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Transnational corporations have become key players in many areas of global governance, including global agrifood governance. One element of their influence on global rules and norms and the associated allocation of goods and values are private governance schemes. Private governance - especially TNC dominated private governance, which is the focus of this paper -, however, has received ambivalent evaluations in politics and science. Opinions on its potential contribution to the pursuit of sustainable development diverge widely. A real understanding of the potential contribution of private governance to the pursuit of sustainable development requires an inquiry into the conditions, under which TNCs are likely to design and implement effective - in terms of the creation of public goods - rather than rhetorical private governance schemes. The present paper, therefore, attempts to identify the determinants of the willingness of TNCs to design such effective private governance institutions for the case of agrifood governance. In our effort to assess the determinants of effective TNC engagement in private agrifood governance, we define effectiveness in terms of the stringency of private food standards. We argue that this effectiveness will be a function of external pressure, internal collaborative structures, the characteristics of available solutions as well as the size and heterogeneity of the group of actors designing and implementing the given private governance institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the interaction between regimes with different rationales pertaining to one issue area, the management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It analyzes some of the patterns of this interaction and the response of developing countries. The conclusion is that a systematic grasp of the aggregate effects of regimes, of the time dimension in regime interaction, and of the way in which various actors select different regimes as forums for influence may improve the uses of international agreements as a means of global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is in your Salad? An Ecological Political Economy of the Salad Bowl of CaliforniaCalifornia produces one third of the food eaten in the United States and exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products. Monterey County, California, has some of the most intensely farmed landscape of the world and one of the most prosperous farming regions of the global North. It produces about 40 percent of the total exports originating from California. The Salinas Valley, known as the ‘Salad Bowl’, produces a large portion of the total exports originating from California. The lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus, tomatoes and carrots produced here, may be part of industrialized ‘precision’ farming but are heavily dependent on human labor, specifically migrant labor. This paper interrogates the ‘nature’ and the ‘dirt’ on agriculture/ecology in light of California’s global agribusiness. It adopts an ecological political economy approach to examine the foundations of this agribusiness based on the desire to maximize productivity and profit in order to compete in a global market. It examines the systematic transformation of food into a commodity that hides devastating ecological and social costs. In particular, it examines the heavy dependence on migrant labor and conditions of labor camps to make connections between economy and ecology. The paper also examines how Salinas Valley communities are reclaiming resources, human dignity and confronting consumption.It compares these efforts to the Landless Movement in Brazil and the Organic Movement in India. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from the recognition that processes of regional economic integration â€" in this case, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - involve more than trade and narrow conceptions of security. These same processes also result in social responses that challenge the conventional categories, subjects and practices of national citizenship. We draw on recent developments within critical citizenship theory to illustrate this contention by comparing the rights and status of Mexican migrant, non-citizen temporary workers in two different jurisdictions, Ontario, Canada and California, USA, working in the agricultural sector. In this paper, we wish to destabilize the conventional dichotomy between legal, temporary worker and ‘illegal’ workers by examining the factors that affect the ability of non-citizen workers to access rights and protections (or not) abroad. In other words, what roles do international human rights frameworks, national migration policies, transnational communities, unions and social justice groups play in the everyday lives of these non citizen workers in the two jurisdictions? Legal status is certainly a major determinant in the capacity of these workers to access social citizenship rights, but we argue that there are many other factors involved, particularly the role of the Mexican state, sub-national jurisdictions and the claims made by migrant workers themselves and groups that struggle on their behalf.In Canada, the entry and status of migrant workers comes under the provisions of a bilateral agreement Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program established in 1974. Despite the frequent construction of this program as a “best practice,” questions have been raised regarding workers’ civil rights, human rights and their ability to access even limited labour protections. Moreover, the program contains no provision to access permanent residency. In contrast, most migrant farmworkers in California are irregular workers and face many of the same obstacles as their counterparts in Ontario but in addition have to contend with the constraints placed on their capacity to access rights by their undocumented status and highly precarious position in the labour market. In this paper, we investigate how workers in the two jurisdictions attempt to access social citizenship rights through an examination of the policies and programs of the federal and sub-national governments of the countries in which the workers are temporarily residing, the activities of Mexican embassies and consulates, and the role played by civil society actors - unions, local Mexican associations and NGOs - in seeking to promote the rights and interests of Mexican farmworkers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the results of a long-term multi-researcher project conducted across North America, the paper offers an analysis of the establishment and outcomes of flexible agricultural labor regimes in Mexico, the United States and Canada. In particular, the paper focuses on the determinants and effects of north-south internal migration from Mexico, both undocumented and H-2A legal contract workers in the United States and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in Canadian horticulture. I examine the social and economic conditions of capitalist globalization through which documented and undocumented migrant workers have become increasingly central to the success of North American agriculture in the NAFTA era, and I discuss the complex, multiple and regional/local struggles of such workers to overcome the ?state of exception? through which they are frequently deprived of basic human rights. As such, the paper offers new insights into the relationships between changing global productive structures and the movement and agency of migrant laborers within the North American context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constitutes a sympathetic engagement with neo-Gramscian IPE, considering the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Gramscian analysis with respect to the experience of workers involved in coffee production in Kenya. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to pursue regulatory aims and reduce economic risks and market failures, States have been using a significant number of administrative rules and procedures in international trade. Today, examples of trade-related administrative rules can be found in many different spheres, such as environmental protection, customs organization, food labelling, financial and banking services, air and maritime navigation, agriculture, migration or energy sources. This dense network of regulatory rules composes the 'global regulatory system' or the 'global administrative space'. A side effect of the eruption of the 'global administrative space' in the global scenario is the loss of power of the traditional domestic accountability mechanisms, such as the parliamentary and the judicial controls, and the growth of democracy or legitimacy deficits. For this reason, one has to find alternative mechanisms to improve accountability inside the global regulatory system and among its actors. National or Global Administrative Law mechanisms, rules and principles - albeit vital - are only a partial instrument for the promotion of good governance at the transnational level. The construction of a 'Global Administrative Law' without a parallel and complementary 'Global Constitutional Law' may indicate a certain disregard for the important role of independent parliamentary (rulemaking) and judicial (adjudication) functions in the accountability of trade policies in the global sphere, particularly so within the context of the human rights and fundamental freedoms paradigm. The notion of 'multilevel constitutionalism' was born precisely to answer to the necessity of multilayered governance in the 'global regulatory system'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although economists have argued that India has a comparative advantage in several farm products, IndiaÂ’s position in the WTO negotiations in agriculture has been primarily defensive. This paper explains IndiaÂ’s defensive posture by tracing it to a new consultative mechanism for decision-making on WTO issues that explicitly recognizes the role of the agriculture ministry in agenda-setting. IndiaÂ’s definition of its core interests and its ability to maintain its defensive position have also been shaped by the multilateral trade regime itself and by the changing coalitions within it. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nongovernmental organizations operating either on European Union’s level or on the global level are in the opposition towards genetically modified food and most of the biotechnology applications in agriculture. NGOs’ representatives stand on the posit ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the hypocrisy and legitimacy in the agricultural trade regime in the World Trade Organization. It discusses the impact of hypocrisy or the use of double standards on the legitimacy of the regime. Three alternative theoretical frameworks, namely realist, liberal and critical frameworks, which can be used to study institutional hypocrisy are presented. It concludes that the agricultural trade regime is composed of multiple hypocrisies, implying a struggle over the social purposes of the regime.

The findings of the broad body of work on interstate disputes reinforce the assumption that conflict and cooperation occurring between pairs of states is a time-dependent process that varies depending on the type of issue that is involved in a particular ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]