Rights Of Local Populations Research Articles

Mind the Gap: Conflicts in the Implementation of Kenya’s Lake Turkana Wind Power Project

Renewable energy projects are increasingly being implemented at scale to meet global climate goals, often targeting lands on the margins of the state and affecting the livelihoods of Indigenous or marginalized populations. This article argues a need for project-developers, investors and rights advocates to consider the potentially significant ‘gap’ between their expectations that the rights of local populations will be settled at the start of a particular investment and the conflicts over rights, recognition and benefits that emerge during implementation that risk derailing investments. This is particularly relevant for renewable investments, as their claims to global and national benefits divert attention from their local impacts. Empirically, this is explored through the case of the Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya. Based on interviews and literature review, the article examines the relations between the key stakeholders in this project by acknowledging their various ‘ways of seeing’ rights. Ruling elites often see rights as settled once they have been written into law and investors assume that rights have been dealt with at the project’s start, but local populations typically begin exploring their rights following project-induced changes. The interaction of stakeholders with such diverse views has important implications for the practice of human rights in the context of renewable energy investments.

The politics of natural resource investments and rights in Africa: A theoretical approach

Over the past decade and a half, large-scale investments in natural resources in African countries have increased dramatically. While investments in natural resources and agriculture have become more important for African economies, since they have stimulated economic growth and made regimes dependent on rents and revenues for their own survival, surprisingly many investments fail to be implemented or fall through during implementation. Furthermore, natural resource investments often end up violating the rights of local populations, which can lead to severe social protests and political instability, as well as limiting the ‘development’ impact. In this article, we develop a theoretical approach focusing on the three-way relationship between investors, local populations and ruling elites and the wider context in which these relations are embedded. We argue that investments are more likely to be implemented and the procedural rights of local populations respected when relationships are characterized by ‘reciprocal exchange deals’ between investors and local populations, ‘compatible interests’ between ruling elites and investors, and ‘mutual recognition’ between local populations and ruling elites. We use eight examples of investments drawn from Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda to explore the potential of this theoretical approach in explaining the circumstances in which the procedural rights of local populations are or are not respected and investments are or are not implemented.

Understanding the three key relationships in natural resource investments in Africa: An analytical framework

Large-scale investments in natural resources can help transform African economies by accelerating economic growth, creating jobs and strengthening the links between local economies and the global economy. However, they often violate the rights of local populations and leave them with few benefits, which in turn may lead to social protests and political instability, potentially causing investments to be delayed or abandoned. In this article we explore how investments are implemented. To understand this, we develop a framework for explaining the triangular relations between investors, local populations and ruling elites. We argue that all three relations need to be taken into account in order to understand how investments are implemented (or fail to be implemented) and the extent to which the rights of local populations are accommodated. We focus in particular on how local populations react to investments with protests and resistance in order to understand how investments are implemented. We describe three examples of such investments: sugar in Uganda, rice in Mozambique and gas in Tanzania. We use these examples to further develop an analytical framework that moves from a focus on rights as absolute to one that see rights as outcomes of the relations between the main groups of actors involved in the implementation of large-scale natural resource investments: investors, ruling elites and local populations. The article is based on extensive fieldwork by the authors and the research teams they are part of that have explored large-scale natural resource investments in Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda in the gas/oil and agricultural sectors.

The Environmental and Social Impacts of Dams: Mapping the Issues

In 2011, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (“Guiding Principles”) for the first time established an authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts linked to business activity. These were the product of many years’ research and extensive consultations by UN Special Representative John Ruggie involving government, companies, business associations and civil society around the world. The Guidelines described how states can better manage business and human rights challenges based on the three pillars “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework: 1) the state duty to protect human rights, 2) the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and 3) the need for greater access to remedy for victims of business related abuse. This common paper analyzes the challenges faced as a result of large-scale infrastructure projects, in particular dams. The experiences of five countries are considered – Turkey, Spain, Brazil, India and South Africa – in light of national and international law and the UN Guiding Principles.Dams present particular challenges. They are long-term projects, unlike other businesses. Their impact on local communities is more enduring, ranging from environment to social issues, from national development policies to the resolution of the country’s energy and resource needs, and they have potential human rights impacts, arising from land expropriation, to forced eviction, and to the displacement and resettlement of local communities, and the compensation of victims. But most importantly, they fall beyond John Ruggie’s important UN Guidelines on Business and Human Rights, making this current study especially significant for that reason alone. As we will see, the interests of foreign investors, international treaty obligations, as well as the demands of global institutions such as the World Bank are in addition also further factors that complicate the state’s response – political and legislative – to the challenges raised by dams.The experience of the five countries highlights how legislative, judicial, and executive initiatives have an increasingly important role to play in navigating around these myriad interests. Sections II and III of this paper focus on the legislative experiences of South Africa and Spain, respectively, while section IV explores the various challenges faced by Brazil in the protection of the rights of local population during the two phases of dam development: planning and bidding, and construction and outsourcing. Sections V and VI examine the legislative, political and judicial responses to the issues raised by large scale dam development in Turkey and India.

Can Rights-Based Approaches Enhance Levels of Legitimacy and Cooperation in Conservation? A Relational Account

Rights-based approaches (RBAs) are increasingly gaining favour among practitioners in the field of natural resource conservation and management. RBAs are a non-binding operational framework through which conservation actors can integrate human rights standards and principles into the design, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of projects and programmes. In addition to promoting the human rights of local populations, it is also argued that RBAs may hold benefits for conservation initiatives. This article draws on existing research on the social psychology of procedural fairness to develop a relational account of how and whether RBAs may enhance levels of legitimacy and cooperation in conservation. This relational account stresses the importance of fair experiences for generating positive feelings of legitimacy and associated cooperative behaviour among individuals interacting with organisations or authorities. On the whole, this article suggests that if RBAs can ensure respect for the human rights of local populations, they have the potential to engender fair experiences and related positive institutional effects, thereby significantly strengthening the overall effectiveness of conservation initiatives.

Land access: A deciding factor or a simple indicator of change in farming systems?

The scope of private investments and large-scale land acquisitions in southern countries has reignited debate on land access and rural development. Does land access play a new role in the transformation of rural areas? Is land access a deciding factor or a simple indicator of change in agrarian structures? This introductory article synthesizes this special issue of Cahiers Agricultures through an analysis of the relationships between land access, investments and farming systems. It analyses how the States, the investors and the local communities manage and control land access to ensure agricultural production and to orientate rural development. It underlines that neither land control nor a change in property land rights are systematically required to make investments productive in the rural sector. The heart of the matter is articulating the diverse farming systems and the different types of investments while respecting the rights of local populations and, above all, ensuring the recognition of their power over land access..

A Synthesis of the March 2001 Conference on the Viability of Transboundary Protected Areas at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

SUMMARY Efforts to protect land on an ecosystem scale have led to the creation of numerous transboundary protected areas, often called international peace parks. In some cases, the appropriate leadership, infrastructure, community support, and political and legal frameworks exist to achieve the objectives of a transboundary protected area, and to realize the benefits of transboundary management across national borders despite the inherent costs and risks involved. There is a danger, however, that regional conservation initiatives may be pursued in inappropriate situations or with strategies that do not respect the rights of local populations. The challenge is to determine under what conditions transboundary approaches might be appropriate and what factors can help us make these approaches more effective at achieving their site-specific goals. This paper synthesizes the experiences and perspectives of a diverse group of managers, social and natural scientists, consultants, local leaders and policy makers who met at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies on March 30 and 31, 2001 to discuss if, when, where and how transboundary protected areas should be pursued. The sharing of these individual experiences enabled us to explore when and where transboundary approaches may be appropriate and how they might be more effective. We found that transboundary approaches may be more effective when: (1) a careful analysis of costs and benefits in light of the local context is conducted, (2) people living on both sides of the border share elements of a common vision that is in both of their best interests, (3) the majority of the actors involved are committed to a long-term strategy, (4) strong leadership for transboundary initiatives exists within border communities, and (5) managers of transboundary protected areas are particularly aware of tensions between multiple scales, which helps them ensure that the rights of local populations are not usurped.

Humanistic Conservation: A Proposed Alliance Between Anthropology and Environmentalists

This article is a preliminary attempt to address an imperative. We begin with case materials describing past conservation impacts on local peoples and a review of the literature dealing with Man and the Biosphere (MAB) and other conservation programs worldwide. We conclude our discussion with a suggestion that recent developments in ecological anthropology, particularly, the advent of processual models, can provide the basis for an important rapprochement among the imperatives underlying natural resource policies, the rights of local populations to traditional resources, and the potential for continued voluntary cultural diversity. These approaches along with the anthropological outreach to environmentalists, whether in agencies or among traditional resource users, will benefit local peoples, anthropology, and the continued efforts to protect the world biome.