Almut Schilling-Vacaflor
Biographic Data
| ID | 150725 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Almut Schilling-Vacaflor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Almut |
| FAMILY NAME | Schilling-Vacaflor |
| SIGNATURE | SCHILLING-VACAFLOR A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Osnabrück University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0549-8034 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 340 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Finding the cracks: How do frontline officials maneuver state institutions to advance Indigenous rights to land and environment
This paper challenges the monolithic portrayal of the state as inherently ‘bad’ when it comes to implementation of Indigenous rights. Offering a comparative analysis of case studies from four continents we demonstrate examples of frontline state officials proactively advancing Indigenous rights to land and environment. Combining distinct literatures on institutional theory, we develop an analytical framework that sheds light on bureaucratic agenc…
Civil Society Strikes Back: How Global South Coalitions Are Shaping Corporate Accountability in the Age of Mandatory Due Diligence
This article examines how civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Global South perceive and leverage European supply chain regulations to hold companies accountable for negative externalities in their global value chains. While previous studies highlight perceptions of these regulations as a unilateral European imposition that marginalizes Global South stakeholders, the regulatory agency of CSOs in producing countries remains underexplored. We …
Supply chain divergence challenges a ‘Brussels effect’ from Europe's human rights and environmental due diligence laws
Human rights violations and pressing environmental issues have tainted agricultural trade. The role of international market demand for commodities such as soy in causing those problems is clear, yet they remain mostly unaddressed. Therefore, European countries have led a new global trend on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD), advancing the EU's growing global regulatory ambitions. Here, we analyse the prospects for suc…
Harvesting dilemmas
Governing transnational water and climate risks in global supply chains
Interlinked water and climate impacts are increasingly crossing borders via global supply chains. A recent wave of supply chain regulations, based on human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD), has emerged with the goal of holding companies accountable for adverse impacts throughout their supply chains. We develop an analytical framework to theorize how key factors grounded in domestic contexts shape how companies put HREDD in practice,…
Integrating human rights in the sustainability governance of global supply chains: Exploring the deforestation-land tenure nexus
In contemporary discourse, the need to address urgent environmental issues with a social perspective is widely acknowledged. While theories on policy integration have primarily focused on the national scale, limited attention has been given to the merging of environmental and human rights considerations in global supply chain sustainability governance. Drawing on policy integration theories, we develop an analytical framework for studying Human R…
Towards more sustainable global supply chains? Company compliance with new human rights and environmental due diligence laws
Binding regulations have, recently, emerged in the Global North with the aim of holding companies accountable for environmental and/or human rights impacts throughout their supply chains. This article develops and applies an analytical framework to analyze corporate accountability dynamics in global trade, with a focus on the French Duty of Vigilance (DV) law. We analyze how companies in the agri-food sector have complied with the law as well as …
Foreign corporate accountability: The contested institutionalization of mandatory due diligence in France and Germany
In the recent past, European states have adopted mandatory due diligence (MDD) laws for holding companies accountable for the environmental and human rights impacts of their supply chains. The institutionalization of the international due diligence norm into domestic legislation has, however, been highly contested. Our contribution analyzes the discursive struggles about the meaning of due diligence that have accompanied the institutionalization …
The politics of supply chain regulations: Towards foreign corporate accountability in the area of human rights and the environment
In recent years, binding regulations in the “home states” of corporations have emerged mainly in the Global North with the aim of holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental impacts throughout their supply chains. However, we still need a better understanding about to what extent such regulations contribute to enhance “foreign corporate accountability (FCA).” This article introduces a special issue that theorizes and empir…
Environmental governance in globally telecoupled systems: Mapping the terrain towards an integrated research agenda
Environmental governance is increasingly challenged by global flows, which connect distant places through trade, investment and movement of people. To date, research on this topic has been dispersed across multiple fields and diverse theoretical perspectives. We present the results of a systematic literature review of 120 journal articles on the environmental governance of global flows and their environmental impacts, employing the notion of tele…
Indigenous Peoples and Multiscalar Environmental Governance: The Opening and Closure of Participatory Spaces
There has been an unprecedented inclusion of Indigenous peoples in environmental governance instruments like free, prior, and informed consent; reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) projects; climate adaptation initiatives; and environmental impact assessment. We draw on theories of participatory governance to show how locally implemented processes have been shaped by their interactions with invited, closed, and ind…
Hardening foreign corporate accountability through mandatory due diligence in the European Union? New trends and persisting challenges
The negative externalities of global commodity chains and existing governance gaps have received wide scholarly attention. Indeed, many sectors including forest‐risk commodities (FRCs) like soy and beef from Brazil remain largely unregulated. This article analyzes ongoing policy‐making processes at European Union level to adopt new regulations for reducing accountability gaps: one regulation of FRCs and one general, cross‐sectoral directive on hu…
A political ecology perspective on resource extraction and human security in Kenya, Bolivia and Peru
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human security in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human security can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multi-dimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries…
Putting the French Duty of Vigilance Law in Context: Towards Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations in the Global South
The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually contributes to human rights and environmental protection …
Contextualizing certification and auditing: Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil
The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities’ access …
Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability
Newig, J., E. Challies, B. Cotta, A. Lenschow, and A. Schilling-Vacaflor. 2020. Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability. Ecology and Society 25(4):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11844-250421
Mobilising Free, Prior and Informed Consent (fpic) from Below: A Typology of Indigenous Peoples’ Agency
Based on rich empirical data from Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru – the three Latin American countries where the implementation of prior consultation processes is most advanced – we present a typology of indigenous peoples’ agency surrounding prior consultation processes and the principle of free, prior and informed consent ( fpic ). The typology distinguishes between indigenous actors (1) mobilising for a strong legal interpretation of fpic , (2) mo…
What is governance in global telecoupling
The concept of telecoupling is increasingly used as a framework to understand globally distant interconnections and their sustainability implications. Although there is a growing research focus on issues of governance related to global telecoupling, there appears little consensus over the meaning of "governance" in this respect. Papers in the recent Ecology and Society special feature titled "Telecoupling: A New Frontier for Global Sustainability…
Contesting the hydrocarbon frontiers: State depoliticizing practices and local responses in Peru
Based on primary sources, this article analyzes 150 participatory events related to planned hydrocarbon projects in Peru (2007–2012). Therein, it sheds light on state depoliticizing practices and local populations’ contestations thereof. We argue that participation in the extraction sector has not enabled effective participation and has instead been used to pave the way for expanding the extractive frontiers. We find that the state entity respons…
New mechanisms of participation in extractive governance: Between technologies of governance and resistance work
In this special issue, the focus is on the dynamics and use of participatory mechanisms related to the rapid expansion of the extractive industries worldwide and the ways it increasingly affects sensitive natural environments populated by indigenous and other marginalised populations. We offer an empirically grounded and theoretically innovative comparative analysis of practices that aim to enhance participation, negotiation and influence as a re…
Who controls the territory and the resources? Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as a contested human rights practice in Bolivia
The article scrutinises the struggles over prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and analyses the divergent interpretations of what this right would entail in Bolivia. Similar contestations have played an important role in resource conflicts across Latin America. Using rich empirical data, the article discusses (1) disputes over legal norms regulating this participatory right, (2) related claims to territorial control and…
The Shady Side of Consultation and Compensation: Divide-and-Rule' Tactics in Bolivia's Extraction Sector
The rights to prior consultation and compensation have been established within the framework of international indigenous peoples' rights. However, in practice these processes have often gone hand in hand with adverse social consequences for local populations, such as the exacerbation of conflicts, the division of communities and the weakening of indigenous organizations. These phenomena have received little attention, despite their great relevanc…
If the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?' Limiting participation and taming dissent in neo-extractivist Bolivia
The contribution identifies the differentiated strategies used by the government and extraction corporations to limit consultation processes and to tame the dissent of local populations affected by hydrocarbon activities. Based on extensive fieldwork in coca-growing peasant and indigenous Guaraní communities in Bolivia, it discusses how the constraints on communities' opportunities to exercise voice and agency have been effectively justified thro…
Unfulfilled promises of the consultation approach: The limits to effective indigenous participation in Bolivia’s and Peru’s extractive industries
Indigenous peoples’ right to prior consultation and to informed consent represents the basis of the new global model shaping state–indigenous relations. Consultation processes promise to enable indigenous people to determine their own development and are especially promoted when extraction projects with significant socio-environmental impacts are planned on indigenous lands. In this article we draw on debates on participatory development in order…
Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation? Lessons from Peru
This article analyses the background to and the content of the Peruvian prior consultation law - the only one enacted in Latin America to date - and its regulating decree. In contrast to the widespread conception that prior consultation is a means for preventing and resolving conflict, it argues that this new legislation will not help to transform conflicts as long as the normative framework itself is contested and the preconditions for participa…
The politics of supply chain regulations: Towards foreign corporate accountability in the area of human rights and the environment
In recent years, binding regulations in the “home states” of corporations have emerged mainly in the Global North with the aim of holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental impacts throughout their supply chains. However, we still need a better understanding about to what extent such regulations contribute to enhance “foreign corporate accountability (FCA).” This article introduces a special issue that theorizes and empir…
Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation? Lessons from Peru
This article analyses the background to and the content of the Peruvian prior consultation law - the only one enacted in Latin America to date - and its regulating decree. In contrast to the widespread conception that prior consultation is a means for preventing and resolving conflict, it argues that this new legislation will not help to transform conflicts as long as the normative framework itself is contested and the preconditions for participa…
Hardening foreign corporate accountability through mandatory due diligence in the European Union? New trends and persisting challenges
The negative externalities of global commodity chains and existing governance gaps have received wide scholarly attention. Indeed, many sectors including forest‐risk commodities (FRCs) like soy and beef from Brazil remain largely unregulated. This article analyzes ongoing policy‐making processes at European Union level to adopt new regulations for reducing accountability gaps: one regulation of FRCs and one general, cross‐sectoral directive on hu…
Foreign corporate accountability: The contested institutionalization of mandatory due diligence in France and Germany
In the recent past, European states have adopted mandatory due diligence (MDD) laws for holding companies accountable for the environmental and human rights impacts of their supply chains. The institutionalization of the international due diligence norm into domestic legislation has, however, been highly contested. Our contribution analyzes the discursive struggles about the meaning of due diligence that have accompanied the institutionalization …
Contesting the hydrocarbon frontiers: State depoliticizing practices and local responses in Peru
Based on primary sources, this article analyzes 150 participatory events related to planned hydrocarbon projects in Peru (2007–2012). Therein, it sheds light on state depoliticizing practices and local populations’ contestations thereof. We argue that participation in the extraction sector has not enabled effective participation and has instead been used to pave the way for expanding the extractive frontiers. We find that the state entity respons…
Bolivia’s New Constitution: Towards Participatory Democracy and Political Pluralism
In Bolivia, rights to increased political participation and the recognition of indigenous political systems are interrelated. The new constitution of 2009 defines Bolivia as a representative, participatory and communitarian democracy. It incorporates enhanced mechanisms and institutions for participatory democracy. Moreover, new social rights have been anchored in the constitution and a plurinational state is supposed to be constructed. The artic…
Unfulfilled promises of the consultation approach: The limits to effective indigenous participation in Bolivia’s and Peru’s extractive industries
Indigenous peoples’ right to prior consultation and to informed consent represents the basis of the new global model shaping state–indigenous relations. Consultation processes promise to enable indigenous people to determine their own development and are especially promoted when extraction projects with significant socio-environmental impacts are planned on indigenous lands. In this article we draw on debates on participatory development in order…
New mechanisms of participation in extractive governance: Between technologies of governance and resistance work
In this special issue, the focus is on the dynamics and use of participatory mechanisms related to the rapid expansion of the extractive industries worldwide and the ways it increasingly affects sensitive natural environments populated by indigenous and other marginalised populations. We offer an empirically grounded and theoretically innovative comparative analysis of practices that aim to enhance participation, negotiation and influence as a re…
Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia: Democracy, Rights and Real Life Experiences
While the Bolivian ‘post’ consultation about the contested construction of a highway through the TIPNIS has received a lot of attention, very little is known about the 27 prior consultations that have been concluded between June 2007 and February 2012 in its hydrocarbon sector. This article focuses on these procedures and presents three emblematic cases in more detail. It identifies frequent shortcomings of consultation practices like the ‘inform…
Contextualizing certification and auditing: Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil
The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities’ access …
Who controls the territory and the resources? Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as a contested human rights practice in Bolivia
The article scrutinises the struggles over prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and analyses the divergent interpretations of what this right would entail in Bolivia. Similar contestations have played an important role in resource conflicts across Latin America. Using rich empirical data, the article discusses (1) disputes over legal norms regulating this participatory right, (2) related claims to territorial control and…
If the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?' Limiting participation and taming dissent in neo-extractivist Bolivia
The contribution identifies the differentiated strategies used by the government and extraction corporations to limit consultation processes and to tame the dissent of local populations affected by hydrocarbon activities. Based on extensive fieldwork in coca-growing peasant and indigenous Guaraní communities in Bolivia, it discusses how the constraints on communities' opportunities to exercise voice and agency have been effectively justified thro…
Indigenous Peoples and Multiscalar Environmental Governance: The Opening and Closure of Participatory Spaces
There has been an unprecedented inclusion of Indigenous peoples in environmental governance instruments like free, prior, and informed consent; reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) projects; climate adaptation initiatives; and environmental impact assessment. We draw on theories of participatory governance to show how locally implemented processes have been shaped by their interactions with invited, closed, and ind…
Mobilising Free, Prior and Informed Consent (fpic) from Below: A Typology of Indigenous Peoples’ Agency
Based on rich empirical data from Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru – the three Latin American countries where the implementation of prior consultation processes is most advanced – we present a typology of indigenous peoples’ agency surrounding prior consultation processes and the principle of free, prior and informed consent ( fpic ). The typology distinguishes between indigenous actors (1) mobilising for a strong legal interpretation of fpic , (2) mo…
Rethinking the link between consultation and conflict: Lessons from Bolivia's gas sector
This article sheds light on 26 consultations in Bolivia's gas sector (2007–2012) and challenges simplified conceptions of prior consultation as a tool for conflict prevention and resolution. It shows that consultations do not only appease, but also exacerbate conflicts, as they are used for negotiating broader grievances. The study further argues that, in the short term, narrow consultations repress conflicts by limiting opportunities to mobilise…
A political ecology perspective on resource extraction and human security in Kenya, Bolivia and Peru
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human security in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human security can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multi-dimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries…
Putting the French Duty of Vigilance Law in Context: Towards Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations in the Global South
The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually contributes to human rights and environmental protection …
Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability
Newig, J., E. Challies, B. Cotta, A. Lenschow, and A. Schilling-Vacaflor. 2020. Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability. Ecology and Society 25(4):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11844-250421
The Shady Side of Consultation and Compensation: Divide-and-Rule' Tactics in Bolivia's Extraction Sector
The rights to prior consultation and compensation have been established within the framework of international indigenous peoples' rights. However, in practice these processes have often gone hand in hand with adverse social consequences for local populations, such as the exacerbation of conflicts, the division of communities and the weakening of indigenous organizations. These phenomena have received little attention, despite their great relevanc…
Environmental governance in globally telecoupled systems: Mapping the terrain towards an integrated research agenda
Environmental governance is increasingly challenged by global flows, which connect distant places through trade, investment and movement of people. To date, research on this topic has been dispersed across multiple fields and diverse theoretical perspectives. We present the results of a systematic literature review of 120 journal articles on the environmental governance of global flows and their environmental impacts, employing the notion of tele…
Integrating human rights in the sustainability governance of global supply chains: Exploring the deforestation-land tenure nexus
In contemporary discourse, the need to address urgent environmental issues with a social perspective is widely acknowledged. While theories on policy integration have primarily focused on the national scale, limited attention has been given to the merging of environmental and human rights considerations in global supply chain sustainability governance. Drawing on policy integration theories, we develop an analytical framework for studying Human R…
What is governance in global telecoupling
The concept of telecoupling is increasingly used as a framework to understand globally distant interconnections and their sustainability implications. Although there is a growing research focus on issues of governance related to global telecoupling, there appears little consensus over the meaning of "governance" in this respect. Papers in the recent Ecology and Society special feature titled "Telecoupling: A New Frontier for Global Sustainability…
Towards more sustainable global supply chains? Company compliance with new human rights and environmental due diligence laws
Binding regulations have, recently, emerged in the Global North with the aim of holding companies accountable for environmental and/or human rights impacts throughout their supply chains. This article develops and applies an analytical framework to analyze corporate accountability dynamics in global trade, with a focus on the French Duty of Vigilance (DV) law. We analyze how companies in the agri-food sector have complied with the law as well as …
Recht als umkämpftes Terrain
In den letzten Jahrzehnten sind in Lateinamerika die vermehrte rechtliche Anerkennung und eine politische Bedeutungszunahme indigener Völker zu beobachten. Die neue Verfassung Boliviens, geprägt durch die UN-Deklaration über Rechte indigener Völker (2007), nimmt diesbezüglich eine weltweite Vorreiterrolle ein. Im verfassunggebenden Prozess stand nicht nur die Anerkennung von kultureller Diversität zur Diskussion, sondern die Suche nach neuen Staa…
Bolivia’s New Constitution: Towards Participatory Democracy and Political Pluralism
In Bolivia, rights to increased political participation and the recognition of indigenous political systems are interrelated. The new constitution of 2009 defines Bolivia as a representative, participatory and communitarian democracy. It incorporates enhanced mechanisms and institutions for participatory democracy. Moreover, new social rights have been anchored in the constitution and a plurinational state is supposed to be constructed. The artic…
Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia: Democracy, Rights and Real Life Experiences
While the Bolivian ‘post’ consultation about the contested construction of a highway through the TIPNIS has received a lot of attention, very little is known about the 27 prior consultations that have been concluded between June 2007 and February 2012 in its hydrocarbon sector. This article focuses on these procedures and presents three emblematic cases in more detail. It identifies frequent shortcomings of consultation practices like the ‘inform…
Rethinking the link between consultation and conflict: Lessons from Bolivia's gas sector
This article sheds light on 26 consultations in Bolivia's gas sector (2007–2012) and challenges simplified conceptions of prior consultation as a tool for conflict prevention and resolution. It shows that consultations do not only appease, but also exacerbate conflicts, as they are used for negotiating broader grievances. The study further argues that, in the short term, narrow consultations repress conflicts by limiting opportunities to mobilise…
Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation? Lessons from Peru
This article analyses the background to and the content of the Peruvian prior consultation law - the only one enacted in Latin America to date - and its regulating decree. In contrast to the widespread conception that prior consultation is a means for preventing and resolving conflict, it argues that this new legislation will not help to transform conflicts as long as the normative framework itself is contested and the preconditions for participa…
Unfulfilled promises of the consultation approach: The limits to effective indigenous participation in Bolivia’s and Peru’s extractive industries
Indigenous peoples’ right to prior consultation and to informed consent represents the basis of the new global model shaping state–indigenous relations. Consultation processes promise to enable indigenous people to determine their own development and are especially promoted when extraction projects with significant socio-environmental impacts are planned on indigenous lands. In this article we draw on debates on participatory development in order…
New mechanisms of participation in extractive governance: Between technologies of governance and resistance work
In this special issue, the focus is on the dynamics and use of participatory mechanisms related to the rapid expansion of the extractive industries worldwide and the ways it increasingly affects sensitive natural environments populated by indigenous and other marginalised populations. We offer an empirically grounded and theoretically innovative comparative analysis of practices that aim to enhance participation, negotiation and influence as a re…
Who controls the territory and the resources? Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as a contested human rights practice in Bolivia
The article scrutinises the struggles over prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and analyses the divergent interpretations of what this right would entail in Bolivia. Similar contestations have played an important role in resource conflicts across Latin America. Using rich empirical data, the article discusses (1) disputes over legal norms regulating this participatory right, (2) related claims to territorial control and…
The Shady Side of Consultation and Compensation: Divide-and-Rule' Tactics in Bolivia's Extraction Sector
The rights to prior consultation and compensation have been established within the framework of international indigenous peoples' rights. However, in practice these processes have often gone hand in hand with adverse social consequences for local populations, such as the exacerbation of conflicts, the division of communities and the weakening of indigenous organizations. These phenomena have received little attention, despite their great relevanc…
If the company belongs to you, how can you be against it?' Limiting participation and taming dissent in neo-extractivist Bolivia
The contribution identifies the differentiated strategies used by the government and extraction corporations to limit consultation processes and to tame the dissent of local populations affected by hydrocarbon activities. Based on extensive fieldwork in coca-growing peasant and indigenous Guaraní communities in Bolivia, it discusses how the constraints on communities' opportunities to exercise voice and agency have been effectively justified thro…
Contesting the hydrocarbon frontiers: State depoliticizing practices and local responses in Peru
Based on primary sources, this article analyzes 150 participatory events related to planned hydrocarbon projects in Peru (2007–2012). Therein, it sheds light on state depoliticizing practices and local populations’ contestations thereof. We argue that participation in the extraction sector has not enabled effective participation and has instead been used to pave the way for expanding the extractive frontiers. We find that the state entity respons…
Mobilising Free, Prior and Informed Consent (fpic) from Below: A Typology of Indigenous Peoples’ Agency
Based on rich empirical data from Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru – the three Latin American countries where the implementation of prior consultation processes is most advanced – we present a typology of indigenous peoples’ agency surrounding prior consultation processes and the principle of free, prior and informed consent ( fpic ). The typology distinguishes between indigenous actors (1) mobilising for a strong legal interpretation of fpic , (2) mo…
What is governance in global telecoupling
The concept of telecoupling is increasingly used as a framework to understand globally distant interconnections and their sustainability implications. Although there is a growing research focus on issues of governance related to global telecoupling, there appears little consensus over the meaning of "governance" in this respect. Papers in the recent Ecology and Society special feature titled "Telecoupling: A New Frontier for Global Sustainability…
A political ecology perspective on resource extraction and human security in Kenya, Bolivia and Peru
This paper analyzes how the governance of non-renewable natural resources affects different dimensions of human security in local sites of extraction. We show how the analysis of human security can be embedded in a multi-scalar political ecology perspective to combine the strong suits of both approaches: a detailed, multi-dimensional assessment of impacts on the local scale with a critical transformative view on the interplay of power asymmetries…
Putting the French Duty of Vigilance Law in Context: Towards Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Violations in the Global South
The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually contributes to human rights and environmental protection …
Contextualizing certification and auditing: Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil
The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities’ access …
Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability
Newig, J., E. Challies, B. Cotta, A. Lenschow, and A. Schilling-Vacaflor. 2020. Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability. Ecology and Society 25(4):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11844-250421
Indigenous Peoples and Multiscalar Environmental Governance: The Opening and Closure of Participatory Spaces
There has been an unprecedented inclusion of Indigenous peoples in environmental governance instruments like free, prior, and informed consent; reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) projects; climate adaptation initiatives; and environmental impact assessment. We draw on theories of participatory governance to show how locally implemented processes have been shaped by their interactions with invited, closed, and ind…
Hardening foreign corporate accountability through mandatory due diligence in the European Union? New trends and persisting challenges
The negative externalities of global commodity chains and existing governance gaps have received wide scholarly attention. Indeed, many sectors including forest‐risk commodities (FRCs) like soy and beef from Brazil remain largely unregulated. This article analyzes ongoing policy‐making processes at European Union level to adopt new regulations for reducing accountability gaps: one regulation of FRCs and one general, cross‐sectoral directive on hu…
Environmental governance in globally telecoupled systems: Mapping the terrain towards an integrated research agenda
Environmental governance is increasingly challenged by global flows, which connect distant places through trade, investment and movement of people. To date, research on this topic has been dispersed across multiple fields and diverse theoretical perspectives. We present the results of a systematic literature review of 120 journal articles on the environmental governance of global flows and their environmental impacts, employing the notion of tele…
Foreign corporate accountability: The contested institutionalization of mandatory due diligence in France and Germany
In the recent past, European states have adopted mandatory due diligence (MDD) laws for holding companies accountable for the environmental and human rights impacts of their supply chains. The institutionalization of the international due diligence norm into domestic legislation has, however, been highly contested. Our contribution analyzes the discursive struggles about the meaning of due diligence that have accompanied the institutionalization …
The politics of supply chain regulations: Towards foreign corporate accountability in the area of human rights and the environment
In recent years, binding regulations in the “home states” of corporations have emerged mainly in the Global North with the aim of holding corporations accountable for human rights and environmental impacts throughout their supply chains. However, we still need a better understanding about to what extent such regulations contribute to enhance “foreign corporate accountability (FCA).” This article introduces a special issue that theorizes and empir…
Supply chain divergence challenges a ‘Brussels effect’ from Europe's human rights and environmental due diligence laws
Human rights violations and pressing environmental issues have tainted agricultural trade. The role of international market demand for commodities such as soy in causing those problems is clear, yet they remain mostly unaddressed. Therefore, European countries have led a new global trend on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD), advancing the EU's growing global regulatory ambitions. Here, we analyse the prospects for suc…
Harvesting dilemmas
Governing transnational water and climate risks in global supply chains
Interlinked water and climate impacts are increasingly crossing borders via global supply chains. A recent wave of supply chain regulations, based on human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD), has emerged with the goal of holding companies accountable for adverse impacts throughout their supply chains. We develop an analytical framework to theorize how key factors grounded in domestic contexts shape how companies put HREDD in practice,…
Political science (25 works) · Law (18 works) · Business (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Mining and Resource Management (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact (12 works) · Corporate governance (11 works) · Indigenous (10 works)