Abstract The Texaco/Chevron lawsuit, which started in November 1993 and is still being litigated in 2020, is a prominent example of the process of judicialization of environmental conflict. The Ecuadorian plaintiffs claim that the oil company's operations generated ruinous impacts on the environment and on the development prospects and health of nearby individuals and communities. The tortuous and lengthy judiciary process was further hindered by an arbitration process, an Investor–State Dispute Settlement mechanism nested in the Ecuador—United States Bilateral Investment Treaty. The significance of the case goes beyond the specifics of Ecuador and provides further arguments fuelling the protracted legitimacy crisis experienced by International Investment Agreements. The current praxis of Investor–State Dispute Settlement mechanisms is generating an asymmetrical system, protecting the interest of investors, and intruding into the space of human and environmental rights. These issues are resonating with social movements, activist scholars and policy makers who are reacting to the vulnerabilities engendered by International Investment Agreements through multipronged strategies. These asymmetries provide ammunition to resist the signing of new International Investment Agreements, support the inclusion of human and environmental rights safeguards in International Investment Agreements, and contribute to the rationale of pre-empting extractive projects that are likely to produce severe environmental liabilities. Some of the potential ways in which a somewhat more level playing field can be created include, in addition to denouncing investment agreements, transforming Investor–State Dispute Settlement mechanisms towards a format that can also accommodate the complaints of affected communities or enacting moratoria on extraction projects that are prone to adverse socioenvironmental impacts. Both strategies could prove to be productive avenues towards the achievement of justice.
Abstract To limit the increase in global mean temperature to 1.5°C, CO2 emissions should be capped at 440 gigatons. To achieve this, about 89 percent, 59 percent, and 58 percent of existing coal and conventional gas and oil reserves, respectively, need to remain unburned. This implies an economic cost for fossil fuel rights owners, and any successful climate policy will rely on resolving the distributional challenge of how to allocate the right to use the remaining burnable reserves. We discuss the possibility of compensating rights holders of unburnable oil and gas reserves, producing the first estimates of the financial resources needed to secure full compensation. We estimate that approximately US$ 5,400 billion (109) would be needed. Despite the vast amounts required, compensation is nevertheless economically feasible. We suggest a Keynesian "whatever it takes" approach for climate action, combining partial compensation for unburnable fuels and investment in low-carbon technologies to drastically reduce emissions in the rapidly closing window of opportunity before 2030.
La etnoecología estudia las relaciones entre los humanos y el medioambiente en el que viven, contribuyendo a entender algunos de los problemas socio-ecológicos actuales, como la degradación ecológica o la pérdida de diversidad cultural, desde un punto de vista eminentemente local. Desde el 2006, el Laboratorio de Etnoecología de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona desarrolla proyectos de investigación dirigidos a estudiar factores y dinámicas sociales, culturales, políticas, y ecológicas que ayudan a explicar la relación de sociedades indígenas y rurales de África, Asia, Latinoamérica y Europa, con su entorno ambiental. Huyendo de la dinámica de extracción de información sin retorno a las comunidades, los proyectos del Laboratorio combinan investigación académica con acciones orientadas a la devolución de los resultados de investigación a las poblaciones con las que trabajamos, a la vez que promueven mejoras en el bienestar local y en el uso sostenible de sus recursos naturales. ; Ethnoecology studies the relations of human beings with their environment aiming at understanding several current socio-ecological problems such as ecological degradation and loss of cultural diversity, mainly from a local point of view. Since 2006, the research team of the Ethnoecology Laboratory (Autonomous University of Barcelona) is conducting research projects focused on the study of social, cultural, political, and ecological factors and dynamics influencing the relation of rural and indigenous communities in Africa, Asia, Latin- America, and Europe, with their environment. Contrary to the common practice of simply extracting information from rural communities, projects at the Ethnoecology Laboratory blend academic research and actions oriented to return findings to the populations where we work and to improve their well-being and sustainable use of natural resources.