Global Europe, Guilty ! Contesting EU Neo-liberal Governance for Latin America and the Caribbean

November 2009

Submission to Special Issue ofThird World Quarterly

By Rosalba Icaza (Email : icaza@iss.nl)

Abstract

This paper examines the European Union - Latin American and Caribbean countries bi-regional governance as a source of social resistance and contestation. In particular, the paper looks at the contributions of a bottom-up and informal mechanism of litigation such as the Peoples’ Permanent Tribunals against European Multinationals and Neo-liberalism to cognitive justice and for challenging the notion of an all-encompassing neo-liberal governance. In so doing, the paper engages in a critical analysis of the underlying assumptions of key notions of global/regional governance and resistance in IPE and IR literature and of development and regionalism promoted by EU Institutions and LAC governments. At its core the paper argues for a problematisation of the resistance that is enacted through the Tribunals as not free of tensions, but nonetheless, contributing through practices of cognitive justice to unveiling the fragmented and hence, contested nature of EU neo-liberal governance for Latin America and the Caribbean countries.

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