Aline Rose Barbosa Pereira

• Governance
• Environmental and climate change
• Development Politics
• Governance and conflict

• Brazil

First supervisor: Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter, BICC, Bonn; Second supervisor: Prof. Dr. Antonio Giménez Merino, Faculty of Law, University of Barcelona; Tutor at ZEF: Dr. Wolfram Laube

Master of Laws (2012)

BMZ via DAAD

Legal fields under dispute in mining related conflicts: implications to legal theory and social sciences

This PhD research addresses legal enforcement in environmental conflicts or, more specifically, how different actors appropriate and use the Law in conflicts sparked by new large-scale mining projects. The issue of mining and development remains disputed on theoretical and empirical grounds –despite a few success cases, large-scale open pit mining more often than not affects local communities’ livelihoods and ways of living very negatively, while potential economic benefits for all hinges, if possible at all, in strong institutions. Scholarship across disciplines acknowledges the disruptive effects open pit mining impose over natural and social environments. In the conflicts that typically arise, outspoken activists (social movements and grassroots resistance alike), make use of different means in order to oppose mining initiatives, outside institutional channels but also appropriating institutional spaces and legal instruments in their fights. In this research, I investigate how actors who oppose mining, as well as those who support the activity and government authorities use the law in their disputes within an institutional arena: the competent environmental authority of Minas Gerais, Brazil. For an in depth qualitative study I have selected one of the biggest and most recent iron ore mining enterprise in the state of Minas Gerais. The analysis of how different actors appropriate and interpret the Law along the conflict relies on documental research at the archives of government authorities; semi-structured interviews with key actors from local communities, municipal authorities, environmental authorities of the state of Minas Gerais, activists, researchers and lawyers representing the mining sector, among others; as well on participant observation of public sessions. The forms community reaction take, the role power and resources asymmetries between involved actors play, and which rights each actor tries to affirm in existing institutional channels are some of the aspects under analysis, contributing to the theoretical debate on legal proceduralization, especially in the context of a developing country.