Groundwater governance and the Law of the Hidden Sea

Water Policy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 742-762 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Lopez-Gunn ◽  
W. Todd Jarvis
Keyword(s):  
Groundwater Resources ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Hydraulic Connection ◽  
Groundwater Governance ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Surface Water Resources ◽  
Deep Aquifers ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Traditional Approaches

The paper offers an alternative interdisciplinary approach to dealing with the complexity associated with groundwater resources, providing a new angle that integrates deep groundwater systems as defined by hydro-geologists with a paradigm shift in natural resource governance, developed by political scientists. It questions the piecemeal approach to governance of groundwater resources, coupled with the lack of acknowledgment regarding the hydraulic connection of vast deep aquifers—or a hidden sea of groundwater. Rather than relying on traditional approaches to groundwater governance, which treat the resource like a mineral resource underlying the boundaries of a sovereign nation, the “post-sovereignty” and “multi-level” governance model proposed here for groundwater resources acknowledges that groundwater is hydraulically connected to the ocean and is equally complex with respect to predictive modeling. Existing legal instruments associated with the ocean that fall under the global “contract” of the UNCLOS, together with ongoing efforts to develop a legal instrument for transboundary aquifers, offer useful lessons. The paper concludes that a “world water contract” or Law of the Hidden Sea could be adapted to incorporate groundwater as a global common, deep aquifers that are not in direct hydraulic connection with surface water resources and that are part of the developing common heritage of mankind.

Common property theory and resource governance institutions: strengthening explanations of multiple outcomes

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARUN AGRAWAL ◽  
CATHERINE SHANNON BENSON
Keyword(s):  
Common Property ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Multiple Outcomes ◽  
Property Theory ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Governance Institutions ◽  
Common Property Theory

SUMMARYDifferent strategies to govern resource commons generate outcomes that can be assessed along different dimensions, in terms of the ecological or social sustainability of the resource system, contributions to the livelihoods of those who rely on these resources, or equity in the allocation of benefits. This paper reviews the existing literature concerning three major renewable resource commons, namely pasture lands, fisheries and irrigation water. Most existing work on these commons has been inattentive to the multiple outcomes that management of all renewable resources generates. Studies of commons can provide better information about livelihoods, sustainability and equity dimensions of natural resource governance outcomes than previously. Attending to the distinctive determinants and drivers of these outcomes and the nature of trade-offs and synergies among them has the potential to advance common property theory substantially. Possible relationships among livelihoods, sustainability and equity are identified, and the major explanations of outcomes advanced by scholars of fisheries, pastoral and irrigation commons reviewed. An interdisciplinary approach is needed to improve existing efforts to determine the outcomes that resource commons generate.

Political Settlements, Natural Resource Extraction, and Inclusion in Bolivia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Bebbington ◽  
Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai ◽  
Denise Humphreys Bebbington ◽  
Marja Hinfelaar ◽  
Cynthia A. Sanborn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Central State ◽  
Dominant Party ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Extraction ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Resource Nationalism ◽  
Economic Elite ◽  
Competing Interest

Bolivia’s natural resources have served as a ‘mechanism of trade’ mobilized by competing interest groups to build coalitions, create political pacts, and negotiate political settlements in which dominant actors attempt to win over those resistant to a particular vision of development and/or governance. These pacts and settlements are revisited constantly, reflecting the weak and fragmented power of the central state and of the elite and persistent tensions between national and subnational elites. Ideas about, and modes of, natural resource governance have been central to periods of instability and stability, and to significant periods of political rupture. The period since 2006 has been characterized by a stable settlement involving an alliance between the presidency, his dominant party, and national social movements. This settlement is sustained through bargains with parts of the economic elite and subnational actors with holding power, as well as through ideas of resource nationalism and state-led developmentalism.

Mobilising Free, Prior and Informed Consent (fpic) from Below: A Typology of Indigenous Peoples’ Agency

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Almut Schilling-Vacaflor ◽  
Riccarda Flemmer
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Legal Interpretation ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Indigenous Participation ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Public Decision

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) mobilising for meaningful and influential fpic processes, (3) mobilising against prior consultation processes, and (4) blockading prior consultation processes for discussing broader grievances. We identify the most prominent indigenous strategies related to those four types, based on emblematic cases. Finally, we critically discuss the inherent shortcomings of the consultation approach as a model for indigenous participation in public decision-making and discuss the broader implications of our findings with regard to indigenous rights and natural resource governance.

Development Dynamics of Chinese Resource-Based Investment in Peru and Ecuador

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén González-Vicente
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Oil Extraction ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Production Networks ◽  
Chinese Investment ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Extraction Processes ◽  
Local Reactions

AbstractThis article analyzes the developmental impact of two of the earliest investments made by Chinese companies in South America, the Shougang Corporation's mining activities in Peru and Andes Petroleum’s oil extraction operations in Ecuador. The article draws attention to the importance of contextualizing and disaggregating instances of Chinese resource-based investment in order to adequately grasp the complexity of processes that are contingent to particular regimes of natural resource governance, companies’ backgrounds, and the strength and nature of local reactions, among other factors. It thereby encourages a critical examination of Chinese investment in South America that explores how the characteristics of that investment are reshaped by the long and contested histories of resource extraction in the region, the promotion of and resistance to particular visions of development, the agency of multiply situated and complex actors, and the wider transnational production networks in which resource extraction processes are embedded.

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