Abstract

Comments: Maria Paula Meneses (CES)

My thesis investigates the global land rush from the viewpoint of transnational law. It explores a methodological question of how to study law effectively in an era of globalization, and it presents that an approach to legally analyze urgent global issues is promising in catching up legal studies to upcoming challenges of globalization. It builds the theoretical framework to analyze legal frameworks causing urgent global issues, and it further applies the framework to the case of the global land rush, in order to contribute to solving the problems of the global land rush on the one hand, and to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical framework, on the other.

The global land rush is a rapid expansion of transnational land deals in the recent decade, and social, environmental and political problems are caused by it. Informed by interdisciplinary studies on the global land rush, this thesis focuses on one question: namely, who the structurally disadvantaged people in the case of the global land rush are, why they are in this situation, and in what sense. Following this research question, this thesis analyzes actors, norms and processes that are forming activities to govern the phenomenon of the global land rush. Eventually, the analysis reveals that the legal system of investment arbitration and transnational public contracts are two possible spaces for interventions in remedying the problems of the global land rush. Following this finding, this thesis presents some practical implications.

Bio note

Naoyuki Okano is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University, Japan. He received an LLM from School of Law, Nagoya University and a LLB from School of Law, Waseda University. His PhD thesis titled as “The Global Land Rush from the Viewpoint of Transnational Law” explores the dynamic constellations of power and authority behind the phenomenon of the land rush. His publications appeared in Italian Law Journal (forthcoming) and Nagoya University Journal of Law and Politics, and he experienced practice-based research internships at the World Bank in Washington DC and UNIDROIT in Rome. He has also  participated in King’s College London Transnational Law Summer Institute in 2015 and the Harvard Law School Institute for Global Law & Policy Workshop in 2016.  He is also a part of Translocal Law Research Group, a collaborative research group initiated at the 2015 Transnational Law Summer Institute.