REWA | Resource wars in an unequal world: international law and beyond

Summary
The growing demand for resource commodities, coupled with the climate crisis, have increased pressures on ecosystems and individuals who are already at the margins of society. Conflicts over natural resources and the environment are considered among the greatest challenges of the 21st-century. While the link between resource scarcity or wealth and armed violence is increasingly discussed by political scientists, there is still little understanding of how international law operates in this venue of global governance, where power imbalances shape relations among different actors (transnational corporations, governments, international institutions, and peoples).
By conducting two case-studies, which focus on the problem of ‘conflict resources’ and the security impacts of climate change, this project will illuminate international law’s role in framing these types of conflicts and finding ways to tackle them, and the place of different actors within legal discourses. It will demonstrate how distributive concerns may be sidelined and inequalities perpetuated through legal/institutional arrangements.
This project will open intellectual spaces to rethink common ‘solutions’ to the international legal order’s most pressing concerns: the ecological crisis, rising civil wars, and their interaction. It will initiate a more inclusive and much-needed debate about alternative understandings of international peace and security, which reflect the lived-experiences of peoples in the Global South. Through the integration of other disciplines into the study and critique of international law, this project presents the opportunity to open a new field of knowledge, which will spark the interest of different constituencies (e.g. legal, political, IR scholars), and aligns with the interdisciplinary character of research at the HO.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/892314
Start date: 01-02-2021
End date: 23-05-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 175 572,48 Euro - 175 572,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The growing demand for resource commodities, coupled with the climate crisis, have increased pressures on ecosystems and individuals who are already at the margins of society. Conflicts over natural resources and the environment are considered among the greatest challenges of the 21st-century. While the link between resource scarcity or wealth and armed violence is increasingly discussed by political scientists, there is still little understanding of how international law operates in this venue of global governance, where power imbalances shape relations among different actors (transnational corporations, governments, international institutions, and peoples).
By conducting two case-studies, which focus on the problem of ‘conflict resources’ and the security impacts of climate change, this project will illuminate international law’s role in framing these types of conflicts and finding ways to tackle them, and the place of different actors within legal discourses. It will demonstrate how distributive concerns may be sidelined and inequalities perpetuated through legal/institutional arrangements.
This project will open intellectual spaces to rethink common ‘solutions’ to the international legal order’s most pressing concerns: the ecological crisis, rising civil wars, and their interaction. It will initiate a more inclusive and much-needed debate about alternative understandings of international peace and security, which reflect the lived-experiences of peoples in the Global South. Through the integration of other disciplines into the study and critique of international law, this project presents the opportunity to open a new field of knowledge, which will spark the interest of different constituencies (e.g. legal, political, IR scholars), and aligns with the interdisciplinary character of research at the HO.

Status

TERMINATED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2019

Update Date

28-04-2024
Geographical location(s)
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EU-Programme-Call
Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
MSCA-IF-2019