The Political Economy Approach to Food Systems Reform

The political economy approach to food systems steers away both from approaches that focus on biogeochemical flows and the embeddedness of food systems in the biosphere, and from classical economists’ approaches that address the role of prices in relating supply and demand. This article discusses what is specific to the political economy analysis, which places power at the centre of its inquiry; and it lists the challenges this approach faces in its attempt to contribute to the reform of food systems.International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (iPES Food

Infringement Proceedings as a Tool for the Enforcement of Fundamental Rights in the European Union

The potential of EU infringement proceedings as a human rights tool is underestimated. In this report commissioned by the Open Society European Policy Institute, Professor De Schutter provides recommendations on how infringement proceedings can become part and parcel of a fundamental rights policy of the European Union.The report examines the process of infringement proceedings in law and practice and its place in the human rights architecture of the European Union, highlighting its added value compared to the political monitoring of fundamental rights under Article 7 of the Treaty on the European Union, and referrals to the Court of Justice of the European Union by national courts.Professor De Schutter explores a number of new practices that could be introduced to strengthen the use of infringement proceedings as a fundamental rights enforcement tool, including the status of the complainant who brings an alleged violation of EU law to the attention of the Commission; the use by the Commission of sources of information other than individual complaints; and the incentives that the member states could be given to better comply with fundamental rights in the implementation of EU law.At a time where EU powers to enforce fundamental rights are challenged, this report is an invitation to the European Commission to revisit its use of infringement proceedings

El papel del FMI para la protección social: prometedores cambios en políticas y desafíos persistentes

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has arguably shifted its position towards social protection, understood as a set of public measu- res intended to protect individuals from social and economic distress in cases of income reduction or loss. Leadership in the IMF has affirmed that there has been a change from its much-criticized focus on structu- ral adjustments and austerity, to a “new” approach and interest in social issues through the lens of “macro-criticality.” In this article, we survey the evolution and extent of this possible shift, given the important role of the IMF in social protection: the macro-economic recommendations the organization makes have a clear influence over countries’ policy decisions related to social protection, through mechanisms including surveillance advice and expertise, conditionalities on lending, and its gatekeeping role for third-party lending. We examine the IMF’s response to the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the extent to which its policies have truly shifted. We show that, while there have been promising policy changes, including lowering or even elimina- ting some conditionalities and promoting healthcare spending, its focus on targeted measures to combat poverty, as opposed to universal social protection floors, and its continued focus on fiscal sustainability, lead to an ambiguous approach that hinders progress to make social protection universal, as committed by governments in ILO Recommendation 202 (2012). We find that a sharp contrast remains between efforts deployed to meet countries’ financing needs and the content of the conditionali- ties imposed in the name of fiscal sustainability. The IMF must adopt a human rights-based approach towards social protection, going beyond targeting and towards universality, and not simply mitigate the effects of its programs on the vulnerable. Increasing cooperation with other international organizations, not only the World Bank, but UNICEF and the ILO as well, and joining ongoing efforts for the establishment of a Global Fund for Social Protection, would be a first step in this directionSe puede afirmar que el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) ha cambiado su postura sobre la protección social, entendida como el conjunto de medidas públicas destinadas a proteger a la población de los peligros sociales y económicos en caso de reducción o pérdida de ingresos. Desde los más altos cargos del FMI, se ha afirmado que se produjo un cambio en el foco de su atención: de una concentración excesiva en ajustes estructurales, con frecuencia muy criticada, a un “nuevo” abordaje e interés en las cuestiones sociales a través del prisma de la “macrocrítica”. En el presente artículo, se estudia la evolución y el alcance de este aparente cambio, dada la importancia del papel del FMI en la protección social: las recomendaciones macroeconómicas del organismo tienen una influencia decisiva sobre las decisiones de políticas a nivel nacional en relación con la protección social, mediante mecanismos como las recomendaciones y experiencia de vigilancia, las condicionalidades sobre préstamos y el papel del FMI como facilitador ante préstamos a terceros. También se analiza la respuesta del FMI a la crisis económica originada por la pandemia de la COVID-19 a fin de evaluar hasta qué punto se han modificado sus políticas en la realidad. Mostramos que, si bien se han concretado algunos cambios promete- dores en las políticas, entre ellas, la reducción y hasta eliminación de algunas condicionalidades y la promoción de inversiones en el sector salud, la insistencia en medidas selectivas para combatir la pobreza, en lugar del fomento de pisos de protección social universales, así como el enfoque persistente en la sustentabilidad fiscal, condujeron a un abordaje ambiguo que menoscaba los avances en pos de hacer de la protección social un recurso universal, tal y como se comprometieron los gobiernos en la Recomendación 202 de la OIT (2012). Prevalece un marcado contraste entre, de un lado, los esfuerzos desplegados para satisfacer las necesidades de financiamiento de los países, y del otro, la imposición de condicionalidades en nombre de la sustentabilidad fiscal. El FMI debe adoptar un enfoque de la protección social basado en los derechos humanos, que supere su tradicional insistencia en medidas selectivas en pos de la universalidad, de manera que se logre avanzar más allá de la mitigación de los efectos de sus programas sobre secto- res vulnerables. Un primer paso en esta dirección sería incrementar la cooperación con otras organizaciones internacionales, no solo el Banco Mundial, sino también UNICEF y la OIT, así como incorporarse a los esfuerzos existentes para el establecimiento de un Fondo Global para la Protección Social

The IMF’s role in social protection: Promising policy shifts and persisting challenges

Se puede afirmar que el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) ha cambiado su postura sobre la protección social, entendida como el conjunto de medidas públicas destinadas a proteger a la población de los peligros sociales y económicos en caso de reducción o pérdida de ingresos. Desde los más altos cargos del FMI, se ha afirmado que se produjo un cambio en el foco de su atención: de una concentración excesiva en ajustes estructurales, con frecuencia muy criticada, a un “nuevo” abordaje e interés en las cuestiones sociales a través del prisma de la “macrocrítica”. En el presente artículo, se estudia la evolución y el alcance de este aparente cambio, dada la importancia del papel del FMI en la protección social: las recomendaciones macroeconómicas del organismo tienen una influencia decisiva sobre las decisiones de políticas a nivel nacional en relación con la protección social, mediante mecanismos como las recomendaciones y experiencia de vigilancia, las condicionalidades sobre préstamos y el papel del FMI como facilitador ante préstamos a terceros. También se analiza la respuesta del FMI a la crisis económica originada por la pandemia de la COVID-19 a fin de evaluar hasta qué punto se han modificado sus políticas en la realidad. Mostramos que, si bien se han concretado algunos cambios prometedores en las políticas —entre ellas, la reducción y hasta eliminación de algunas condicionalidades y la promoción de inversiones en el sector salud— la insistencia en el uso de medidas selectivas (targenting) para combatir la pobreza, en lugar del fomento de pisos de protección social universales, así como el enfoque persistente en la sustentabilidad fiscal, le han llevado a tener un enfoque ambiguo que menoscaba los avances en pos de hacer de la protección social un recurso universal, tal y como se comprometieron los gobiernos en la Recomendación 202 de la OIT (2012). Prevalece un marcado contraste entre, de un lado, los esfuerzos desplegados para satisfacer las necesidades de financiamiento a nivel de país, y del otro, la imposición de condicionalidades en nombre de la sustentabilidad fiscal. El FMI debe adoptar un enfoque en cuanto a la protección social basado en los derechos humanos, que supere su tradicional insistencia en medidas selectivas en pos de la universalidad, de manera que se logre avanzar más allá de la mitigación de los efectos de sus programas sobre sectores vulnerables. Un primer paso en esta dirección sería incrementar la cooperación con otras organizaciones internacionales, no solo el Banco Mundial, sino también UNICEF y la OIT, así como incorporarse a los esfuerzos existentes para el establecimiento de un Fondo Global para la Protección Social.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has arguably shifted its position towards social protection, understood as a set of public measures intended to protect individuals from social and economic distress in of income reduction or loss. Leadership in the IMF has affirmed that there has been a change from its much-criticized focus on structural adjustments and austerity, to a “new” approach and interest in social issues through the lens of “macro-criticality.” In this article, we survey the evolution and extent of this possible shift, given the important role of the IMF in social protection: the macro-economic recommendations the organization makes have a clear influence over countries’ policy decisions related to social protection, through mechanisms including surveillance advice and expertise, conditionalities on lending, and its gatekeeping role for third-party lending. We examine the IMF’s response to the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the extent to which its policies have truly shifted. We show that, while there have been promising policy changes, including lowering or even eliminating some conditionalities and promoting healthcare spending, its focus on targeted measures to combat poverty, as opposed to universal social protection floors, and its continued focus on fiscal sustainability, lead to an ambiguous approach that hinders progress to make social protection universal, as committed by governments in ILO Recommendation 202 (2012). We find that a sharp contrast remains between efforts deployed to meet countries’ financing needs and the content of the conditionalities imposed in the name of fiscal sustainability. The IMF must adopt a human rights-based approach towards social protection, going beyond targeting and towards universality, and not simply mitigate the effects of its programs on the vulnerable. Increasing cooperation with other international organizations, not only the World Bank, but UNICEF and the ILO as well, and joining ongoing efforts for the establishment of a Global Fund for Social Protection, would be a first step in this direction.Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociale

Food as commons:Towards a new relationship between the public, the civic and the private

This book was motivated by the need to approach with a fresh look what we regard as perhaps the most embarrassing predicament of the Anthropocene/Capitalocene (Capra and Mattei, 2015, Altvater et al., 2016, Moore, 2017).We live in an era with roughly the same number (about one billion) of over-fed people and of people lacking access to nutritious food (which means that do not know in the morning if they will be able to feed themselves and their children during the day). Our era also stands out by the remarkable amount of food that is wasted in some parts of the world and by the unprecedented number of livestock that populates this planet (Patel and Moore, 2017). Moreover, in the current phase of neoliberal capitalism that dominates in the Anthropocene/Capitalocene, the ecological footprint is out of control; some rich people (the majority in the Global North and the elite in the Global South) can enjoy every day food shipped from thousands of miles away on gas gulping aircrafts and boats that pollute the environment beyond imagination. Such luxury, the result of the worldwide colonization of diets,would be impossible without a very significant environmental subsidy; if all the externalities had to be internalized, eating Nile Perch would be unaffordable to most people everywhere. The subsidy is ultimately paid by the poor in the South and, in general, will certainly be paid by future generations. Unless we deal with and avoid the hidden social and environmental costs that are so far unaccounted for in the hegemonic food system (TEEB, 2018

La sécheresse de ces dernières semaines n’est pas anecdotique

La sécheresse de ces dernières semaines n’est pas anecdotique. Elle annonce une série de crises et nous oblige à un changement radical. Sinon, la justice climatique ne sera pas.13. Climate action10. Reduced inequalities12. Responsible consumption and productio

Introduction:The food commons are coming...

1 Seeing with new eyes Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, only one vision has become hegemonic worldwide. The marginalization of any alternative to the single thought, also known as the end of history (Fukuyama, 1989; IUC, 2009), has quickly generated what is known as neoliberalism, the new form of hybridization between public sovereignty and private corporations that has come to dominate contemporary structures of global governance (Harvey, 2007).This arrangement, with a crucial role for the military industrial complex, has not only produced new forms of world dis- orders. It has also disrupted the fundamental understanding of modernity, that of a neat distinc- tion between a public and a private sector. The new hybrid corporate power, the current form of capital accumulation, now runs the world within a logic of global sovereignty that defeats every form of democratic control. Every single aspect of human life has been attracted within this bio-political machinery so that the very human being is now commodified like every other aspect of nature. The most tangible manifestation of this process is in the domain of two of the fundamental building blocks of human life: water and food. These two essential components of life are now almost entirely transformed into commodities, leading to forms of domination and subordination that are difficult to overestimate. The consequences of the current extractive system are so deep as to produce a new geological era, the so-called Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2006;Purdy, 2015) or Capitalocene (Moore, 2017), which is likely to destroy the very conditions of life and human civilization (Brown, 2008; Capra and Mattei, 2015)

Rethinking International Investment Governance: Principles for the 21st Century

Rethinking International Investment Governance: Principles for the 21st Century – written over the course of a week by a distinguished group of experts in international economic governance using the Booksprint process – aims to serve as a practical resource for those interested in the elements of an international investment system that promotes sustainable development and achieves legitimacy by providing benefits to all stakeholders. The objective of Rethinking International Investment Governance is to change the terms of the debate so that societal values and goals are at the center of discussions about each reform proposal and process. This book rethinks international investment law as a key system in global economic governance that should incorporate principles of transparency, participation, reciprocity, accountability, and subsidiarity. It critically evaluates the current system of investment governance in light of those principles and goals. And finally, it proposes possible reforms – including multilateral ones – that would realign the governance of international investment with 21st century goals including reduction of poverty and inequality, and protection of human dignity, the environment and the planet.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/sustainable_investment_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Focus EMU, February 22, 2005

Une opinion rédigée et transmise à la Première ministre et aux Ministresprésidents régionaux par un collectif de signataires