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As one of the main ports of Europe, Antwerp-Bruges is the gate of entrance to the continent for several commodities and raw materials that feed its industrialized economies and consumption habits, such as coffee, cocoa, rice, timber, diamonds, gold, special metals such as coltan and cobalt, and drugs. Most of these commodities and/or raw materials come from resource-rich and economically deprived countries of the Global South, where extractivist agricultural and mining enclaves cause significant impacts on local populations and ecosystems, such as forced displacement, deforestation, and violence against human rights defenders and environmental activists. At the same time, the port of Antwerp is one of the main export gateways from Europe to other latitudes, which often also severely impacts ecological and social justice dimensions associated with the import of hazardous products or international goods that displace local markets.
This session aims to unveil the often invisibilized links between European economies and social and ecological injustices in the Global South by critically examining some of the agricultural-related imports and exports that happen through the port of Antwerp. As an entry case, the session will explore the role of the port of Antwerp in acting as a central hub in the exporting of agro-industrial pesticides that, despite being often forbidden inside the EU due to their adverse impacts on human health and the environment, are still being produced in the EU, exported, and used in agro-industrial production in the Global South. We will look at the particular case of Brazil and its extensive agricultural industry. However, the port of Antwerp is also a port of entry. Paradoxically, it is the gateway for the same agro-industrial pesticides that are exported and that cause negative impacts in other latitudes, given that they come back to the EU in the form of agricultural goods that are then consumed here, impacting our diets in several ways. Being a hub of the global food system also means that the port of Antwerp is pivotal in the commodification of our diets and food production, a situation that has sparked protests and resistance by the agricultural sector in the country and across the continent.
What should be done is the final question that will be asked. We will engage with our speakers in a critical analysis of the EU green trade policies that are portrayed as effective solutions for environmental degradation produced by agro-industry, and at the same time explore other possible alternatives that are based on the premises of cosmopolitan justice and a deep understanding of historical, present and future responsibilities.
Invited speakers
Larissa Mies Bombardi is a professor and researcher at the Department of Geography at the University of São Paulo (USP), with extensive expertise in Human Geography. Her work focuses on the socio-environmental impacts of pesticide use in Brazil and its international connections, especially with the European Union. In 2019, she published the influential atlas "Geography of Pesticide Use in Brazil and Connections with the European Union". As a result of her critical research and activism against what she calls chemical colonialism, she faced intimidation that forced her to relocate to Belgium, where she has continued her research endeavors at the Université Libre Bruxelles.
Raf Callaerts is a research and policy officer at the Belgian national section of FIAN International, a global human rights organization that advocates for the right to adequate food and nutrition. FIAN Belgium works with farmers' movements, civil society organizations, and social movements that support a transition to sustainable food systems that respect the right to adequate, healthy, and nutritious food. Raf holds a master's in law from the University of Antwerp and a Master's in Law in Energy, Environment, and Climate Change.
Moderator
Tomaso Ferrando holds a Phd in law from Sciences Po University (Paris) and has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University Law School, University of Sao Paulo and the University of Cape Town. Before joining the University of Antwerp, he worked as a Lecturer in Law at the Universities of Warwick School of Law and at the University of Bristol Law School. Tomaso’s main line of research engages with the link between law, global value chains and the construction of the global food systems, with particular attention to the international dimension (trade, investments, and the human right to food) and the remaining spaces for local and non-commodified food practices. He is the principal investigator of a FWO junior research project (ContainerHavens) that engages with ports as contested ecologies and that investigates the role of law and legal structures in defining ports and their interactions with local and distant territories.