MOBILE – Mobility Law Open Lab with Vonintsoa Rafaly

Thinking infrastructurally: re-imagining law in the blue Anthropocene

Guest presenter: Vonintsoa Rafaly is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science.

Presentation: The paper discusses how thinking of law infrastructurally expands our understanding and study of the intricate and complex legal infrastructure governing global ocean politics. It is part of a research project on “Ocean Infrastructures”, funded by the Velux Foundation, which explores a novel theoretical framework within infrastructure studies: infrastructuralism. This theoretical framework aims to reconceptualise agency, governance, and human-nature relations.

In global ocean politics, thinking of law infrastructurally pushes our understanding of law beyond the set of legally binding arrangements adopted by states. For instance, informal law-making has always been underlying ocean governance, private actors were always involved – in one way or another - in global ocean politics, and the more-than-human was always a fascinating matter deemed to be governed. These elements became more visible at a time of global challenge where formal law is hardly coping with and addressing global challenges. Thus, thinking of law infrastructurally invites us to concentrate on the flow it creates, facilitates, entertains or hinders within global politics. It considers legal materialities as mutually constitutive of the global ocean politics within which it is embedded.

This paper showcases the role of social, political, technical and ecological entanglements, in the maintenance, stabilization or fragilization of ocean legal infrastructures: the development of informal law, non-state actors’ involvement and the increasing demand in bridging the human and non-human. Moreover, it discusses the agency of law and its political effects. The ocean legal infrastructure plays a foundational role in enabling and reinforcing practices and processes. The evolution of informal practices and the resistance of law vis-à-vis exogenous elements of global politics can result in infrastructural harm and trigger justice concerns. At the same time, the legal infrastructure is a powerful tool for fostering justice at a time of global challenges. In a nutshell, this paper demonstrates that law shapes – and, more importantly – is shaped by global ocean politics.

Time: 8 February 2024 13:00-14:15

Place: MOBILE – 6B-2-22 Southern Campus + ONLINE

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