Dear Colleagues:
Please find below a call for papers for a Special Issue on food, agriculture and natural resources in the Global South.
Regards,
Damilola S. Olawuyi
JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT LAW AND POLICY
AFE BABALOLA UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA
Call for Papers
Special Issue on: Competing Claims for Land, Food, Water and Agricultural Resources:
Perspectives from the Global South
Overview:
Ecosystems such as forests, water and agricultural resources are not only recognised as an important part of our cultural and natural heritage, but are also important from different perspectives and for a variety of purposes. Forest resources, for instance, act as carbon stocks in the global fight against climate change. The importance of the exploitation of natural resources and agricultural growth for employment, foreign exchange, government revenue, and food, is evident from the percentage of the world’s population directly or indirectly associated with or dependent upon forests and other agricultural reources, especially in the Global South. According to estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, more than 30 percent of the world’s population depend on agricultural resources for some part of their livelihoods, with a significantly higher percentage in the Global South. The importance of forestry and agricultural resources to poverty reduction is reflected in various policy documents such as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP). However, despite the central role played by the forestry and agricultural sectors in the economic development of these countries and the enormous efforts made by their respective governments, with the support of partner and donor institutions to manage and regulate them, they are still faced with serious problems. These include illegal harvesting and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, land grabbing and inequality in the distribution of benefits among the local populations.
Various arguments have been advanced to find the root cause of these problems. The extremely sensitive nature of the sector and the distortive macro and sectoral policy stances contribute to fuelling these problems. Balancing the needs of the large number of people depending on agricultural resources for their livelihoods with the ecological and economic values attached to it has made land, forests, water and agricultural resources very difficult resources to regulate. The link between land/resource tenure, unsustainable resource exploitation and the structural inequalities that this generates, has also been highlighted. Globally, as population and environmental pressures on land grow, competing claims on these resources fueled by the land tenure systems have, in turn, triggered violent conflicts, destroyed the environment, exacerbated inequalities across gender and geography, displaced populations and undermined democratic governance in many countries in the Global South. These challenges have been realised at the international and national levels, with numerous initiatives by international agencies such as UN-Habitat’s Global Land Tools Network and the World Bank land titling programmes developed to address some of the issues, and include resilience measures to respond to armed conflicts, natural disasters and related population displacement. At national levels, there are also instances where effective mechanisms to address the conflicting claims to the resources has produced sustainable and equitable human development. These include legal and institutional frameworks for the better integration of customary land tenure features (which remain operational) into the modern land tenure systems, which in turn provides the legal and institutional mechanisms that promote fair and equitable exploitation of the resources and address the social and environmental impacts. Despite these efforts, the challenge remains for the Global South on how to address the competing claims on land, forests, water and agricultural resources to leverage the resources to avoid conflicts, transform their domestic economies, and enhance their global competitiveness.
The Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy invites scholarly articles for publication in a special issue on the subject “Competing Claims for Land, Food, Water and Agricultural Resources: Perspectives from the Global South”. The Journal is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal that fosters the dissemination of scholarly research work by teaching and research scholars in Africa and across the world in the area of sustainable development law and policy. This special issue will be published in Spring 2018.
Although authors are free to choose any topic that is related to this broad theme, the journal is particularly interested in recent developments in the Global South or best practices from other parts of the world that could inform legal and policy reform in the Global South. For guidance purposes, submissions addressing the following issues are particularly encouraged:
• Legal and institutional mechanisms for promoting land/resource tenure security for sustainable development, equity and prosperity;
• Law and governance innovations for promoting food, agriculture and commercial fishing in developing countries;
• Legal and institutional mechanisms that promote fair and equitable exploitation of land and agricultural resources and address the social and environmental impacts;
• Legal frameworks for addressing the impacts of large-scale forestry and agricultural resource development on local communities across the world;
• Local content policies, particularly in the context of the creation of inter-sectorial linkages and spillovers;
• Land and resource governance strategies and their contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Land and resource governance strategies for conflict prevention, including issues of transparency and accountability;
• Approaches for securing land and resource rights and for integrating customary land tenure features into modern (western) land tenure systems.
• Regional/Inter-regional land and resource governance initiatives aimed at addressing competing claims and boosting the socio-economic impact of agricultural resource development within the countries in the region(s) in question;
Country case studies on any of the above issues are highly encouraged. Comparative studies engaging two or more regions or countries in the Global South are also of particular interest to this journal.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Length and Footnotes
1) Articles should be between 5000-8000 words and should advance legal scholarship and knowledge in a specific area of sustainable development law and policy.
2) Articles should include an abstract of approximately 250 words that is not an extract from the article itself.
3) Details of the author should be supplied as the first footnote, attached by an asterisk to the author’s name.
Form of Submission
4) Articles must be submitted in Word format and sent as an email attachment to [log in to unmask], with copy (cc) to [log in to unmask]
5) Contributions will only be considered for publication if they comply with the style guide. All citations should be as footnotes and accord with the Oxford Standard for Legal Citation (OSCOLA).
6) Authors should please make use of the following checklist prior to submission:
o an abstract is included;
o headings are consecutively numbered without automatic numbering;
o headings are not underlined;
o paragraphs are not separated by a full blank line, but only by an indent at the beginning of the new paragraph;
o footnotes are consecutively numbered by way of automatic numbering;
o footnotes are not separated by a full blank line;
o footnotes appear at the end of each page of the manuscript and not at the end of the manuscript;
o quotations have been checked for accuracy; and
o references comply with the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA).
Deadlines
8) Only articles submitted on or before 12 noon on 31st January 2018 would be considered for publication in this special issue. All papers should be submitted by email. Deadlines are firm. Articles submitted after the deadline may not be published.
Submissions
Authors should send their submission to the editor of the special issue Dr. Walters Nsoh by email [log in to unmask], with copy (cc) to [log in to unmask] on or before the deadline. Selected papers that scale the peer-review process will be published in Volume 9 Issue 1 of the Journal. Accepted submissions which cannot be accommodated in the special issue will be placed in the next issue following. All authors will be duly notified of the outcome of their submissions.
Evaluation
9) Contributions are submitted to at least two referees and the identities of the contributors and referees are kept confidential.
10) Further details about the Journal can be found at : http://www.ogeesinstitute.edu.ng/#!research-and-publications/c7o1
Questions and Enquiries
All enquiries or questions should be directed to:
Dr. Walters Nsoh
The Editor-in-Chief (Competing Claims on Land, Food, Water and Agricultural Resources Special Issue)
Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy
Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria
Email: [log in to unmask], with copy (cc) to [log in to unmask]
More information about the journal is enclosed.
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