Climate justice and neocolonialism in a digital world: how the digital economy perpetuates climate harm and colonial disparities between the Global South and the Global North

Abstract

Contemporary realities are underpinned by interwoven crises, with the climate crisis and the challenges posed by the modern digital economy occupying a prominent place. Once again in human history, certain parts of the world bear the brunt of the development and prosperity of the rest. The Global North is insatiably exploiting the resources and capacities of the Global South, replicating and perpetuating patterns reminiscent of the colonial era, while reshaping them into neocolonial configurations. First, through palpable cases of raw material extraction, serving the manufacture of electronic devices and sustaining the operation of vast digital infrastructures, land appropriation, primarily through e-waste dumping, and data extraction and domination, this thesis seeks to delineate the contextual framework within which digital capitalism unfolds. Second, by examining key international legal instruments on climate protection and corporate due diligence, it aims to illustrate the multiple structural deficiencies of the existing legal architecture – one that could, but fails to, provide an avenue for addressing the climate and human costs of the digital economy’s hidden and manifest externalities. Third, this thesis suggests climate justice as a concept of utmost relevance, with genuine potential to bridge the structural disparities between the Global South and the Global North, serving as a justice-oriented framework that envisions holistic societal transformation and uproots all capitalist and (neo)colonial drivers of climate and human harm.