialogue with others working on similar problems from different perspectives.
-The project website was designed and set up at www.landlawandjustice.eu. It has summary pages translated into Spanish, Swahili, Xhosa, and Irish, to make the project more accessible and visible in the countries of focus. Seven blog posts have been published on the website by the PI, Postdoc and the PhDs, one of which (by Raphael Ng'etich) has also been published in the Public Interest Law Alliance Bulletin. PI Amy Strecker also published a short piece on the project's origins for the Landscap-e magazine.
-We hosted the first project symposium in May 2022 in Dublin, where we explored the links between landscape and law in the pursuit of spatial justice. The symposium explored this relationship via abstract versus lived-in rights to property, the question of who has rights, and how we might recover elements of substantive landscape in law by reimagining and reconfiguring property. Our speakers included legal scholars, geographers, anthropologists and research students with papers dealing with different geographical contexts.
-One journal article has been co-authored by PhD student Sonya Cotton, one co-authored book chapter has been published by PhD researcher Sinead Mercier, and postdoctoral researcher Amanda Byer has submitted her book manuscript to Palgrave (under contract) for publication in its Pivot series. The PI has written two book chapters (in press) and is finalizing a journal article for publication on landscape, property and spatial [in]justice in international law. In addition, the team members are collaborating on papers related to land and spatial injustice from comparative and historical perspectives.
-The project has established a monthly research seminar series on Landscape, Law and Spatial Justice, open to postgraduate students and researchers. With a focus on embedding cross-disciplinary perspectives within the law, the aim is to explore, confront, and expand the role of law in landscape scholarship through discussions on property, heritage, commons, custom and community. These seminars have transcended the legal-non legal divide and provide an engaging forum for the researchers to test out ideas, hear from guest speakers, and dialogue with others working on similar problems from different perspectives.
-The project website was designed and set up at www.landlawandjustice.eu. It has summary pages translated into Spanish, Swahili, Xhosa, and Irish, to make the project more accessible and visible in the countries of focus. Seven blog posts have been published on the website by the PI, Postdoc and the PhDs, one of which (by Raphael Ng'etich) has also been published in the Public Interest Law Alliance Bulletin. PI Amy Strecker also published a short piece on the project's origins for the Landscap-e magazine.
-We hosted the first project symposium in May 2022 in Dublin, where we explored the links between landscape and law in the pursuit of spatial justice. The symposium explored this relationship via abstract versus lived-in rights to property, the question of who has rights, and how we might recover elements of substantive landscape in law by reimagining and reconfiguring property. Our speakers included legal scholars, geographers, anthropologists and research students with papers dealing with different geographical contexts.
Our progress beyond the state of the art thus far includes
1) linking landscape and property in the scholarship. Postdoctoral researcher Amanda Byer has written a short book dealing with the “prehistory” of property and for the first time, links landscape with the theory of property in relation to common law, thereby establishing some important theoretical grounding for the project as a whole.
2) focusing on marginalised communities more generally for the purposes of land and spatial justice, not just legal categories of certain communities as rights holders;
3) analysing the role of international law in creating spatial (in)justice in the Irish, Kenyan, South African, and Caribbean contexts.
For the remainder of the project, our focus will be on analysing case studies, hearing from campaigners and legal counsel involved in land contestations, and further exploring how international law can be leveraged by communities.
1) linking landscape and property in the scholarship. Postdoctoral researcher Amanda Byer has written a short book dealing with the “prehistory” of property and for the first time, links landscape with the theory of property in relation to common law, thereby establishing some important theoretical grounding for the project as a whole.
2) focusing on marginalised communities more generally for the purposes of land and spatial justice, not just legal categories of certain communities as rights holders;
3) analysing the role of international law in creating spatial (in)justice in the Irish, Kenyan, South African, and Caribbean contexts.
For the remainder of the project, our focus will be on analysing case studies, hearing from campaigners and legal counsel involved in land contestations, and further exploring how international law can be leveraged by communities.