The Right to Responsibility - Our Latest Book for Peer Review

We’re pleased to announce that Natural Justice and the United Nations University – Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) have just released a new book for peer review, entitled: The Right to Responsibility: Resisting and Engaging Development, Conservation, and the Law in Asia. This edited volume explores how Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ resilience to external factors is often undermined by laws, institutional arrangements, and judicial systems. It also examines how particular peoples and communities are striving to overcome such structural barriers to self-determination by resisting unwanted developments and engaging proactively with a range of actors at multiple scales.

It is edited by Natural Justice’s Holly Jonas and Harry Jonas and UNU-IAS’s Suneetha M. Subramanian, and comprised of the following three parts:

Part I: Context and Theoretical Development

• Chapter 1: Between Development Conservation and the Law – by Harry Jonas and Holly Jonas
• Chapter 2: Will the Flamingos Return to the Fishing Shelters? Engaging with Diverse Biocultural Realities – by Kanchi Kohli

Part II: Community Experiences

• Chapter 3: The Role of Traditional Knowledge and Customary Arrangements in Conservation: Trans-boundary Landscape Approaches in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of China, India and Nepal – by Krishna Prasad Oli, Luorong Zhandui, Ranbeer S. Rawal, Ram Prasad Chaudhary, Shi Peili, and Robert Zomer
• Chapter 4: Defending and Strengthening Sharwa (Sherpa) Rights and ICCAs in Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) National Park, Nepal – by Stan Stevens
• Chapter 5: A National Park, River-dependent Sonahas and a Biocultural Space in Peril – by Sudeep Jana
• Chapter 6: Empowering Rights-holders and Facilitating Duty-bearers to Secure Farmers’ Rights in Nepal – by Bikash Paudel and Sajal Sthapit
• Chapter 7: Livestock Keepers’ Rights in South Asia – by Ilse Köhler-Rollefson
• Chapter 8: Forest Rights and Conservation in India – by Tushar Dash and Ashish Kothari
• Chapter 9: Local Forest Governance, FPIC and REDD+ in Indonesia: A Case Study from Aceh, Sumatra – by Patrick Anderson and Marcus Colchester
• Chapter 10: Asserting the Right to Safeguard Biocultural Heritage and Customary Lands in Ulu Papar, Sabah, Malaysia – by Justine Vaz and Agnes Lee Agama

Part III: Analysis and Looking Ahead – by Harry Jonas and Holly Jonas

• Chapter 11: Reforming Rights to Support Responsibilities 
• Chapter 12: Recommendations 
• Chapter 13: Legal Empowerment for Landscapes

The book is available for download in full, in three parts, and by chapter at: http://naturaljustice.org/library/our-publications/books-volumes/the-right-to-responsibility. Please contact the editors at holly (at) naturaljustice (dot) org with any comments or feedback by 1 September.