Deliberating justice - indigenous peoples, the world bank and the principle of free prior infomed consent (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - Topic: Development Politics, grade: 1,6, The Australian National University, language: English, abstract: This thesis aims to reflect upon some of the bigger questions of
international development. It investigates a general relationship between
the World Bank vis a vis demands made by indigenous peoples, namely
questioning of how to advance development goals in ways that uphold the
justice needs of minorities such as indigenous peoples, further how to
achieve a just balance between national prosperity and minority survival,
and more broadly, how to further balance the complexities of global, local
and national interests. This thesis seeks a stronger middle ground
between the Bank and indigenous peoples and focuses, on the
importance of deliberation, in general, and the principle of free prior
informed consent, in particular.
The argument put forward here is normative and envisages emancipating
from the singularity of the modern development paradigm in opening a
deliberative space that provides for diversity and difference to flourish
instead. Here specifically acknowledging indigenous peoples values and
interests as equally important in development, this thesis supports a
deliberate and affirmative approach to justice. This of course does not
mark the prevailing top-down, state-centric and neo-liberal development
paradigm as malign, rather it envisages exchanging its power base for
bottom-up participatory deliberation.