Introduction
The concept of sustainable development has been popularized since the late 1980s as a way of synthesizing the seemingly juxtaposed exigencies of socio- economic development and protection of the natural environment (WCED, 1987). However, the debate on how to implement models of socio- economic development while safeguarding the stability of eco- systems for current and future generations has remained highly controver-sial and essentially unresolved (for an overview see Jacobs, 1999). The global ecological situation has worsened considerably since the Rio Summit in 1992, which was heralded by many – both in governments and civil society – as the beginning of the era of global environmental governance.
The climate crisis has become much more acute, biodiversity loss has accel-erated, and the exploitation of natural resources has substantially intensi-fied, the latter caused by increasing demand from industrialized and, more recently, also high- growth emerging countries (see Dittrich et al., 2012).
Against this background, the debate on how to reconcile socio- economic development with the ecological integrity of the planet has become more polarized. While with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015, the concept of sustainable development has on paper become the guiding principle for the international development agenda of the coming decade, the trade- off between economic development and ecological sustainability has not been addressed, as indeed no consensus exists how to reconcile economic devel-opment with environmental protection.
Two poles have emerged in the recent debate on environmental sustain-ability: one calling for a socio- ecological transformation towards a degrowth society (see Jackson, 2009), and the other believing in the pos-sibility of ‘greening’ capitalism or ‘ecological modernization’ via the mone-tization of nature and technological innovation without necessarily abandoning economic growth (Mol et al., 2009). Under the latter approach, the path towards ecological modernization is portrayed as a technical process supported by sound science and effective economic
policy- making. Socio- ecological conflicts are typically seen as temporary and solvable via monetary compensation, the main impetus needed is determined political leadership by governments (e.g. OECD, 2011; UNEP, 2011). Against this, governments in the Global South stress their right to development and, hence, the priority of economic growth over environ-mental protection. The responsibility of implementing policies against climate change and other threats to the integrity of ecosystems is passed to industrialized countries, since the current state of environmental problems is attributed to the development trajectories of the industrialized countries during the last 200 years. Here again, environmental protection is implic-itly understood as essentially a technical problem that can be resolved with appropriate policies.
In contrast, I shall argue in the remainder of this chapter that at the core of this debate lies a fundamental societal conflict – not just of short- term benefits and costs, but of modes of production and consumption. On the one hand, there is a conflict between actors in the Global North and South who argue in favour of continuing a growth- oriented development trajec-tory – complemented by selective environmental policies – and those that reject the idea of ‘greening’ capitalism and aim at breaking with the growth paradigm and establishing alternative economic and social models that reconcile human life with natural limits. On the other hand, there is a con-flict within the ‘developmentalist camp’, that is, between social actors and governments in the Global North, who aim at maintaining the “imperial mode of living” of the advanced industrialized countries (Brand and Wissen, 2012), and actors in the Global South, particularly in the emerging economics, who strive towards levels of material welfare akin to the advanced industrialized countries by way of high- growth late development trajectories. With limited planetary resources, access to resources in order to maintain and pursue high growth trajectories becomes a matter of com-petition. Under these conditions, conceptions of what constitutes fairness in terms of access and utilization of resources is not straightforward, since all actors typically refer to some a priori plausible normative claims.
In this chapter I, first, give an overview of the debate on socio- economic development and environmental protection, juxtaposing environmentalist and developmentalist approaches that are both legitimated with normative claims. The profound differences between these approaches are the main reasons for the limited progress in international environmental politics. I challenge the discussion from a fairness perspective, as both perspectives tend to shy away from explicitly discussing lines of conflict at different levels which crucially impact on fairness outcomes. I proceed by, second, introducing an alternative framework for resource fairness based on the work of Nancy Fraser. Third, this framework is adapted for the purpose of resources with the help of two concepts from institutional economics in order to account for the peculiar qualities of resource extraction.
These concepts are Karl William Kapp’s notion of social costs and Erich
Zimmermann’s functional theory of resources. In the conclusion, I finalize the discussion by making suggestions on what would constitute steps towards a fairer distribution of the benefits and costs of resource extrac-tion from the perspective of political economy. For matters of simplifica-tion, I follow Rawls (1958) in using the terms ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’
interchangeably.
The debate on socio- economic development and environmental protection
In the polarized debate on reconciling socio- economic development with environmental protection, two main poles have emerged. The one calls for a re- politicization of environmentalism and aims at a socio- ecological transformation towards alternative forms of post- capitalist societies (e.g.
degrowth (Jackson, 2009); buen vivir (Acosta, 2015); solidarity economy (Miller, 2010)), based on models of development that steadily reduce their absolute intake of materials and energy and, concomitantly, their emissions and wastes. This would entail the establishment of different and more sus-tainable production models, a return to local and/or regional production and consumption systems, and the development of alternative consump-tion norms (Kallis et al., 2012; Kallis, 2015). The other pole believes in the possibility of ‘greening’ capitalism via the monetization of nature and technological innovation that is expected to dramatically increase energy and material efficiency. Here, the free market system as well as economic globalization is considered necessary for and compatible with economic growth (OECD, 2011; UNEP, 2011).
Based on these lines of thought, environmentalists argue that the eco-nomic development model of the Global North has to drastically change and should not be repeated by the countries of the Global South, as this would overstretch the ecological capacities of planet Earth, both in terms of natural resources needed as inputs to production processes and in terms of the absorption capacities of ecosystems. Nonetheless, some authors concede that in many countries of the Global South which are still plagued by high levels of extreme poverty, living standards and material well- being need to be increased, which entails some increase in economic production and, inevitably, environmental degradation. They further argue that degrowth in the Global North is not only an imperative, but can also provide ecological space in the Global South by, for instance, reducing destructive resource extraction by transnational corporations, leaving room for alternative cosmovisions and practices in the South (Kallis, 2015).
Proponents of the ‘green economy’ stress the importance of improving energy and resource efficiency by advances in technology. They call for market- based solutions to environmental problems, for instance, through the monetization of nature, and argue in favour of the promotion of
research and innovation policies in order to facilitate a model of develop-ment that is less resource intensive and environdevelop-mentally damaging than previous processes of economic production and consumption but retains the principal focus on improving material well- being via economic growth (UNIDO, 2015). These lines of arguments are met with criticism and resistance, respectively. Governments in the Global South, particularly in emerging economies, stress their right to development. Hence, environmen-talist degrowth positions are mostly brushed aside as disguised Northern protectionism by Southern governments, whereas the proposals for a
‘green economy’ are challenged by requests for additional funding and technology transfer. Needless to say, industrialized countries’ willingness to supply such funding has been notoriously low (Climate Change News, 2015).
In most cases, the right to development boils down to introducing and promoting a model of late capitalist development. While country- specific models differ with respect to sector specializations and policy orientations, the general prime objective is to achieve high rates of economic growth, hence, mimicking the prevailing growth orientation of industrialized coun-tries. Obviously, this orientation has implications in terms of requirements for material and energetic inputs, atmospheric pollution, and, thus, environmental costs. Unsurprisingly, the rapid economic development of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) over the last 20 years has substantially increased global demand for raw materials and energy. In consequence, commodity- exporting countries have seen their revenues soar with prices reaching new heights at international com-modity markets during the 2000s, although more recently prices have fallen again substantially. However, it is far from clear whether this – and earlier – resource bonanzas have contributed to sustainable economic development (see Staritz et al., in this volume). For sure, these develop-ments have triggered responses from the European Union (EU) and other industrialized countries. For fear of losing out, in particular to China, the EU and other industrialized countries have formulated raw material strat-egies, which seek to maintain access to cheap raw material supplies for their respective manufacturing industries (Küblböck, 2014).
With political priorities firmly based on economic development, any international responsibilities for safeguarding the environment are usually rejected by the governments of emerging and developing countries. The basic ethical argument is that developmental imperatives carry a higher social weight in situations of extreme poverty than any environmental con-siderations. Frequently, this line of argument is accompanied by the suspi-cion that environmental causes are raised by Western interests in order to stymie the economic development of the Global South so as to maintain exploitative centre–periphery relationships. If there exists any responsib-ility for global environmental issues, it rested with the industrialized countries, as global environmental degradation is overwhelmingly the
by- product of the latter’s model of economic development during the last 200 years. This argument is supported by the work of social movements and critical scholars, who have argued that the economic development model in the capitalist centres has been based on relations of unequal logical exchange (Bunker, 1985; Hornborg, 2011) and has resulted in eco-logical debt vis- à-vis the peripheral countries of the Global South (Acción Ecológica, 1999; Goeminne and Paredis, 2010).
This struggle between environmentalism and developmentalism is taking place within a shifting international context, which as a tendency is weak-ening established mechanisms of global governance. The international gov-ernance architecture built up under US hegemony since World War II is in a process of decline. The global governance euphoria of the 1990s has given way to a more sober recognition of the dawn of a multipolar world order, where political interests have become more heterogeneous and a new geopolitics of at least partial rivalry for spheres of influence, if not hegemony, is unfolding (Raza, 2010). The main new actors are large emerging national states, with the BRICS countries and China in particular taking a leading role. But second- tier powers like Turkey and Indonesia have also increased their international economic and political influence.
Those emerging economies are essentially adopting models of state- led capitalism, with a marked emphasis on nationalistic discourses and, often, state repression. The legitimizing basis of the respective political classes in these countries rests on the promise of rapid increases in the material welfare of its populations and, particularly, its incipient urban middle- classes. As policies of redistribution of wealth and income are usually strongly contested and difficult to implement, the focus is on high eco-nomic growth. Not dissimilar from some industrialized countries, espe-cially the US, these emerging countries are very sceptical of binding themselves to international commitments, which impede their ability to pursue precisely these pro- growth policies. This represents a primary explanation as to why progress in international environmental, and, in particular, climate policies has become so protracted during the last 15 years, the recent conclusion of a climate accord in Paris in December 2015 notwithstanding. A similar situation characterizes other multilateral fora like the World Trade Organization (Raza, 2010). The latter are less and less able to impose conditions of Northern hegemonic powers upon the Global South, but are confronted with resistance and strong articulation of interests of new emerging powers. Concomitantly, other forms of inter-national cooperation have emerged recently. These are marked by a higher degree of informality, like the G20, and are characterized by variable insti-tutional geometries, for example, bilateral and regional trade agreements like the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). A third variant of new international organ-izations is set up under the leadership of emerging powers, particularly China, such as the BRICS Bank or the Asian Infrastructure Investment.
Consequently, normative approaches like cosmopolitan liberalism (see Nili, in this volume; Pogge, 2001; Pogge and Barry, 2006), which advance global principles of justice with regard to natural resources, find it difficult to implement these principles for lack of appropriate global governance mechanisms. Instead, they are confronted with a situation where diverse actors – for example, Northern as well as Southern environmentalists, green growth optimists, pro- growth developmentalists – refer to normative claims as well as human rights principles in order to legitimize their per-spective. While Northern as well as Southern environmentalists cite the rights of future generations and the rights of nature, respectively, in order to contest the legitimacy of a universalized model of capitalist develop-ment, or contrariwise of ‘green’ capitalism, Southern (as well as Northern) developmentalists refer to individual as well as collective social and eco-nomic rights of, essentially, present generation people(s) in order to defend their focus on high- growth strategies. Apparently, though perhaps to varying degrees, all sides acknowledge that economic development has environmental repercussions, at the national as well as international level.
However, the question of who has to bear the responsibility for avoiding and/or mitigating this environmental burden remains severely contested.
Thus, we are trapped in a situation, where all sides hold claims based on normative grounds, which are all legitimate and ethically defendable. I argue that if my outline of the general debate is accurate, then a political solution based on an exchange of normative arguments will not be reached, since all sides are convinced of the validity of their respective posi-tions. However, I argue that the dualistic accounts of Northern versus Southern interests, and developmental versus environmental positions, respectively, turn a blind eye to more intricate, but crucial, aspects of the debate on resource fairness. These relate in particular to (1) the distribu-tion of the social and environmental costs and benefits of resource extrac-tion at the local level, tradiextrac-tionally side- lined by developmentalism, (2) the distribution of benefits and costs of resource exploitation and resource- based development at the national level, traditionally neglected by environ-mentalism, as well as (3) the institutional architecture of resource politics, and in particular commodity trade, at the international level, often not properly accounted for by either environmentalists or developmentalists.
Hence, we need a reframing of our analytical approach which allows us to focus on these neglected dimensions of resource fairness and which tran-scends the usual Westphalian territorial framework.
An outline of an alternative framework for resource fairness
In the latest exposition of her theory of justice, Fraser (2010) rightly pro-ceeds from the fundamental insight that any system of justice is by its very nature governed by institutions, both at the subnational, national, and international level. Thus, any approach to fairness cannot be restricted to
the national level as has been common under the Keynesian–Westphalian state system, which reserves the discussion of issues of justice to the members of the respective national polity. The framing of justice thus needs to consider fairness at various territorial scales. Hence, the debate about justice cannot stop at treating the usual substantive questions about the ‘what’ of justice, but needs to concern itself with “second- order, meta- level questions” (Fraser, 2010: 15) concerning the frame of justice, that is, questions that deal with the ‘who’ and the ‘how’ of justice.
Furthermore, although fairness in the economic sphere is centred on questions of economic redistribution, that is, under which circumstances groups and individuals enjoy particular entitlements to the results of eco-nomic production, Fraser (2010) points to two other dimensions of justice.
The first is recognition, that is, the question whether economic, ethnic, reli-gious, or gender status lead to discrimination with regard to the recogni-tion of rights in society. In the context of resource politics, the rights of local communities (e.g. indigenous populations) are a case in point. The second dimension refers to representation, that is, whether the rights of particular individuals or groups are represented in the polity. This could refer to persons without full citizenship rights that are thus not allowed to participate in decision making even though they are affected by national regulations. The denial of political rights to migrants in the host country is an obvious example of such misframing. Related to resource extraction activities, fairness of representation refers to affected people being (un)able to participate in respective decision- making processes. Another case in point are the obligations that a parent company (and its executive manage-ment) might hold under national law vis- à-vis the operations of its subsidi-aries in third countries. Such issues of extraterritorial obligations have been neglected for a long time, and only more recently been debated (Amnesty International, 2014; Saage- Maß, 2014).
Thus, by applying Fraser’s three- dimensional conceptualization of justice, we are able to develop a justice framework at various territorial scales. The two guiding principles for a democratic process of re- framing are the “all- affected” and the “parity of participation” principles (Fraser, 2010). While the first principle states that all those individuals and groups that are affected by a measure or activity should be entitled to participate in the collective decision process, the second principle posits that there must not be any discrimination between the affected parties with regard to their rights of participation and co- decision. While the usual modes of justice in the Westphalian state system are centred upon both the national level and the question of redistribution, the resource challenge involves the local, the national, and the international level, and is also based upon the misrecognition as well as the misrepresentation of certain actors in institutional arrangements which are decisive in determining the distribu-tion of benefits and costs of resource appropriadistribu-tion. Thus, it is of para-mount importance that institutional arrangements are assessed against the
benchmark of whether they attribute parity of participation to all those individuals or groups that are affected by an activity or measure. Instead of taking the national setting with its established procedures for granted, a concept of justice in the current conjuncture needs to problematize
benchmark of whether they attribute parity of participation to all those individuals or groups that are affected by an activity or measure. Instead of taking the national setting with its established procedures for granted, a concept of justice in the current conjuncture needs to problematize