BOOK REVIEW: World Bank under the microscope
Published by MAC on 2007-12-15
BOOK REVIEW: World Bank under the microscope
15th December 2007
"Transnational Law and Local Struggles: Mining Communities and the World Bank"
by David Szablowski, Hart Publishing, January 2007
Available on Amazon for US$31.50
The global spread of transnational mining investment, which has been taking place since the 1990s, has led to often volatile conflicts with local communities.
"Transational Law and Local Struggles" examines the regulation of these conflicts through national, transnational and local legal processes. In doing so, it shows how legal authority is being redistributed among public and private actors, as well as national and transnational actors, as a result of globalizing forces.
The book presents a case study concerning the negotiation of land transfer and resettlement between a transnational mining enterprise and indigenous peasants in the Andes of Peru. The case study is used to explore the intensely local dynamics involved in negotiations between corporate and community representatives and the role played by legal ordering in these relationships. In particular, the book examines the operation of a transnational legal regime managed by the World Bank to remedy the social and environmental impacts of projects which receive Bank assistance, and the multiple consequences of this projection of transnational law into a local dispute.
David Szablowski is Assistant Professor of Law and Society at York University in Toronto, Canada.
[This books is recommended by MAC editors Luis Claps, Catherine Coumans and Xminea Waarnars]