The Legal Cultures of the Subsoil: The Judicialisation of Environmental Politics in Central America

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The proposed project will explore the increasing resort to legal instruments, institutions, languages and practices by a range of stakeholders (corporations, governments, and civil society organisations) in the context of extraction-related conflicts as a means to assert their rights over resource governance. Coinciding with the booming demand for natural resources since the 1990s, foreign direct investment targeted toward the extraction of minerals and hydrocarbons has grown exponentially, in tandem with conflicts over the governance and management of these resources. Latin America exemplifies this trend, with conflicts over extraction in the region having become a concern for a wide range of local and international stakeholders. This research will be based on fieldwork conducted in Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), which has received little scholarly attention on the matter of resource governance despite the high number of fierce and polarised conflicts underway there; the few existing studies on this area have been limited to single countries or extractive operations. While filling this gap, this research will also examine the transnational dimensions that are becoming increasingly prominent within environmental politics. To this end, qualitative research will be conducted in Washington, DC, Geneva and London in order to shed light on the role played by global judicial and quasi-judicial transnational institutions, norms and agreements. Although the geographical scope of the empirical cases will be limited to Central America, this research will seek to yield theoretical and practice-oriented lessons for conflicts over resource governance that are occurring elsewhere in the world.The objectives of the project are threefold:1 - To offer a map of the legal cultures (i.e. the multi-scalar repertoires of legal languages, institutions, instruments, and practices) brought to bear by stakeholders with colliding interests vis-à-vis the issue of governance of resources from the subsoil. 2 - To provide analytical and conceptual tools that elucidate the increasing resort to legal repertoires within environmental politics and the impacts of these repertoires on the governing practices and decision-making of a range of stakeholders.3 - To provide a methodology that brings together stakeholders with opposing views and stimulates them to engage in self-reflecting practices and the co-production of knowledge while shedding light on the colliding interests at work.To address these objectives, instead of focusing on a particular legal domain as the few existing studies have done, this project will take a broad-based approach so as to apprehend the universe of available legal repertoires in the context of environmental politics (specifically when it comes to mining). The research will focus on an a priori fourfold classification of the domains pervaded by legal cultures: i) transnational judicial and quasi-judicial institutions and norms; ii) constitutional courts; iii) domestic courts and legislation; and iv) para-legal actions and law-like actions that occur outside of formal legal arenas. As well as contributing theoretically and methodologically to our understanding of the emerging relevance of legal cultures in the context of environmental politics, this research will provide relevant raw data systematised in a database to be employed in follow-up research or by stakeholders participating in debates or decision-making on the management of resources from the subsoil. Overall, the research will contribute significantly to elucidating the role that legal arenas are playing vis-à-vis resource governance and the conflicts thereof, thereby providing relevant stakeholders (policy-makers, the business community and civil society organisations concerned with conflicts over mining) with tools that will encourage deliberative attitudes and stimulate public and policy debates on good practices.