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Sessions

4156 Contemporary Challenges to Law and Development: Sustainability and Resistance

WG Law and Development

Room: C5.09

Chair: Pedro Rubim Fortes

Discussant: Diego Gil McCawley

 

Paula Casaleiro | CFE/UC

Fátima Alves | UA; CFE/UC

Miguel Pardal | CFE/UC

Artisanal fishing regulation: from “prohibition” to sustainability


Abstract


Portugal has a long tradition in the fishing activity, has one of the largest European Exclusive Economic Zone, and is among the countries in the world with the highest fish consumption per capita. The artisanal fishery in Portugal represented a permanent alternative to the distant fisheries, a buffer for the oscillations such as the restructuration of the fleet in 1973/74 (Santos et al., 2012). However, since Portugal's entry into the European Union in 1986, this sector has undergone major changes with the significant decrease of the fleet, the number of fishermen and landings, as well as its economic importance (Antunes, 2007; Santos et al., 2012). For this decline among other factors (such as the aging of fishers, and the low profits), it has greatly contributed the growing amounts of rules, norms, and laws such as the common fisheries policy (CFP) of the European Commission, especially on “Arte xávega”. This paper is about the impact of European and national regulation in the Portuguese coastal communities and their relation to the marine fish resources. It aims to discuss the challenges of balancing the protection of the environment and the economic, social and cultural value of artisanal fishing. “Arte xávega” is a beach seine fishery carried out along the Portuguese coast by small fishing communities. The fishery is characterized by a non-selective gear, a great proportion of juveniles in catches, and significant bycatch and discards, which triggered environmental concerns and led to strict legal regulations. The European and national fisheries policies have condemned this artisanal fishery to the disappearance, through measures such as the restructuring and subsidized slaughter of the fishing fleet, or the production of restrictive regulatory legislation, forbidding new authorizations or licenses. Nonetheless, recent studies from the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere have shown that these artisanal fishing can be environmentally sustainable, which had consequences in the recent regulations (Portaria n. 172/2017). Thus, its necessary to analyze the evolution and impacts of regulations and how they could promote a sustainable development beyond the prohibition, considering the importance of these activities for the local economy, identity, culture, social development and also the importance of traditional and ecological knowledge of these communities in biodiversity conservation management.

 

Mariana Barbosa Cirne | Universidade de Brasília - UNB

Desenvolvimento sustentável no veto do processo legislativo ambiental brasileiro


Abstract


Esse artigo analisará os argumentos jurídicos e políticos dos vetos presidenciais brasileiros nos principais projetos de lei ambientais aprovados de outubro de 1988 a dezembro de 2015 para avaliar a concretização do princípio do desenvolvimento sustentável no marco normativo brasileiro. As perguntas que desafiam a pesquisa são as seguintes: Quais são os argumentos jurídicos e políticos utilizados para a decisão sobre os vetos que darão ensejo à legislação ambiental brasileira? O princípio do desenvolvimento sustentável aparece como argumento a ensejar o veto? O Poder Executivo se preocupa com o equilíbrio das facetas econômicas, social e ambiental nos seus vetos? Essas perguntas foram respondidas por meio de pesquisa quantitativa e qualitativa baseada na argumentação das mensagens de veto em projetos de lei ambientais. Foram analisadas treze mensagens de veto em projetos de lei ambientais. A metodologia eleita foi a revisão bibliográfica, conjugada com pesquisa quantitativa e qualitativa de dados, por meio indutivo e dedutivo. A revisão bibliográfica possibilitou reconhecer um paradigma ecológico, decorrente do artigo 225 da Constituição brasileira de 1988. Pautado na dignidade da legislação de Jeremy Waldron e no reconhecimento que os argumentos dos vetos são importantes para o Direito, logo podem ser analisados e avaliados, como defendido por Manuel Atienza, a pesquisa empírica demonstrou a pouca concretude do desenvolvimento sustentável, ante o seu desequilíbrio. Como resultado, percebeu-se que há uma prevalência da perspectiva econômica, em 70% dos argumentos dos vetos, seguida da ambiental, com 16 %, e da social, com 14%. A argumentação econômica do Poder Executivo se pautou predominantemente nos custos econômicos que a sanção do projeto de lei poderia gerar para o setor privado ou para os cofres públicos. Apesar de o Brasil ser considerado um importante ator internacional, quanto à pauta de ambiental, o equilíbrio demandado pelo desenvolvimento sustentável não parece se concretiza nas decisões do Poder Executivo brasileiro no seu processo de elaboração normativa ambiental.

 

Tatiana Daré | University of Coimbra - Centre for Social Studies

Violence and Resistance: Reflection on the Security Policies in the Latin American Context


Abstract


This paper seeks to revisit the link between post-liberal peace and security governance, by examining the dynamics of power and resistance in the security policies in the Latin American context. It also undertakes a critical analysis of how the hierarchical and patriarchal facets of the state are deep-rooted in institutional projects. This is due to the fact that the security policies follow neoliberal tendencies focusing on the market combined with democratization and rule of law. However, these politics did not change the structural and material issue related to social and economic inequality, seen as the cause of violent conflicts (Richmond, 2010). As a consequence, such programs may generate more dependence, co-optation, domestication, and even neocolonialism (Bassil, 2010, Bergoglio, 2010). Following on from this, the paper explores and discusses practical frameworks for thinking about how to engage marginalized groups effectively during the design and implementation of these programs from a gender perspective. For this purpose, the paper brings to the debate existing work on power asymmetries and negotiations, more particularly on the power imbalance among non-state actors, locals and institutional actors. From this, the paper aims to exploit and operationalize the process of legal, informal/differentiated practices toward the democratization of rights and emancipation of these communities in spaces of structural oppression and institutional violence.

 

Måns Svensson | Lund University

Stefan Larsson | Lund University

Law, Society and Digital Platforms: Normative Aspects of Large-scale Data-Driven Tech Companies


Abstract


It is increasingly apparent that technology and online platforms entail and communicate normativity. Lawrence Lessig has described this in terms of 'code as law' and thereby pointing to the fact that there is an ongoing shift of power from nation states to tech companies, and José van Dijck has shown how the Big Five - Google (Alphabet), Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft - represents a neo-liberal American value system. Further, platforms penetrate every sector (governmental, private, non-profit etc.) of society, and at the same time, through ownership and partnership, they progressively are growing into strong oligopolies. Examples are the urban transport sector, news, health, education and job-matching. The sector-specific platforms such as Uber, Airbnb, MyFitnessPal, Udemy or LinkedIn are almost always dependent on or allied with one of the big five. The digital platforms operate through what media researcher Jonas Andersson Schwarz has called a platform “logic”, that is, including being internet-based, highly data-driven, large-scale and algorithmically automated and serving a business model. The larger ones takes on an infrastructural character on a macro level, as a platforms-based “superstructures” or “ecologies” - platforms-of-platforms. This gatekeeping character is combined with the essence of exercising its dominance through a “code-based control”, leads to that they in fact becomes “lawmakers”, in a non-governmental sense, which needs further socio-legal scrutiny from a number of perspectives. This paper focuses the normative ‘lawmaking’ aspects of large-scale platforms. By clearly acknowledging the distribution of norms by large platforms we emphasize the need to critically assess and re-conceptualize how these are designed into these platforms and what it means for the national state as normative source. The paper thereby addresses the “algorithmic accountability” that increasingly are called for, debating how to study and understand accountability for automated services, as well as the lack of transparency the platforms often bring in terms of normative decision-making.


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