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 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 ‘racialization otherwise’. Our question, then, is: what would international economic law look like if it did not follow the dream of formality but instead embraced the challenge of sustaining life?

We are sympathetic to the research aims of the two books examined by this symposium and their desire to understand law's role in generating and contesting social injustice. We are also intrigued by the proposal in the Introduction to this symposium, notably to expand the normative reach of the rule-of-law ideal to private actors, in order to transform it into an ally of counter-hegemonic action. In our research, we share a similar research focus (development projects), methodology (case-studies) and concerns (harmful effects of development interventions) with the authors of the two books. Accordingly, in this contribution, we want to think together with the editors of the symposium – by examining the case-study of the Hidroituango project in Colombia (hereinafter, ‘Hidroituango’) – whether the rule of law can indeed be reimagined to limit the arbitrary exercise of power by private actors, and what benefits this might create for dealing with social injustice. However, since neither Bhatt nor Lander advances an explicit account of rule of law in their books, our critique in this piece is addressed not at them, but rather at the theorists and advocates of rule of law as a political ideal.

El objetivo de este artículo es discutir cómo los derechos de la naturaleza han sido juridificados y disciplinados por los jueces colombianos. Para lograrlo, utilizamos una metodología con dos componentes: un análisis del discurso de sentencias judiciales y un examen de doctrina y teoría sobre el origen y los pilares del movimiento de los derechos de la naturaleza. A lo largo del texto analizamos cómo su lectura desde nociones tradicionales jurídicas como propiedad y bien común limita las aspiraciones transformadoras que inspiran el movimiento de los derechos de la naturaleza.

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