The law of the land. A legal study of land concentration, violence and racism in the Andes

The «Law of the Land» studies how the constitutional legal orders of Andean States (Peru, Colombia and Chile) have legally created and sustained a political economy of agrarian extractivism grounded on land concentration with consequences such as displacement, coercive inclusion, exploitation and depletion of nature. The «Law of the Land» uses Legal institutionalism, American realism, and Marxist constitutional theory to explore the overall research questions: To what extent do the Andean constitutions support models of agrarian extractivism based on land accumulation in Peru, Colombia, and Chile? To what extent does the legal support to the political economy of agrarian extractivism interfere with the right to property of peasants and policy goals such as eradication of poverty, peace, and non-discrimination? These questions and theoretical framework will: 1. Analyze the factual relationship between law, land accumulation, exploitation, and coercive inclusion in Peru, Colombia and Chile. 2. Develop an alternative theoretical framework for examining constitutional law from a material perspective that contrasts and engages with normative approaches such as Latin American constitutionalism. 3. Establish a new methodological approach to the study of Andean constitutional law based on micro case study cases that enhance understanding of the mutually constitutive relationship between law and the political economy of agrarian extractivism. 4. Analyze whether and how the Andean States play a central role in shaping and legitimizing a political economy based on agrarian extractivism in their territories, which are constantly influenced by transnational law and international law. Main Findings: During the project, three case studies were identified and analyzed to illustrate the historical and ongoing connection between law and the political economy of modern agrarian extractivism. This connection dates back to the establishment of Latin American republics and the adoption of their first constitutions. Pine and eucalyptus production in Chile, blueberries in Peru, and palm oil in Colombia were examined using a micro case study methodology. Focus was put on the governing function (a legal function) of the Andean States in distributing resources, such as land, and the function of legal institutions, such as the right to property, in shaping social relations based on and reproducing exclusion and unequal bargaining power. The analysis revealed how these Andean states use law to create and legitimize agrarian extractivism and in the following way: 1. Laws that validate exploitative and precarious work conditions for agrarian workers, including low salaries and short-term contracts. 2. Legislation that encourages the expansion of monocultures, such as pine, eucalyptus and palm oild, leading to environmental degradation, including the disappearance of native forests, and the violation of people’s fundamental rights, such as the right to life, health, among others. 3. Executive Branch Documents label historically occupied public wastelands by landholders and peasants as nonproductive and empty, which allows the government to grant these lands as concessions to agro-export corporations. 4. High Court Decisions uphold legislation conditioning peasants' and small landholders' access to property, requiring them to join agricultural alliances with agro-export corporations as a condition to obtain a land title. 5. Access to the land of peasants and small landowners is restricted or unrecognized in favor of values such as productivity and efficiency, which, according to the States, only corporations can fulfill. 6. The theoretical and methodological approach based on micro case studies can be effectively utilized to study various types of extractive economies in other regions of the world. Activities In 2022, alongside developing the theoretical framework, field visits to the three countries under study were conducted. The principal researcher interviewed academics, politicians, agro-export company representatives, and agricultural workers. Additionally, the project included public presentations at universities in Peru, Colombia and Chile. The theoretical and methodological approach based on micro case studies can be effectively utilized to study various types of extractive economies in other regions of the world. In March 2024, the workshop titled "Extractive Constitutionalism: Precarity, Nature, and Resistance in Latin America" was held in Norway as a closing conference. The event gathered scholars from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Puerto Rico, and England to discuss the relationship between constitutional law and extractivism in the region. A special issue on this topic is expected to be published in 2025.

The project will: - Create an alternative theoretical framework to normative approaches like constitutionalism. This framework should allow the study of constitutional law as a material legal order that shapes, legalizes, and legitimizes the political economy of agrarian extractivism based on the growth and export of monoculture and fruits in Peru, Colombia, and Chile. - Analyze how legal sources such as laws, judicial decisions, and executive branch documents embrace an understanding of distribution and development that favors economic elites over the protection of peasants, landholders, and their access to land. - Examine how the State legalizes land accumulation for agrarian extractivism, leading to the legalization of exploitation, coercive inclusion, and unequal bargaining power in the relationship between agribusiness and peasants, land workers, and landholders. - Develop a methodological approach based on micro-case studies to gain a detailed view of how law has shaped and allowed the expansion of agrarian extractivism. This will provide a complementary viewpoint to existing macro-perspective accounts of the relationship between constitutional law and political economy. - The project aims to contribute knowledge that can significantly impact academic and political debates about the development model based on agro-exports and the SDGs 1, 8, 10, and 16. - The project can also have practical implications by offering insights into land and agribusiness policy design, as well as enhancing debates on the need to reform national legal frameworks, including Andean Constitutions, related to the economic model, property rights, and agribusiness.

The Andean States promote agribusiness as an economic activity that facilitates the export of local production and enhances sustainable development. The growth of agribusiness in the Andes has taken place under a constitutional legal framework that enables free-market policies, property protection as a fundamental right, and adopting free trade agreements and bilateral investment agreements. However, social studies and human rights activists highlight that agribusiness in the Andes creates land accumulation that benefits local elites and transnational capital. It is also argued that large-scale agriculture reproduces relations of dispossession, racism, and armed conflict violence. Yet, these approaches do not address an in-depth analysis of the relationship between land accumulation, the role of the State and the law. My project aims to study land accumulation for agribusiness and the social relations emerging from it as the product of transnational constitutional law enhanced by the Andean States. I propose analyzing whether and how the material economic constitutional framework -international law, formal constitutional law, soft law- shapes and facilitate land accumulation, inequality, and violence in the context of agro-exports markets. The project will develop and test a theoretical framework that explains the co-constitutive relation the law and the political economy of accumulation in the Andes. Equally, through a comparative case study, the project will provide specific analysis of the similarities and differences concerning the relationship between law and land accumulation in Peru, Colombia and Chile. The project outcomes will help expose the assumptions and contradictions of the idea that human rights, sustainability, and constitutional law perspectives can be effective limits to the economic model of agro-exports. As a final goal, the project engages with the idea that law should meet the demands of equality, peace, and sustainability from the ground.