From Waste to Resources? Interrogating ‘Race to the Bottom’ in the Global Environmental Governance of the Hazardous Waste Trade

Abstract

The rise of global environmental governance regimes allegedly contradicts the process of an environmental "race to the bottom" (RTB) that results from capitalist globalization. We examine new developments in this areastimulating the e-waste recycling market" (emphasis added, UNEP 2012:42).The UNEP report highlights two points that our research addresses. First, we situate our findings in the context of a renewed debate over one of the central sociological concepts underlying early analyses of corporate globalization, that of a "race to the bottom" (RTB). While RTB predicts that competition for corporate investment will lead to a decline in regulations for competing countries (Daly and Cobb 1994), our case suggests that the global expansion of regulations will accompany transnational corporate (TNC) investment. However, the content and aims of this regulatory framework are fundamentally different from the kinds of regulations that RTB predicts would be dismantled, and in the end they leave unchanged or even accelerate the status-quo with regard to the toxic waste trade. This is because LDCs will still receive a disproportionate burden of toxic wastes, and global waste TNCs will expand their opportunities to profit from new facilities. Thus, our findings suggest that, rather than being abated by the expansion of global environmental governance, the RTB in the hazardous waste trade has become more complex as certain industries still successfully advocate for the dismantling of some global regulations-particularly the Basel Convention's North/South hazardous waste export ban-while also promoting an overall increase in other regulations that help expand the importation of hazardous wastes into less developed countries.

Participatory shaping of community futures in e‐waste processing hubs: Complexity, conflict and stewarded convergence in a Palestinian context

“…While the Israel‐West Bank e‐waste trade occurs in an idiosyncratic geopolitical and social context (as do other informal transborder e‐waste trades, each in their own way), it also represents a microcosm of the tensions and management stances embodying global North‐to‐South e‐waste flows. Major factors driving North‐South e‐waste trade such as discrepancies in labour costs and environmental standards between “developed” and “developing” countries (Lucier & Gareau, ), are intensified in the Israel‐West Bank case by the geographic proximity and exclusive transfer between a single e‐waste importer and exporter. Even after the establishment of the Basel Convention, an international treaty that restricts shipments of hazardous waste (including e‐waste) from developed nations to the developing world, illegal e‐waste trade still continues (Bisschop, ).…”

Transnational social movements and changing organizational fields in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries

“…Elite adoption of movement language often contributes, however, to the 'discursive demobilization' of movement activists and potential supporters who believe that critical social problems have been addressed (Lynch 1998). In reality, the appropriation of movement discourses in many cases replicates practices that are consistent with market-based, growth ideologies and does little to address activist concerns, yet absorbs movement resources and energies (Cooper 2013;Lucier and Gareau 2015;Lynch 1998Lynch , 2013. As critical forces demobilize, elite agents can have freer rein to make their actions appear consistent with movement preferences without making significant changes to their practices.…”

Electronic Waste Recycling and Disposal: An Overview

“…This stage can be as high-tech as a giant smelter in Antwerp, Belgium or as low-tech as acid stripping in a backyard in Guiyu, China. Research has uncovered how sites will often compete for the waste by offering low-cost strategies, sometimes described as a "race to the bottom" process of increasingly lower standards and environmental protection [6]. Finally, all of the components that cannot be sold or used as secondary raw materials are disposed of through means such as incineration or landfill.…”