Donatella Alessandrini
University of Kent, LAW SCHOOL, Faculty Member
This article explores the central role of formalization in the history and functioning of international economic law. International economic law, in constituting and managing a ‘modern’ world economy, has relied on what we call ‘the dream... more
This article explores the central role of formalization in the history and functioning of international economic law. International economic law, in constituting and managing a ‘modern’ world economy, has relied on what we call ‘the dream of formality’. This dream gives a sense of internal coherence and future totality to international economic law. It enables international economic law to claim awareness and progressive inclusion of socio-economic and legal relations outside the ‘formal’ modern economy while enabling a regime of differentiation of the so-called ‘surplus’—often racialized—population. In a world where ‘informality’ is the norm and ‘formality’ is the exception, formalization’s colonial origins have evolved into a fully-fledged regime of social management and value extraction. This regime has embedded itself in international labour law and human rights, as well as in areas of international economic law such as Aid for Trade and Global Value Chains. Building on contempo...
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Research Interests: Development Studies, International Law, Colombia, International organizations, Law and Development, and 13 moreInformaly Economy-Informality, International economic law, Economic Law, Global South, Social reproduction, Social Science Research Network, Informal Labour, Value, Informality, Formality, International Organizations, International Economic Law, and Racial capitalism
This article has three aims. First, it takes issue with the argument of international economic institutions according to which states need to adopt deeper trade and investment commitments to sustain value chain trade if they wish to... more
This article has three aims. First, it takes issue with the argument of international economic institutions according to which states need to adopt deeper trade and investment commitments to sustain value chain trade if they wish to either ‘develop’ or continue being competitive in the global economy. It scrutinizes the evidence on the basis of which this argument is formulated and finds it to be tenuous at best. It also finds that current data is unable to account for the variety of factors that contribute to so-called ‘social downgrade’ – that is, the deterioration of working and living conditions, including the presence of informal and migrant workers. Second, it draws on feminist political economy to make sense of the co-existence of ‘economic upgrade’ and ‘social downgrade’ in global value chains. Specifically, it adopts a social reproduction lens to shed a light on the increasingly relevant, but invisibilized and/or devalued, role that social reproductive labour and informal labour play in processes of trans/national value creation. Third, it argues that a social reproduction lens can offer valuable insights on international economic agreements and the impact of their provisions on the ability of states and communities to improve working and living conditions.
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This article engages with debates concerning the regulation of financial derivatives and, in particular, with the assumption according to which their speculative ‘excesses ’ can be effectively curbed so to restore an otherwise healthy... more
This article engages with debates concerning the regulation of financial derivatives and, in particular, with the assumption according to which their speculative ‘excesses ’ can be effectively curbed so to restore an otherwise healthy system of production, usually the industrial/manufacturing one, endowed with a ‘real ’ value separate from that produced by financial markets. Arguing that derivatives complicate such an assumption, the article asks the question of how to act when the ‘value ’ they refer to becomes contested. In this respect it explores the potential of the Ecuadorian Proposal for a New Regional Financial Architecture to act in the face of the contestability of value of exchange rates and, in so doing, to represent an alternative to the real/financial economy split and the regulatory debate as carried out so far.
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This article takes issue with the assumption the policy research literature, specifically that produced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), makes about the role of law as one which is mainly reactive to an exogenous economic reality,... more
This article takes issue with the assumption the policy research literature, specifically that produced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), makes about the role of law as one which is mainly reactive to an exogenous economic reality, that of value chain trade. It argues instead that law has played a much more active role, shaping the so-called fragmentation and fractionalization of production that has led to the proliferation of Global Value Chains (GVCs). By tracing the evolution of post/colonial international economic law, the article shows how trade and investment provisions in particular have been (and still are) an important terrain over which the relationship between companies and states is articulated, with important consequences for all actors involved in GVCs. If this active role is acknowledged then law can be seen not only as contributing, together with other market-making mechanisms, to the making of those economic processes it is assumed to only respond, but also as ...
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This article is concerned with the Doha ‘Development’ Round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Its historic significance seems to lie in the fact that the international community has undertaken the unprecedented effort to deliver the... more
This article is concerned with the Doha ‘Development’ Round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Its historic significance seems to lie in the fact that the international community has undertaken the unprecedented effort to deliver the long-standing development promise of the multilateral trade regime. Thus, despite its past failures, the claim is that its successful conclusion is a ‘political must’ for development. Contrary to this assumption, the paper argues that the ‘failure’ and ‘promise’ of development that the multilateral trade regime articulates are inherent in the ‘science of development’ established at the end of the colonial era. In particular, the paper claims that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO have contributed to the creation, consolidation and transformation of a development apparatus that links forms of knowledge about the so—called Third World with forms of power and intervention. By emphasising the permanence of the ‘civilising mis...
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In this paper I reflect on recent attempts by feminist economists to engage with post-Keynsian policies aimed at the socialisation of investment, in particular the proposal for the government to act at once as the Employer of Last Resort... more
In this paper I reflect on recent attempts by feminist economists to engage with post-Keynsian policies aimed at the socialisation of investment, in particular the proposal for the government to act at once as the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) and a social provider. Such an engagement seems to depart from feminist autonomists' critique of the wage society, their refusal to place reformist demands on the state and their emphasis on the collectivisation of social reproduction. Drawing on earlier explorations by Italian feminists of the dynamic interaction between labour and value, I suggest that these two approaches might not be as different as they first appear: at stake for both is a challenge to capitalist value through the promotion of arrangements able to instantiate alternative processes of valorisation.
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This article takes its cue from Desai‟s critique of the new communis ts of the commons , particularly her claim that their project is built upon a series of misunderstandings about the dynamics of capital accumulation, the production of... more
This article takes its cue from Desai‟s critique of the new communis ts of the commons , particularly her claim that their project is built upon a series of misunderstandings about the dynamics of capital accumulation, the production of value in post-Fordism and the concept of the „commons‟ itself. Focusing on earlier explorations by Italian feminists of the dynamic interaction between labour and value, the contribution this article makes to the commons debate is three-fold: first, it argues that the most interesting insights emerging from immaterial/cognitive/affective labour theories on which Italian post-workerists rely to put forward a renewed understanding of the commons derive from this feminist body of work. Secondly it shows how, despite being relied upon, the radical potential of this work has been limited by positing a qualitative shift to post-Fordist production that pays little attention to the important connections between labour and value that make up our common world....
feminists@law is pleased to launch the first in a series of online guest lectures that trace the (dis)continuities between the debate on immaterial labour and value which originated in Italy in the 1970s and the current debate on... more
feminists@law is pleased to launch the first in a series of online guest lectures that trace the (dis)continuities between the debate on immaterial labour and value which originated in Italy in the 1970s and the current debate on precarity/precariousness which has more recently emerged as a central concern of transnational feminist scholarship and activism (see 2007 special issue of Feminist Review ). Reflecting on this intellectual/political trajectory acquires particular relevance today, with the crisis of social reproduction advancing in Europe as elsewhere. We hope that this series will generate further discussion in this journal and beyond.
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In Vol 2, No 2 of feminists@law (2012) we published our response to the Finch Report as an Editorial titled ‘Why We Oppose Gold Open Access’. Five years later, it is timely to take stock of what has happened since the Finch Report and to... more
In Vol 2, No 2 of feminists@law (2012) we published our response to the Finch Report as an Editorial titled ‘Why We Oppose Gold Open Access’. Five years later, it is timely to take stock of what has happened since the Finch Report and to revisit our assessment of the government’s and research funders’ open access (OA) policies. Our focus in this Editorial is on journal publishing in Law and more generally in Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) rather than in the STEM disciplines, on which much of the OA literature since Finch has been based. We consider first how the market in OA has developed since 2012, and secondly how the OA ecosystem now appears, before finally making proposals for the future.
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This book examines the contemporary production of economic value in today’s financial economies. Much of the regulatory response to the global financial crisis has been based on the assumption that curbing the speculative ‘excesses’ of... more
This book examines the contemporary production of economic value in today’s financial economies. Much of the regulatory response to the global financial crisis has been based on the assumption that curbing the speculative ‘excesses’ of the financial sphere is a necessary and sufficient condition for restoring a healthy economic system, endowed with real values, as distinct from those produced by financial markets. How, though, can the ‘intrinsic’ value of goods and services produced in the sphere of the so-called real economy be disentangled from the ‘artificial’ value engineered within the financial sphere? Examining current projects of international legal regulation, this book questions the regulation of the financial sphere insofar as its excesses are juxtaposed to some notion of economic normality. Given the problem of neatly distinguishing these domains – and so, more generally, between economy and society – it considers the limits of our current conceptualization of value prod...
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Examines the intellectual origins of the free trade doctrine, looking at the extent to which the economic analysis of free trade has excluded other forms of analysis. Considers the classical theory of free trade put forward by Alan Smith... more
Examines the intellectual origins of the free trade doctrine, looking at the extent to which the economic analysis of free trade has excluded other forms of analysis. Considers the classical theory of free trade put forward by Alan Smith and analysis. Considers the classical theory of free trade put forward by Adam Smith and David Ricardo and the objections raised to free trade during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, based on arguments relating to tariffs, emerging industries, unemployment, wage differentials and market distortion.
Examines the free trade doctrine and considers the arguments which challenge the intellectual validity of free trade by examining its normative assumptions. Examines the major economic arguments against free trade and the market... more
Examines the free trade doctrine and considers the arguments which challenge the intellectual validity of free trade by examining its normative assumptions. Examines the major economic arguments against free trade and the market distortion argument put forward by Jagdish Bhagwati. Argues that free trade theory has overlooked the impact of events that have taken place after its formulation and which have affected its major assumptions, in particular, the ascendancy of transnational corporations and the influesnce they export on political and economic processes.
In this paper we reflect on the transnational discourse on national Well- Being and Happiness (WBH) which has gained international prominence with the 2012 United Nations Conference. Although for quite some time the studies on WBH have... more
In this paper we reflect on the transnational discourse on national Well- Being and Happiness (WBH) which has gained international prominence with the 2012 United Nations Conference. Although for quite some time the studies on WBH have been on the agenda of international bodies, we see the post-2007 proliferation and transnational convergence of well-being initiatives, particularly those aimed at measuring well- being through indicators, as potentially replacing the development discourse of the post-war period in terms of normative force and appeal. Aiming to unpack such normative appeal, we focus on three sites, the UK, Bhutan and Ecuador, and ask what well-being and happiness mean in each context. While a critique of growth as an end in itself appears to be common to these three sites, there are crucial differences in terms of both how Well-Being and Happiness are conceptualised, and the ways in which this understanding is able to affect policy-making and engender socio-economic change. At stake, we argue, is the appreciation of what the co-production between economic and non-economic spheres of life would generate. Our aim is to emphasise that, what the focus on convergence leaves out and what the turn to measurement says about the potential of well-being initiatives.
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Abstract: Examines the intellectual origins of the free trade doctrine, looking at the extent to which the economic analysis of free trade has excluded other forms of analysis. Considers the classical theory of free trade put forward by... more
Abstract: Examines the intellectual origins of the free trade doctrine, looking at the extent to which the economic analysis of free trade has excluded other forms of analysis. Considers the classical theory of free trade put forward by Alan Smith and analysis. Considers the classical theory ...
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ABSTRACT This paper is the result of a conversation, started in 2008, about the significance of the struggles for gender and sexual justice taking place in Latin America and more broadly of the challenges global justice and solidarity... more
ABSTRACT This paper is the result of a conversation, started in 2008, about the significance of the struggles for gender and sexual justice taking place in Latin America and more broadly of the challenges global justice and solidarity movements (GJ&SM) are articulating at ...
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In this paper we reflect on the transnational discourse on national Well- Being and Happiness (WBH) which has gained international prominence with the 2012 United Nations Conference. Although for quite some time the studies on WBH have... more
In this paper we reflect on the transnational discourse on national Well- Being and Happiness (WBH) which has gained international prominence with the 2012 United Nations Conference. Although for quite some time the studies on WBH have been on the agenda of international bodies, we see the post-2007 proliferation and transnational convergence of well-being initiatives, particularly those aimed at measuring well- being through indicators, as potentially replacing the development discourse of the post-war period in terms of normative force and appeal. Aiming to unpack such normative appeal, we focus on three sites, the UK, Bhutan and Ecuador, and ask what well-being and happiness mean in each context. While a critique of growth as an end in itself appears to be common to these three sites, there are crucial differences in terms of both how Well-Being and Happiness are conceptualised, and the ways in which this understanding is able to affect policy-making and engender socio-economic change. At stake, we argue, is the appreciation of what the co-production between economic and non-economic spheres of life would generate. Our aim is to emphasise that, what the focus on convergence leaves out and what the turn to measurement says about the potential of well-being initiatives.
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Abstract We are proud to present the second issue of feminists@ law. Our first piece in this issue is Madhumanti Mukherjee's alternative feminist judgment in the Indian Supreme Court case of Sakshi v. Union of India. The issue... more
Abstract We are proud to present the second issue of feminists@ law. Our first piece in this issue is Madhumanti Mukherjee's alternative feminist judgment in the Indian Supreme Court case of Sakshi v. Union of India. The issue will develop over the next few months to ...
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... However, as derivatives are instruments whose value Corresponding author: Donatella Alessandrini, Kent Law School, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NS, UK Email: d.alessandrini@kent.ac.uk Social ... way. (Arthur et al., 1996: 1) ...
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This article contributes to the current debate on the meaning and regulation of biotechnology by focusing on the role that the concepts of nature and sound science play in framing struggles against agricultural biotechnology in India. It... more
This article contributes to the current debate on the meaning and regulation of biotechnology by focusing on the role that the concepts of nature and sound science play in framing struggles against agricultural biotechnology in India. It contends that the political work of these ...
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Examines the free trade doctrine and considers the arguments which challenge the intellectual validity of free trade by examining its normative assumptions. Examines the major economic arguments against free trade and the market... more
Examines the free trade doctrine and considers the arguments which challenge the intellectual validity of free trade by examining its normative assumptions. Examines the major economic arguments against free trade and the market distortion argument put forward by Jagdish ...
This article explores the central role of formalisation in the history and functioning of international economic law (IEL). IEL, in constituting and managing a 'modern' world economy, has relied on what we call 'the dream of formality'.... more
This article explores the central role of formalisation in the history and functioning of international economic law (IEL). IEL, in constituting and managing a 'modern' world economy, has relied on what we call 'the dream of formality'. This dream gives a sense of internal coherence and future totality to IEL. It enables IEL to claim awareness and progressive inclusion of socioeconomic and legal relations outside the 'formal' modern economy, while enabling a regime of differentiation of the so-called 'surplus'often racialisedpopulation. In a world where 'informality' is the norm and 'formality' the exception, formalisation's colonial origins have evolved into a fully-fledged regime of social management and value extraction. This regime has embedded itself in international labour law and human rights, as well as in areas of IEL such as Aid for Trade and Global Value Chains. Building on contemporary debates on racial and post-colonial capitalism, we focus on Colombia's informal economy to illustrate the elusiveness of the dream of formality, and how current exercises of othering underpin today's practices of 'racialisation otherwise'. Our question, then, is: what would IEL look like if it did not follow the dream of formality but instead embraced the challenge of sustaining life?