LAW-21806 Law and Legal Complexity in Relation to Natural Resources

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Continuation courses:

Technology and Development 4; Technology and Development 5; Technology and Development 6

Contents:

Development initiatives (policies, programmes, projects) often depend on forms of legal regulation as a major instrument to achieve a certain goal. Recently, attention to the role of law and norms in development policies and interventions, has been rapidly increasing. This is especially the case with regard to the social-legal dimensions of natural resource use and management. Natural resource management strategies in developing countries often entail the introduction of new laws, principles and procedures in contexts generally characterised by legal complexity. Many intervention policies and practices pertaining to the use, control and management of natural resources are based on mechanistic, instrumental approaches in which the positive effects of the proposed regulation are uncritically assumed rather than subjected to critical empirical analysis. Starting from a social science interest in the 'real-life' social effects of legal regulation, this course puts into perspective the dominant mechanistic, instrumental and normative approaches to legal regulation of resource use and management.
This course brings together social-legal perspectives on law and property rights and insights from studies of natural resource management, forestry, and irrigation and water management, with concerns for equity, social and legal security, and sustainability. It will deal in particular with the often problematic interrelationships between legal regulation and legal change on one hand, and processes of social, political, economic, cultural, ecological and technical change on the other.

Learning outcomes:

- have developed a general understanding of the relationships between normative and legal frameworks, technology, (development) policy-making, and interventions;
- have refined their analytical skills for describing, interpreting and analyzing existing conditions as well as-- intended - changes in the exploitation, control and regulation of natural resources;
- be familiar with the existence of a great diversity of forms of exploitation, management and legal regulation pertaining to natural resources;
- have skills to analyze complex normative, legal and institutional settings of resource exploitation and regulation in developing countries;
- have skills to analyse effects of policy changes and external interventions in legally complex settings of resource use and management;
- be able to critically evaluate institutional approaches using social and legal 'engineering' instruments for the regulation of human behaviour;
- be able to link issues of resource exploitation, legal regulation and management to other important dimensions and developmental values like equity (existential or 'livelihood', social and legal) security, and sustainability.

Activities:

This course is a combination of introductory lectures and assignments for the participants. The course starts off with a number of lectures in which we focus on the main themes, concepts, and approaches pertaining to law and natural resource management and present resource management case studies to highlight the social-legal dimensions of resource use and management practices.

Examination:

Final assessment will be based on presence and active participation in the sessions, preparation of the assignments, and the papers written.

Literature:

Reader.