Burgers, L.

Pijl, K.

English

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl)UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)Legal innovation to empower the disempowered in service of a sustainable cityPijl, K.; Burgers, L.Publication date2023Document VersionFinal published versionLink to publicationCitation for published version (APA):Pijl, K. (Author), & Burgers, L. (Author). (2023). Legal innovation to empower thedisempowered in service of a sustainable city. Web publication or website, TransformativePrivate Law Blog. https://transformativeprivatelaw.com/legal-innovation-to-empower-the-disempowered-in-service-of-a-sustainable-city/General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s)and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an opencontent license (like Creative Commons).Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, pleaselet the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the materialinaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letterto: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Youwill be contacted as soon as possible.Download date:28 Nov 2023Legal innovation to empowerthe disempowered in serviceof a sustainable cityHome / Sustainability / Legal innovation to empower the disempowered in service of a sustainable cityPrevious Next AuthorPosted byKinanya Pijl and LauraBurgersJune 15th, 2023Recent PostsCritical approaches inEU law – still ablindspot.Urban commons, fromItaly to EuropeLegal innovation toempower thedisempowered inservice of a sustainablecityPositive SustainableObligations in PropertyLegal innovation to empower thedisempowered in service of asustainable cityReading Time: 8 minutesAmsterdam’s vision of becoming a sustainable cityWe have been fascinated by two small bottom-up initiatives in and aroundAmsterdam: the Community Land Trust in Amsterdam South-East and the so-called Zoöp. In a recent article, we analyse the potential and the limitations ofthese two bottom-up legal innovations to assess how they could help the city ofAmsterdam meet its ambition to transition to a doughnut-proof economy,based on Kate Raworth’s ‘doughnut economics’. A doughnut-proof city meetsthe needs of its people and the local natural habitat, while respecting the well-being of people globally (‘social foundation’) and staying within planetaryboundaries. Together with Raworth, municipal o cials made a ‘city doughnut’with four key questions that should guide Amsterdam’s transition towardssustainability:ARTICLES TEAM ABOUT US CONTACT SUBMIT POST LawAcademic freedom andthe perils of theemployment contract inmanagerial universities– time for actionAmsterdam City Doughnut, by Kate RaworthIn our analysis, we have paid particular attention to what these innovations doto our understanding of private law categories and how they use conventionalprivate legal tools to alter whose voices get heard and whose interests count inour economic and political system. The CLT and Zoöp models demonstrate thatthe legal modules of property and representation indeed can be adjusted suchthat the legal system can better accommodate an economic system in whichneither planetary boundaries nor social foundations are transgressed.Importantly, they are able to do so by utilizing private legal tools of companylaw, corporate governance and contract law without having to wait forgovernmental institutions to adopt legal reform.The Community Land TrustFor the past 50 years, the Bijlmer in Amsterdam South-East has been perceivedas the roughest part of Amsterdam. By the end of the 1980s, the area had thepro le of a poor neighbourhood, with soaring crime rates, drug abuse andunemployment. In 1992, the municipality of Amsterdam, the city council ofSouth East and the social housing corporations decided for a large-scale arearenewal. ‘However, residents continue to struggle, to fully prosper socially andeconomically’, Moses Alagbe – Initiator and Board Member of the CLT H-neighbourhood – notes, which he states can be explained by high costs of livingand disappearance and lack of physical community infrastructure to supportemancipation, community activities and capacity building.A grassroots organisation that has been active in the H-neighbourhood in theBijlmer for more than 15 years, initiated plans to contribute to the developmentof their own neighbourhood through a Community Land Trust (CLT).Community members set up an open member association called CLT H-neighbourhood that consists of a diverse community with over 180 members.The group chose community development  rst, including the establishment ofthe association, even before a concrete plot of land was available to them. Thecommunity uses the CLT model, which  nds its origins in the US from 1969onwards. Central to any CLT are: self-organisation, shared ownership and realestate management and operation. The CLT H-neighbourhood hopes to attainland to develop the neighbourhood, based on  ve guiding principles:1. a ordability in the present, for current residents from low- and middle-income popula tion group;2. a ordability in the future by making speculation with housing or rapid rentincreases impos sible;3. connectedness with the neighbourhood through permanent decision-makingpower of local res idents over developments in the vicinity of their homesand neighbourhood facilities;4. stimulating self-reli ance and providing opportunities for the socioeconomicemancipation of residents from the neighbourhood, by having them takecharge of the elaboration and organi zation of the projects; and5. combining the develop ment of the CLT model with circular areadevelopment.In traditional area develop ment processes, urban sites are usually maximisedfor eco nomic return. The CLT demonstrates that property rights might just aswell be used to protect collective use rights and sustainable practices. It showsthat the legal module of ‘property’ can be imbued with new meanings to betteraccommodate an eco nomic system in which neither planetary boundaries norsocial foundations are transgressed. The community is able to do so by utilizingexisting legal tools of company law and contract law without having to wait forgovernmental institutions to adopt legal reform.Nevertheless, the CLT initiative in the H-neighbourhood makes clear howimportant the support of local government is for communities to participate inremaking the city. While the CLT H-neighbourhood has been building theircommunity from 2018 onward, the municipality keeps postponing the tenderfor the actual land on which the community hopes to build its houses andneighbourhood facilities. It is not unlikely that that tender will come out sixyears after the CLT H-neighbourhood started their e orts. It is di cult for theCLT to keep people engaged if there is no clear plan that they will be able toremake their neighbourhood. Moreover, due to electoral cycles, the people withwhom they engage at the municipality come and go and the community muststart from the scratch, engaging with the municipality over and over again.In its vision for 2050, the Amsterdam municipality expresses its support forbottom-up initiatives, including the CLT H-neighbourhood. It is yet to be seenwhether this is mere lip service. The support required is not merely aboutmaking available plots of land for CLTs; what is critical here is the recognitionand understanding that law and regulation frequently operate as barriers tocommunity engagement in remaking the city and accordingly build the designto circumvent such barriers. The process of taking ownership for theirneighbourhood is at times such an uphill battle that disincentivised people todevelop feelings of ownership of their neighbourhood or their city.Municipalities must learn from this experience and assist people hands-on intaking responsibility for shaping their neighbourhoods in a collaborativemanner.The ZoöpThe Zoöp is an organisation model that makes sure that there is a person onthe board of any organisation whose only task it is to represent non-humans,like animals, plants, and ecosystems. The Zoöp was launched in 2022 and de -veloped by the Rotterdam-based museum Het Nieuwe Instituut (The NewInstitute), supported pro bono by lawyers from Amsterdam law  rm De BrauwBlackstone Westbro ek.  What is unique about the Zoöp is how it radicallychanges whose voices are repre sented in organisational decision-making: Zoöpis not only about realising environmental standards; the mod el also enablesdeliberating with the nonhuman world on what those standards should be.This is how it works in a nutshell: There is a so-called Zoönomic Foundation,that employs ‘speakers for the living’: human experts in regeneration who canvoice the nonhuman interests in the executive board of any organisation thatwants to be a zoöp. To become a zoöp, an organisation must also subscribe to a‘Zoöp Manifesto’ and make it easily accessible on its website. Once theseconditions are met, the Zoö nomic Institute will license the organisation as azoöp. The newly established zoöp commits to carry out a baseline assessment,map ping the ecological system within its domain. Thereafter, the zoöp sets outyearly goals for ecological regeneration. In this way, the zoöp ensures tooperate in harmony with nature.There are already organisations inside and outside Amsterdam that adoptedthe Zoöp model, including the art plat form and community garden calledZone2Source, the future hotel Fort Abcoude and the holiday resort Sumowala.As this model is relatively new, it needs to be awaited how it will work out inpractice. What can already be said though, is that the Zoöp model builds on theclaim that nature has intrinsic value and therefore merits institutionalisedrepresentation, and that such representation will lead to better envi ronmentalprotection, at least within the premises of a Zoöp organisation. By doing so, theZoöp model imbues the legal module of ‘representation’ with new meanings tobetter accommodate an eco nomic system in which neither planetaryboundaries nor social foundations are transgressed. Non-humans are no longer(only) at the menu, they are at the table in zoöp organisations. The Zoöp is ableto achieve this by utilizing existing legal tools of company law, corporategovernance and contract law without having to wait for governmentalinstitutions to adopt legal reform.The municipality of Amsterdam could enhance the sphere of in uence of thisprivate initiative by either recognizing the rights of the local environment orrestructuring some of its key agencies into zoöps in which nonhuman interests(and, by extension, the interests of people elsewhere) are represented. Hence,if the municipality of Amsterdam takes its own Doughnut Strategy seriously, itought to recognise the innovative changes made by private parties, supportthem and spread their insights. That way, the city can also inspire those beyondits boundaries to adopt an ecologically sustainable and socially just way ofliving.How CLT and Zoöp help Amsterdam become doughnut-proofThe CLT and Zoöp demonstrate that through committed action on the basis ofalternative interpretations, one can remake legal meaning, imbue propertyrelationships with place-based responsibilities and feelings of belonging, andincorporate ecology in models of representation. Hence, our analysis con rmsthat meanings of legal structures such as property and representation dependupon their social, material and temporal contexts that are not  xed but ratherto be negotiated over time.The CLT empowers local people, whereas the Zoöp empowers local ecology. Butneither of the initiatives does everything at once as envisioned by theDoughnut-model: take good care of local people and people elsewhere and thelocal environment and the planet. To remedy this, there is room for cross-fertilization between the CLT and Zoöp. The Zoöp can lend its expertise to buildin representation for the local natural habitat and the planet in the governancedesign of the CLT. The CLT’s expertise on the use of ownership to nur ture asense of stewardship for inclusive and empowered local communities caninspire the designers of the Zoöp model to maximize its potential for socialinclusion. Moreover, both models would bene t from exploring how peopleelsewhere could be represented in their gov ernance designs, inspired by theway in which zoöps en able representation of voiceless nonhuman actors al -ready now.While the CLT and Zoöp models can be enhanced to optimally contribute toAmsterdam’s transition towards sustainability, our analysis results in theempowering message that people can utilize the already existing private legaltools of company law, corporate governance and contract law to remake theircity without having to wait for governmental institutions to adopt legal reform.However, the CLT and Zoöp demonstrate the fundamental importance of legal,municipal and other expert support to make legal innovation in service of asustainable city happen. The development of the Zoöp model was supportedpro bono by lawyers from De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. The CLT H-neighbourhood is constantly supported by a coalition of experts from theadvisory  rm – And The People; the advisory  rm – Common City; housing-related advisory services provider – !Woon; and the design studio –Space&Matter. This coalition of experts assist the community with theengagement with local government and working through the legal andregulatory complexities of making a CLT initiative come to life.MenuArticlesTeamAbout UsContactSubmit PostRecent PostsSeptember 28, 2023Criticalapproaches inEU law – still ablindspot.July 21, 2023Urbancommons, fromItaly to EuropeCategoriesDigitalization (3)Finance (3)Labour (2)Property (5)Social Justice (5)Sustainability(16)Theory (8)Social Media By Kinanya Pijl and Laura Burgers | June 15th, 2023 | Sustainability | 0 CommentsRelated PostsA lack of understanding of relevant processes, or even an absence of suchprocesses, can make it very di cult for community members to participate inremaking the city in more socially just and ecologically sustainable ways. Thusto all lawyers, civil servants and other relevant experts out there, we invite youto lend your hand and enable the bottom-up changemakers in our cities toimbue the notions of property and ownership with new meanings in service ofthe transition towards sustainable cities.Interested to read more? Have a look at:www.erasmuslawreview.nl/tijdschrift/ELR/2022/3%20(incomplete)/ELR-D-22-00036<small>(Photo: <a href=”https://pixabay.com/nl/photos/amsterdam-kanaal-storm-stad-lucht-1910176/”>user32212</a>)</small>

Legal innovation to empower the disempowered in service of a sustainable city

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Legal innovation to empower the disempowered in service of a sustainable city

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