Overview

Unrelenting demands for energy, infrastructure and natural resources, and the need for developing states to augment income and signal an 'enterprise-ready' attitude mean that transnational development projects remain a common tool for economic development. Yet little is known about the fragmented legal framework of private financial mechanisms, contractual clauses and discretionary behaviours that shape modern development projects. How do gaps and biases in formal laws cope with the might of concessionaires and financiers and their algorithmic contractual and policy technicalities negotiated in private offices? What impacts do private legal devices have for the visibility and implementation of Indigenous peoples' rights to land? This original perspective on transnational development projects explains how the patterns of poor rights recognition and implementation, power(lessness), vulnerability and, ultimately, conflict routinely seen in development projects will only be fully appreciated by acknowledging and remedying the pivotal role and priority enjoyed by private mechanisms, documentation and expertise.

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9781108723459

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Reviews

'The book shows how difficult it is to retrieve meaningful free prior informed consent from indigenous peoples in practice often making it illusory. It elaborates on the role of financial institutions in project finance and asset-based lending regarding energy projects, and includes helpful steps to adapt traditional legal approaches exacerbating these issues. A must-have for those in financial institutions dealing with land rights issues.' Martijn W. Scheltema, Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam 'This book offers a highly original analysis of development projects around the globe, untangling the complexities of protecting the rights of indigenous people who subsequently face devastations of their ways of life. The originality here lies in tracing the hybrid structuring of a global jurisprudence of indigenous rights, one which includes public forms of law and regulation, private contractual mechanisms, and project finance arrangements. A commendable achievement.' Ronen Shamir, Tel-Aviv University 'Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities offers an indispensable, insider's account of development financing and the multiple entry points through which the land rights of indigenous peoples are sidelined. With clarity and insight, Dr Kinnari Bhatt navigates the private and public hyper plurality of norms , and the power and practices at play. Rich with straightforward recommendations, this book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike.' Margot E. Salomon, Associate Professor, Law Department, London School of Economics and Political Science and Francqui European Chair 2018-19 'Bhatt's unique book offers a powerful double-edged sword to the literature on transnational economic law, laying detailed empirical siege on the orthodoxies which fortify the fields of both private commercial law and public international law in the process ... Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities offers a wealth of insight into the real world machinations of capital, law and the social impacts of development projects. The conceptual implications of this largely empirically-focused book for the field of transnational law are also significant, and it has catalysed wider conversations within the field about the impact of private actors on the rule of law ... The book's exceptional integrity and faithfulness to the real-world dimensions of transnational law, however, is itself a conceptual and methodological contribution.' Jennifer R. Lander, Social and Legal Studies

'The book shows how difficult it is to retrieve meaningful free prior informed consent from indigenous peoples in practice often making it illusory. It elaborates on the role of financial institutions in project finance and asset-based lending regarding energy projects, and includes helpful steps to adapt traditional legal approaches exacerbating these issues. A must-have for those in financial institutions dealing with land rights issues.' Martijn W. Scheltema, Professor, Erasmus University Rotterdam 'This book offers a highly original analysis of development projects around the globe, untangling the complexities of protecting the rights of indigenous people who subsequently face devastations of their ways of life. The originality here lies in tracing the hybrid structuring of a global jurisprudence of indigenous rights, one which includes public forms of law and regulation, private contractual mechanisms, and project finance arrangements. A commendable achievement.' Ronen Shamir, Tel-Aviv University 'Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities offers an indispensable, insider's account of development financing and the multiple entry points through which the land rights of indigenous peoples are sidelined. With clarity and insight, Dr Kinnari Bhatt navigates the private and public “hyper plurality of norms”, and the power and practices at play. Rich with straightforward recommendations, this book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike.' Margot E. Salomon, Associate Professor, Law Department, London School of Economics and Political Science and Francqui European Chair 2018–19 'Bhatt's unique book offers a powerful double-edged sword to the literature on transnational economic law, laying detailed empirical siege on the orthodoxies which fortify the fields of both private commercial law and public international law in the process … Concessionaires, Financiers and Communities offers a wealth of insight into the real world machinations of capital, law and the social impacts of development projects. The conceptual implications of this largely empirically-focused book for the field of transnational law are also significant, and it has catalysed wider conversations within the field about the impact of private actors on the rule of law … The book's exceptional integrity and faithfulness to the real-world dimensions of transnational law, however, is itself a conceptual and methodological contribution.' Jennifer R. Lander, Social and Legal Studies

Author Information

Kinnari I. Bhatt is a post-doctoral researcher at Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. She worked as a project finance lawyer with leading global law firms White and Case and Milbank, Tweed Hadley and McCloy in London and Asia and acted as a legal adviser to the Ministry of Mineral Resources in Sierra Leone. She advises NGOs on issues of equitable natural resource management and has taught courses on legal aspects of international finance and project finance at the University of East Anglia and University College London.

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