Harms, crimes and natural resource exploitation: A green criminological and human rights perspective on land-use change

Abstract

This chapter claims that a ‘green criminological’ perspective can be used fruitfully for conceptualizing and researching the exploitation of natural resources and, more specifically, the processes of land use change and land grabbing that take place in many countries (closely connected, for example, to the expansion of agro-fuel monocultures, deforestation for timber, the construction of mega-hydroelectric dams, or increased large-scale commercial mining activities). This perspective offers the possibility of simultaneously focusing on three interrelated issues. First, if criminal offences are involved, we can analyze who the perpetrators are, how illegal mechanisms operate and why these illegal practices take place. Second, this perspective can reveal the victims, as well as identifying the social and environmental harms surrounding the exploitation of natural resources. Finally, a green criminological approach also focuses on the ‘rights’ that are being violated (whether constitutional, human, environmental, social, etc.), the social initiatives to defend them (communities affected, NGO’s), and the measures and interventions taken (or not) by private, state or international actors to guarantee, protect and enforce them. After presenting what a green criminological perspective would imply for the study of land-use change, the article finishes by briefly focusing on two particular cases being researched in Colombia and Brazil.