New agricultural investments reconfigure land ownership and agricultural practices at the local level. How can land grabbing by private investors and sometimes by foreign states, but also the associated agricultural practices, be regulated and made more accountable globally? In the international negotiations to formulate principles for responsible agricultural investments, two modalities of global governance confronted each other: governance through human rights based on multilateral processes in the CFS (rai) and the idea of corporate self-governance through the PRAI. The negotiations around PRAI and rai seem unspectacular and "technical" but in analysing them closely, they reveal one of the central problems of international governance today: the weakening of the role of the multilateral institutions of the United Nations Organisation bound by the mandate of advancing and promoting human rights and at the same time the rise of autonomous instruments promoted by groups of states and international bodies without multilateral legitimacy. Linked to these ways of governing are also different relationships to land and seeds.
Speaker:
Birgit Müller, Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Discussant:
Shaila Seshia Galvin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology, the Graduate Institute
Moderator:
Annabelle Littoz-Monnet, Professor of International Relations/Political Science and Director of the Global Governance Centre, the Graduate Institute
This event is part of the Global Governance Colloquium series and is co-sponsored by the Centre for International Environmental Studies.
