Call for Papers for a Special Issue in the Journal, Ecological Economics

Justification

Intensification of deforestation in tropical countries associated with commodities´ exports has spurred recent high-level commitments and agreements among governments and firms. These attempts of governance innovations show a current interest, particularly in high income countries, in achieving deforestation-free flows. For instance, in November 2021, the European Commission launched a proposal for a regulation to attain  deforestation-free products, which aims to end  deforestation and forest degradation associated with international supply chains of key agricultural commodities consumed in Europe. In addition, there is currently a bill under discussion in the U.S. Congress (the U.S. Forest Act) that, if approved, will hold international suppliers of commodities to the American market accountable for illegal deforestation in the places where plantations are located. International trade of commodities associated with deforestation risks is of course shaped to a large extent by financial flows. In the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, in 2021, leaders of 141 countries signed a declaration on forest and land use, committing, among other things, to “facilitate the alignment of financial flows with international goals to reverse forest loss and degradation” by 2030. Also in the Glasgow COP26, over 30 financial institutions,  representing assets over US $ 4.5 trillion, committed to eliminate deforestation driven by production and exports of agricultural commodities from their investment and lending portfolios by 2025.

These new initiatives aiming to contribute to halt deforestation associated with international trade share some governance principles, like (a) making financial organizations and transnational corporations accountable for deforestation associated with their  businesses, and (b) acknowledging that strategies to address forest loss and degradation require international coordination between governments, trading financial firms and civil  society. They assume therefore that national legislations
and enforcement mechanisms are not enough to achieve deforestation reduction goals. The configuration of such complex global coordination needs to create and put in place innovative governance settings and tools, which should include a combination of public regulation and private standards conditioning the socio-environmental performance of international supply chains. Filling this
governance gap will  definitively face significant challenges, along different dimensions.

On the one hand, governance innovations impacting global value chains of commodities that have historically driven deforestation might create new opportunities for effectively slowing down the expansion of the agricultural or extraction frontiers into forested and vulnerable landscapes, protected areas or indigenous lands. On the other hand, a number of unintended effects might arise, such as exclusion of agricultural smallholders unable to comply with costly administrative requirements
imposed by powerful players or leakage effects (shift of exports to importing countries with less stringent regulations). Furthermore, political contestation might arise, based on the argument that new regulatory standards at the value chain level might actually disguise trade  protectionism from rich
countries, or be the new expression of green imperialism. This special issue is expected to address the
diverse implications and impacts of emerging governance regimes of value chains aiming to ensure the
production and international trade of deforestation-free (agricultural or mineral) commodities.

We call potential contributors with theoretical or empirical studies to submit their abstracts.

Thematic scope of the special issue:

• Legal approaches with regards to the intersection between changes in the regulatory framework
  of international trade (such as due diligence rules in importing countries), forest governance and
  land use practices driving biodiversity loss and social exclusion in tropical countries
• The relationship between trade flows, market dynamics and actors’ agency and networks, with emphasis on the implications for deforestation and land appropriation and accumulation
• Analysis of conflicts at different levels in relation to the expansion of commodity frontiers
• Socio-environmental implications, impacts and challenges in biodiversity-rich countries of emerging international governance regimes of supply chains
• Historical trends on the relationship between regulations, the  dynamics of commodity frontiers, international demand for  deforestation-prone commodities and international trade flows

Steps

The organization of the special issue will follow several steps. First, we will call for abstracts. With the selected contributors we will organize an online workshop (of about 50 participants), where results will be presented and discussed, and the scope of the special issue better tuned, jointly with the contributors.
As a third step, we will request authors to participate in an internal review process of their manuscripts.

After revision and internal acceptance, we will ask authors to submit their contributions to the journal.

After acceptance by the journal, the articles will be progressively published online.