Archives: Books

Re-visioning Indian Cities: The Urban Renewal Mission probes the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) right from its inception to its present day avatar. Commencing with a historical background of JNNURM, the book traces the evolution of public policy in India on urban growth. The rationale behind the choice of the cities covered by the Mission, the scope and coverage of the work undertaken, and the progress accomplished to date are extensively discussed.

The study includes a conceptual overview of the link between climate impacts and human rights, focused on the relevant legal obligations underpinning the international law frameworks governing both human rights and climate change. As such it makes a significant contribution to the global debate on climate change and human rights by offering a comprehensive analysis of the international legal dimensions of this intersection. The study helps advance an understanding of what is meant, in legal and policy terms, by the human rights impacts of climate change through examples of specific substantive rights. It gives a legal and theoretic perspective on the connection between human rights and climate change along three dimensions: first, human rights may affect the enjoyment of human rights. Second, measures to address human rights may impact the realization of rights and third, that human rights have potential relevance to policy and operational responses to climate change, and may promote resilience to climate change, including in developing countries in a way that may help sustainable development. This study effectively consolidates knowledge from the fields of international human rights law, international law governing climate change and international environmental law, building on the existing work of the United Nation (UN) office of the high commissioner on human rights, the UN human rights council and the international council on human rights policy. Although it maintains a legal focus, the study has benefited from the input of a host of international experts from other disciplines as well.

In the face of growing freshwater scarcity, most countries of the world are taking steps to conserve their water and foster its sustainable use. Water crises range from concerns of drinking water availability and/or quality, the degradation or contamination of freshwater, and the allocation of water to different users. To meet the challenge, many countries are undergoing systemic changes to the use of freshwater and the provision of water services, thereby leading to greater commercialization of the resource as well as a restructuring of the legal, regulatory, technical and institutional frameworks for water.

The contributions to this book critically analyse legal issues arising under international law, such as environment and human rights provisions, concerning the economic, environmental and social consequences of proposed water regulatory changes and their implementation at the national level. The book examines the situation in India which is currently in the midst of implementing several World Bank led water restructuring projects which will have significant impacts on the realisation of the right to water and all other aspects of water regulation for decades to come. In analysing the situation in India the volume is able to detail the interactions between international law and national law in the field of water, and to ask broader questions about the compliance with international law at the national level and the relevance of international law in national law and policy-making.

India’s dependence on water is critical owing to its large agricultural base, the water needs of its billion-plus population, and the recent economic growth trends. Despite the plethora of material on environmental law, legal scholarship on water law in particular has been negligible. This timely work pieces together key legislative instruments and policy documents to provide an overarching picture of the legal regime and regulations related to water in India.

The book thoroughly discusses the policy framework for the use of water in India. It also brings out the complexity in the structure of laws due to variations at the levels of their implementation, i.e., at the international, national, state, municipal, and panchayat levels. It covers a wide range of issues such as centre—state relations; management, appropriation, and control of water; irrigation; sanitation; drinking water; ground water; pollution; and water-dependent activities like power generation, and fisheries. The book further explores water-related environmental and health concerns.

The work also examines the importance of various conflict resolution processes for resolving water-related disputes. It offers a range of legal ideas on water management in India, and thus, provides crucial insights into the field. This work will fill a critical gap in the study of and research on water law, providing a ready reference point for a variety of legal mechanisms, and introduction to how they operate and what their implications are.

How do policymakers, businesses and civil society in India approach the challenge of climate change? What do they believe global climate negotiations will achieve and how? And how are Indian political and policy debates internalizing climate change? Relatively little is known globally about internal climate debate in emerging industrializing countries, but what happens in rapidly growing economies like India’s will increasingly shape global climate change outcomes.

This Handbook brings together prominent voices from India, including policymakers, politicians, business leaders, civil society activists and academics, to build a composite picture of contemporary Indian climate politics and policy. One section lays out the range of positions and substantive issues that shape Indian views on global climate negotiations. Another delves into national politics around climate change. A third looks at how climate change is beginning to be internalized in sectoral policy discussions over energy, urbanization, water, and forests. The volume is introduced by an essay that lays out the critical issues shaping climate politics in India, and its implications for global politics.

The papers show that, within India, climate change is approached primarily as a developmental challenge and is marked by efforts to explore how multiple objectives of development, equity and climate mitigation can simultaneously be met. In addition, Indian perspectives on climate negotiations are in a state of flux. Considerations of equity across countries and a focus on the primary responsibility for action of wealthy countries continue to be central, but there are growing voices of concern on the impacts of climate change on India. How domestic debates over climate governance are resolved in the coming years, and the evolution of India’s global negotiation stance are likely to be important inputs toward creating shared understandings across countries in the years ahead, and identify ways forward. This volume on the Indian experience with climate change and development is a valuable contribution to both purposes.

Over the past three decades, decentralization has been seen as the means for allowing local governments to become more accountable, and for encouraging the deepening of democracy and the building of village communities. By drawing on original village-level case studies of six villages in three different Indian states, this book presents a systematic analysis of the impact of decentralization on the delivery of social services at the local level within India.

Supplementing national and state-level data and analyzing the different historical legacies in each state, the book argues that decentralization is not simply a function of the structure of the decentralization program or of the relationship between higher-tiered and local government. Rather, the possibility of decentralization affecting social outcomes depends on several interacting factors, including the distribution of power among local elites, the dynamics of political competition, and the level of civil society mobilization. By examining constitutionally-mandated political decentralization across India, this book identifies the circumstances under which local government structures can lead to improved social services and societal wellbeing, as well as presenting a substantial contribution to studies on South Asian Politics and Local Government.

Indian Historian John Lall once Observed, “ Perhaps nowhere else in the world has such a long frontier been unmistakably delineated odds nature itself” Hoe then did India and China defy topographical odds and lock themselves into an impasses that was ultimately tested on the battlefield in October 1962 and has been simmering below the surface ever since?

This paper Dwells on this question and attempts to get to the heart of this dispute without resorting to the polemics that often animate commentaries on these issues. The author also retrace the trajectory of India- China Border diplomacy that resumed in the 1970’s and shed some new light on the negotiating postures of the two countries which over the past three decades have been engaged in discovering a process that can identify the contours of a solution to the boundary question. Finally the author situates the dispute in a Contemporary geopolitical context on the dispute resolution process.

As frustration mounts in some quarters at the perceived inadequacy or speed of international action on climate change, and as the likelihood of significant impacts grows, the focus is increasingly turning to liability for climate change damage. Actual or potential climate change liability implicates a growing range of actors, including governments, industry, businesses, non-governmental organisations, individuals and legal practitioners. Climate Change Liability provides an objective, rigorous and accessible overview of the existing law and the direction it might take in seventeen developed and developing countries and the European Union. In some jurisdictions, the applicable law is less developed and less the subject of current debate. In others, actions for various kinds of climate change liability have already been brought, including high profile cases such as Massachusetts v. EPA in the United States. Each chapter explores the potential for and barriers to climate change liability in private and public law.

As the contours of a post-2012 climate regime begin to emerge, compliance issues will require increasing attention. This volume considers the questions that the trends in the climate negotiations raise for the regime’s compliance system. It reviews the main features of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, canvasses the literature on compliance theory and examines the broader experience with compliance mechanisms in other international environmental regimes. Against this backdrop, contributors examine the central elements of the existing compliance system, the practice of the Kyoto compliance procedure to date and the main compliance challenges encountered by key groups of states such as OECD countries, economies in transition and developing countries. These assessments anchor examinations of the strengths and weaknesses of the existing compliance tools and of the emerging, decentralized, ‘bottom-up’ approach introduced by the 2009 Copenhagen Accord and pursued by the 2010 Cancun Agreements.