UPCOMING EVENT: The Belt and Road Initiative, hydropolitics, and hydropower [Online, 7 June 2021]]

16.00-17.30 am BKK Time, Monday, 7 June 2021 via Zoom

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be one of the speakers

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be one of the speakers for the webinar "Contrasting China's Relationship with South and Southeast Asia: the Belt and Road Initiative, Hydropolitics, and Hydropower."

Carl will speak on ‘Reworking the Mekong River Regime: The Geopolitics and Hydropolitics of Competing Regionalisms’.

About the webinar:

"In this webinar we examine the role of new and planned hydropower projects financed by China in shifting geopolitics between China and South and Southeast Asia. We ask how hydropolitics and dams are enabling new forms of economic, social and political regional institutionalisation through the Belt and Road Initiative, how these play out differently in South and Southeast Asia and what these mean for local communities and nature in particular locales across South and Southeast Asia."

To join this webiner, you can register on the organizer’s webpage here, or register via Zoom on this link https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vBmdcT0nRXCLne0iWFlD8A.

UPCOMING EVENT: The Mekong, China, & SE Asian Transitions Series-Mekong Dams: Debates and the Politics of Evidence [Online, 29 April 2021]

07.00-08.30 am BKK Time, Thursday, 29 April 2021 via Zoom

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be one of the panelists

In recent decades, people living in the Lower Mekong Region have witnessed major shifts from predominantly subsistence agriculture to industrializing economies, with attendant changes in migration, crop production systems, and major infrastructure (roads, dams, industrial estates). This series of four webinars will explore how communities in the region are experiencing the economic, social, and cultural dislocations of these transformations.

Full webinar series schedule:

• Panel 1 : Jan 27 - Markets for Mekong Commodities

• Panel 2 : Feb 24 - Migration, Mobility, and the Mekong

• Panel 3 : Apr 7 - The Spirits and Spiritual Life of the Mekong

• Panel 4: Apr 28 - Mekong Dams: Debates and the Politics of Evidence

Carl will be one of the panelists on Panel 4.

To register for this event, please visit the Zoom link here. For more information about this event, please visit the organizer’s website here.

This event is organized by Asian Studies Center at Michigan State University.

UPCOMING EVENT: Low Flows, Drought, Data and Geopolitics on the Mekong-Lancang River [Online, 28 April 2021]

10.00 pm BKK Time/ 05.00 pm CEST, Wednesday, 28 April 2021 via Facebook Live from UPF Lund

Public Lecture with Carl Middleton from CSDS

The Mekong-Lancang River flows from the Tibetan Plateau through Yunnan Province of China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Since the early 1990s, the river has been increasingly engineered by large hydropower dams. In this seminar, Carl Middleton assesses conflict and cooperation in transboundary water governance, with a focus on the Mekong River Commission established between the four lower basin States, and the China-led Lancang Mekong Cooperation. Heavily influenced by geopolitical tensions between the US and China, Carl Middleton analyzes the heated regional debates over China’s dam cascade and low river flows downstream since 2019, and the impact on peoples’ lives.

Dr. Carl Middleton is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Director on the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in International Development Studies (MAIDS-GRID) Program, and Director of the Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS) in the Faculty of Political Science of Chulalongkorn University. Dr. Middleton’s research interests orientate around the politics and policy of the environment in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on nature-society relations, the political ecology of water and energy, and environmental justice. He has lived in Southeast Asia for fifteen years, with much of his work focused onto the Mekong River.

For more information, please visit the event page here.

UPCOMING EVENT: Water Governance in Southeast Asia: A Roundtable Discussion on the Mekong River Basin [Online, 19 March 2021]

06.30 - 08.00 am BKK Time, Friday, 19 March 2021 via Zoom.

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be one of the speakers for the panel.

This Roundtable focuses on the water governance and water management challenges in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Mekong River basin. It will examine questions of environmental justice with a panel of experts on the region, whose interests include—specifically in relation to the Mekong—issues of political ecology, energy and water security, the protection and restoration of river ecosystems, and the rights of local communities and migrant workers.

Speakers:

• Pianporn Deetes, Regional Campaigns and Communications Director, Southeast Asia Program, International Rivers

• Brian Eyler, Senior Fellow and Director, Southeast Asia program, Stimson Centre, Washington DC

• Melissa Marschke, Associate Professor, International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada

• Carl Middleton, Director of the Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Chairs:

• Phil Calvert, Former Canadian Ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos; CAPI Senior Research Fellow

• Victor V. Ramraj, CAPI Director and Chair in Asia-Pacific Legal Relations; Professor, UVic Faculty of Law

Opening Remarks:

• Kevin Hall, President, University of Victoria

Please click here for the link to register for the Zoom Webinar, and for more information about the event, please visit the organizer’s website here.

UPCOMING EVENT: Opening Talk for the Photo Exhibition “The Mekong is Blue and Dried” [Bangkok, 16 March 2021]

17.30 - 19.00, Monday, 16 March 2021 at the Corner Space, 1st Floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC)

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be one of the speakers for the talk.

A selection of photographs and artworks will be showcased in SEA Junction’s “Mekong is Blue and Dried” exhibition on 16 – 28 March 2021 at Corner Space, 1st Floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). The exhibition is born out of concern for the environmental degradation of the Mekong River.

The exhibition will be launched with an opening talk (in English) on the issue by the speakers listed below, on 16 March 2021, 5:30 – 7:00 pm at Corner Space, 1st Floor, BACC where the exhibition is held.

Speakers

• Anthony Zola, Independent Researcher

• Carl Middleton, Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

• Premrudee Daoroung, Lao Dam Investment Monitor

• Laure Siegel, Freelance Journalist

Moderator

• Rosalia Sciortino, SEA Junction

For more information about the event, as well as on how to register, please visit the organizer’s website here.

IN THE NEWS: Mekong's falling water level riles China's downstream neighbors

China's water relations with Southeast Asian neighbors are under strain after Beijing held up the Mekong River's flow at one of its large dams upstream, precipitating a sudden drop in volume for downstream countries that share the region's longest body of water.

——

"There is still a need to deepen cooperation on transboundary water governance," said Carl Middleton, director of the Center for Social Development Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "The appropriate goal is [for the] accountable operation of hydropower projects that avoid social and environmental impacts to the extent possible, while acknowledging and compensating for harms created."

China, which refers to the Mekong as the Lancang River, has been in the crosshairs of local and international environmentalists for the power it wields to reduce the water flow. Critics say Beijing uses the river as a tap to be turned on or off to meet domestic water requirements.

For the full article, please click the link here.

UPCOMING EVENT: CRISEA Final Conference – Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia: The Project and its Findings [Online, 22 February 2021]

17.00 - 19.10, Monday, 22 February 2021 via Zoom

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be presenting on this event.

Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia (CRISEA) is an interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme that studies multiple forces affecting regional integration in Southeast Asia and the challenges they present to the peoples of Southeast Asia and its regional institutional framework, ASEAN.

CRISEA innovates by encouraging ‘macro-micro’ dialogue between disciplines: global level analyses in international relations and political economy alongside socio-cultural insights from the grassroots methodologies of social sciences and the humanities.

CRISEA Final Conference – Programme (05) Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia: The Project and its Findings

Part Two – Research Findings: Case Studies (17.26 - 18.16))

• Carl Middleton, Chulalongkorn University (Environment – WP1) – Southeast Asia and China: Transnational Water Issues on the Mekong

• Dennis Arnold, University of Amsterdam (The Economy – WP2) – The Impact of Covid-19 on Special Economic Zones in Southeast Asia

• Pham Quynh Phuong, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (The State – WP3) – State-Society Relations and the Rise of the LGBT Movement in Vietnam

• Jayeel Cornelio, Ateneo de Manila University (Identity – WP4) – Christianity and the War on Drugs in the Philippines

• Kyawt Kyawt Khine, University of Mandalay (The Region – WP5) – Southeast Asia Regionalism and Myanmar’s Relations with ASEAN

For the complete program, please visit here.

The conference will be conducted online via Zoom. To attend, please visit this link here. It will also be broadcasted via YouTube Live on the channel here.

UPCOMING EVENT: ARI E-Workshop on Transboundary Environmental Governance in Southeast Asia [Online, 4 December 2020]

15.40-17.30, Friday, 4 December 2020 via Zoom

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be presenting on this event.

The Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, is going to organize an inter-disciplinary workshop on "Transboundary Environmental Governance in Southeast Asia" to explore how, why, when and what forms of transboundary environmental governance are emerging in Southeast Asia.

The workshop will be conducted online via Zoom. To register, please visit this link here and the organizer will reply prior to the event with the Zoom link.

Panel IV. Hybrid Governance of Transboundary Commons

Chairperson: Zu Dienle Tan, National University of Singapore

Panelists:

• Beyond the Commons/Commodity Dichotomy in the Lancang-Mekong Basin: Implications for Transboundary Water Governance by Carl Middleton, Chulalongkorn University

• Unruly Fires: Nonhumans as Transboundary Actants in Governing Indonesia’s Wildfires by Rini Astuti, National University of Singapore and Yuti Ariani Fatimah, Nanyang Technological University

• A Multi-Scalar Political Economy Analysis of Thailand’s Widespread Urban Air Pollution by Danny Marks, Dublin City University

• Path Dependency of Land Use in Southeast Asian Peatlands by Lahiru Wijedasa, National University of Singapore

Abstract:

Beyond the Commons/Commodity Dichotomy in the Lancang-Mekong Basin: Implications for Transboundary Water Governance

Extensive hydropower construction across the Lancang-Mekong basin is changing the river’s hydrology and ecology, with implications for the availability and governance of common pool resources, as well as for riparian livelihoods. In this paper, I assess how the transboundary commons are being reworked as the river is transformed by large dam operation. The paper applies an analytical lens that seeks to move beyond a commons-commodity dichotomy in water related resource governance (Paerregaard and Andersen, 2019) to argue that at the present time the Lancang-Mekong River is neither fully commodified nor fully a commons, but rather a hybrid of the two. The paper will examine how transboundary hybrid governance regimes are reworking the hybrid commons, drawing attention to how states, communities, and even private actors, seek to maintain particular types of commons, whilst simultaneously either furthering or resisting commodification of some properties of the river. The paper will discuss the implications of this hybrid governance perspective for recent hydropolitics in the river basin and existing and new transboundary water governance institutions, namely the Mekong River Commission and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework.

For more information about this event, please visit the organizer’s webpage here.

UPCOMING EVENT: Virtual Conference on Sustainable Development and the Future of the Mekong [Online, 27 October 2020]

13.30-15.30, Tuesday, 27th October 2020 via Zoom

Carl Middleton from CSDS will be presenting on this event.

The Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) is going to organize a virtual conference on "Sustainable Development and the Future of the Mekong". For those participants who wish to attend in this virtual event, please complete the reply form in link here: http://bit.ly/FutureMekong

Panel IV: Human Security Issues in the Mekong Context: Agriculture, Energy, Water and Environment

The topics of rising energy demand, food and water security as well as environment have become increasingly salient in recent years and interact directly both at present and in future with the sustainability of the Mekong. Panelists from the Lower Mekong states, drawing on their particular areas of expertise, will address one or more of these human security issues and examine what policy frameworks can be developed in order to avoid humanitarian and development crises in the subregion.

Panelists:

Instigator: H.E. Amb. Pou Sothirak, CICP Executive Director

• Dr. Mak Sithirith, Water Governance Specialist and Senior Research Fellow at CICP

• Mr. Lê Trung Kiên, Senior Researcher, Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies, Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam

• Dr. Han Phoumin, Senior Energy Economist, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, Jakarta

• Ms. Solinn Lim, Country Director, Oxfam Cambodia

• Dr. Carl Middleton, Deputy Director, Center for Social Development Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Carl’s presentation will be on ”Water data democratization in the Mekong-Lancang basin”. For more information about this event, please visit the organizer’s webpage here.

UPCOMING ONLINE PANEL DISCUSSION: Confronting the Triple Trap in the Mekong Region: The Pandemic, Economic Downturn, and Climate Crisis

This panel is convened by the Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University for the Seventh South-South Forum on Sustainability (SSFS7) hosted by Lingnan University, Hong Kong.

Thursday 16 July 2020, start from 14:00-16:00 GMT+7/Thailand Time

In this session, we will discuss how the ‘triple trap’ - the pandemic, economic downturn, and climate crisis – have affected communities across the Mekong region, and how these challenges have been responded to by them, as well as by civil society and state. We also examine the long-term implications of the triple trap, asking what transformations have already occurred and what could happen in the future.

Speakers:

• "The Implications of Covid 19's Disruption of Global Supply Chains for Southeast Asia" by Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South

• "Inequality, migration and Covid 19 in Thailand and the Mekong Region" by Naruemon Thabchumpon, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

• "The pandemic in Northeast Thailand and implications for communities and (post)development” by Kanokwan Manorom, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Ubon Ratchathani University

• "The impact of Covid 19 in rural Myanmar: Community, civil society, and state responses" by Nwet Kay Khine, Paung Ku, Myanmar

Discussant: Pianporn Deetes, International Rivers, Thailand

Moderator: Carl Middleton, Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.

This panel will be an online panel discussion hosted via Zoom and is a public session of the SSFS7 conference. Registration is required on the link below:

ZOOM WEBINAR REGISTRATION

On the registration page, please choose 'No Registration Fee Required' and 'Invited Participant' and choose the ’16 July: Workshops on Venezuela, Mexico and Mekong Region‘ to receive the Zoom link for this session.

For more information about this conference, please visit the conference website here.

IN THE NEWS: #WeStandByOurPlanet

Taylor & Francis recently launched their 2019 Asia Sustainability Campaign, #WeStandByOurPlanet. For every book sold from the campaign list, they will donate SGD$1 to a local wildlife community.

Two books from CSDS, Living with Floods in a Mobile Southeast Asia and The Water-Food-Energy-Nexus are also included in the campaign listing. Please visit this link here for the catalog of books included in the list.

UPCOMING INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE SESSION: "Thailand’s Overseas Investment in Southeast Asia and Transnational (In)Justice" [16 July 2017]

Session organized at the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies
"Globalized Thailand?" Connectivity, Conflict, and Conundrums of Thai Studies 

15:15-16:45, 16th July 2017, Chiang Mai International Exhibition and Convention Center

Session convened by the Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

Thailand’s companies have become major investors in neighboring countries, including in agribusiness, hydropower, mining and various forms of industry. Thailand’s companies are backed by government policy, and typically financed by Thai commercial banks as well as, sometimes, Thailand’s Export Import Bank (Thai Exim). Thailand’s regional investment has furthermore been facilitated by various regional economic integration programs, including the Asian Development Bank’s Greater Mekong Subregion Program and more recently the ASEAN Economic Community. As one of the major economies of mainland Southeast Asia, Thailand has sought to positioned itself as central to economic regionalization. Given that Thailand itself is embedded within a wider global network of production, its companies’ investment in neighboring countries’ resource extraction and commodity production can also tied to a wider global political economy.

Whilst it seems that investment, commodities, goods and natural resources flow readily across borders, the same cannot be said of access to justice. In this panel, empirical case studies will be presented of Thailand’s cross-border investments that have in the process resulted in environmental and social harms, and in some cases violated human rights. The panel explores the various processes and arenas that have emerged as communities and civil society have sought redress and access to justice. These arenas have included in the national courts of the project host country, but also through various formal and informal cross-border processes that link to Thailand, including via Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission (TNHRC), and in one example a case ruled upon by Thailand’s administrative court. Meanwhile, a report of the TNHRC on the Dawei Special Economic Zone in Myanmar led to a Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs recommendation in March 2016 that the government should set up a mechanism for the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights for Thai companies investing overseas. Thus, a wider array of international norms is also brought into play, reflecting the legal pluralism that nowadays governs cross-border investments. This also brings into focus a question of the extra-territorial obligations of Thailand with regard to the investment of Thai companies.

This panel will critically evaluate Thailand’s investment role in the region through the lens of transnational social and environmental justice. Through empirical case studies on agribusiness, hydropower and special economic zones, the political economy of these investments will be explored in order to understand the production of injustice and human rights violations.  The papers will ask: what are the roles, opportunities and challenges for public interest law, national/ regional human rights institutions, other transnational soft law mechanisms, and civil society to protect and promote human rights on Thailand’s investments?

• Paper 1:  Accountability Beyond the State: Extra territorial obligations in the case of the Koh Kong Sugar Industry Concession, Cambodia by Michelle D’cruz
• Paper 2: Redressing transboundary environmental injustice at the Dawei Special Economic Zone and Roadlink Project by Naruemon Thabchumpon
• Paper 3: Arenas of Water Justice on Transboundary Rivers: Human Rights and Hydropower Dams on the Salween and Mekong Rivers by Carl Middleton

Discussant: Walden Bello.

Chair: Daniel King

Abstracts can be downloaded here (see page 7; session 53). Conference details are available here.