Rebundling sovereignty over local nature in global governance

Multiple hurdles in global environmental governance stem from the contradiction between the fragmentation of our political world, divided into sovereign states, and the intertwined nature of our planetary ecosystem. Scientific evidence has made clear that the functioning of multiple biomes which are partially or entirely under the sovereignty of states cannot be seen as detached from a broader Earth system. For this reason, multiple “local” parcels of nature within the territorial bounds of states have been raised as objects of global governance. 

The role of rainforests such as the Amazon for planetary climate change mitigation is an utmost example, as multiple international actors seek to collaborate on its sustainable governance. RESOLVING will investigate the political resolution of this contradictory position of nature which is both local (as parts of state territory and home to multiple populations) and global (as critical nodes of our planetary ecosystem), in terms of its implications for state sovereignty. 

Although we know much about the hurdles that the jurisdictional fragmentation of our state system brings to the effective government of our planetary environment, we know much less about how the attempts to govern planetary singularity as such may transform a key political structure that currently constrains them: state sovereignty. RESOLVING will address this puzzle by investigating the networks of actors that translate state authority into the de facto governance of human-nature relations in globally relevant world biomes: the Amazon rainforest and the Gulf of Guinea. We will look at governance initiatives produced at the global, state, and local levels interplay and which patterns of empowerment, inclusion, and exclusion ensue from them.

This project is funded by the Research Council of Norway.

External project partners:

• Dr. Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood, the Universtiy of St. Andrews 
  Dr. Laura Trajber Waisbich, the University of Oxford and the Igarape Institute