Glocalization of Law: Environmental Justice, World Bank, NGOs and the Cunning State in India

Abstract

This article delineates trajectories of the glocalization of law and maps the changing contours of legal pluralism using empirical material on World Bank financed infrastructure and biodiversity projects in India. The role of international institutions, social movements and NGOs, which challenge the monopoly of the state over the production of law and the definition of the common good, is analysed with reference to conflicts over privatization of natural resources, struggles against forced displacement and loss of livelihood as well as the complaints on behalf of indigenous communities before the World Bank Inspection Panel. It is argued that despite scattered sovereignties in the new architecture of global governance, the state remains a central albeit contested terrain. Its pivotal role in selectively transposing conditionalities, law and policies into the national arena as well as its strategies to avoid accountability are foregrounded against the attempts by civil society actors to use national and international legal platforms to enforce compliance with environmental and human rights standards.