Research Handbook on Global Governance, Business and Human Rights


Book Description

This essential Research Handbook provides a comprehensive and critical assessment of the global governance instruments related to business and human rights from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributions from a diverse range of leading international scholars offer an overview of the existing literature and rapidly-evolving research discipline, as well as identifying key trends and outlining an ambitious future research agenda.




Sustainable Development and International Food Trade Policies


Book Description

With a particular focus on developing economies, this book explores the intersection between agri-environmental policy, food policy, agricultural trade policy, and sustainable development. This book explores the many factors which shape sustainable development policies in agriculture. On the production side, using environmentally friendly inputs and good agricultural practices to protect the land and other related resources are necessary conditions for sustainable agriculture. On the other hand, ensuring food safety, security, and sustainable consumption are necessary elements of sustainable food policies and development. In addition, as the agricultural sector grows in an economy, energy needs become a major issue, especially for countries that depend on import. This book explores how these elements are balanced – along with global factors such as foreign direct investment, international climate change provisions, and the role of the WTO – in domains such as value chains, biotechnology, gender equality, ecology, and trade-environment interaction. This book will be of great interest to advanced readers in the fields of agricultural policy, food trade policy, and sustainable development.




Sustainability Standards and Global Governance


Book Description

This open access book focuses on the issue of sustainability standards from the perspective of both global governance frameworks and emerging economies. It stems from the recognition that the accelerated pace of economic globalization has generated production and consumption patterns that are generating sustainability concerns. Sustainability standards (and regulations) are increasingly being used in a bid to make global consumption and production more sustainable. Given the dense inter-connectedness of economic affairs globally, the use of sustainability standards has become a concern of global governance, who face the challenge of achieving a balance between the use of standards for genuine sustainability objectives, and not allowing them to turn into instruments of protectionism or coercion.The emerging economies, given their increasing engagement with the global economy, are most impacted by the use of sustainability standards. The emphasis of ‘emerging economies’ in this book is retained both by using case studies from these economies and by collating perceptions and assessments of those located in these economies. The case studies included span sectors such as palm oil, forestry, food quality, vehicular emissions and water standards, and address the problems unique to the emerging economies, including capacity building for compliance with standards, adapting international standards in domestic contexts and addressing the exclusion of small and medium enterprises etc. Complex interfaces and dynamics of a global nature are not limited to the thematic of this book but also extend to the process through which it was written. This book brings together insights from developed as well as emerging economies (Germany, India, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico and China). It also brings together scholars and practitioners to jointly ponder upon the conceptual aspects of the global frameworks for sustainability standards. This book is a very useful resource for researchers and practitioners alike, and provides valuable insights for policy makers as well.




The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020


Book Description

The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2020 (SOCO 2020) aims to discuss policies and mechanisms that promote sustainable outcomes – economic, social and environmental – in agricultural and food markets, both global and domestic. The analysis is organized along the trends and challenges that lie at the heart of global discussions on trade and development. These include the evolution of trade and markets; the emergence of global value chains in food and agriculture; the extent to which smallholder farmers in developing countries participate in value chains and markets; and the transformative impacts of digital technology on markets. Along these themes, SOCO 2020 discusses policies and institutions that can promote inclusive economic growth and also harness markets to contribute towards the realization of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals.




Innovative markets for sustainable agriculture


Book Description

Between 2013 and 2015, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) undertook a survey of innovative approaches that enable markets to act as incentives in the transition towards sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Through a competitive selection process, 15 cases from around the world provide insights into how small-scale initiatives that use sustainable production practices are supported by market demand, and create innovations in the institutions that govern sustainable practices and market exchanges. These cases respond to both local and distant consumers’ concerns about the quality of the food that they eat. The book evidences that the initiatives rely upon social values (e.g. trustworthiness, health [nutrition and food safety], food sovereignty, promotion of youth and rural development, farmer and community livelihoods) to adapt sustainable practices to local contexts, while creating new market outlets for food products. Specifically, private sector and civil society actors are leading partnerships with the public sector to build market infrastructure, integrate sustainable agriculture into private and public education and extension programmes, and ensure the exchange of transparent information about market opportunities. The results are: (i) system innovations that allow new rules for marketing and assuring the sustainable qualities of products; (ii) new forms of organization that permit actors to play multiple roles in the food system (e.g. farmer and auditor, farmer and researcher, consumer and auditor, consumer and intermediary); (iii) new forms of market exchange, such as box schemes, university kiosks, public procurement or systems of seed exchanges; and (iv) new technologies for sustainable agriculture (e.g. effective micro-organisms, biopesticides and soil analysis techniques). The public sector plays a key role in providing legitimate political and physical spaces for multiple actors to jointly create and share sustainable agricultural knowledge, practices and products.




Better Trade for Sustainable Development


Book Description

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defines international trade as "an engine for inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction, [that] contributes to the promotion of sustainable development".




Constructing markets for agroecology


Book Description

This study offers a unique approach to understanding how markets are constructed for agroecological products while also supporting small-scale actors in their existing agroecology production and marketing strategies.




Regulating Transnational Sustainability Regimes


Book Description

The book studies emergence and consolidation of voluntary sustainability standards (VSS); private standards defining sustainability-related product features. The book takes stock of their success and their potential in mediating between economic and non-economic concerns of global production. Despite their private and voluntary nature, VSS generate profound consequences for the producers seeking certification, for the consumers purchasing certified products, and for others affected by their standards. VSS are used by public authorities in the EU as a functional complement to public measures regulating global value chains. At this juncture of market proliferation and public use of private regimes, this book studies how public authority can control, coordinate and review VSS. It studies how the regulation of VSS could unfold through substantive and procedural legal requirements in the domain of European Union law and World Trade Organisation law, as well as through the incentives offered by VSS employment in public measures.




Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Sociology


Book Description

The Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Sociology serves as a repository of insight on the complex interactions, challenges and potential solutions that characterize our shared ecological reality. Presenting innovative thinking on a comprehensive range of topics, expert scholars, researchers, and practitioners illuminate the nuances, complexities and diverse perspectives that define the continually evolving field of environmental sociology.