ABSTRACT
Sharp debates in India since 2005 have deteriorated more recently into widespread protest against SEZs and even serious violence (Gopalakrishnan, this volume). Dohrmann (2008: 74-76) refers to an alarming instance in 2007 of a proposed ‘chemical hub’ SEZ involving Indonesian investment, at Nandigram, West Bengal, encompassing no less than 57 square kilometres and twentynine villages, which led to serious clashes involving thousands of police and protesters and fourteen deaths. This and other instances have resulted in the placing of a vague and temporary ceiling on SEZ sizes. The opposition to SEZs comes from both left-wing politicians and industrialists (Economist 2006: 78). Controversy has focused on the legitimacy of SEZs as social and economic
policy. Those who are opposed to SEZs would indeed have little interest in the law and governance of SEZs, because they would rather simply abolish them. At the same time defects in law and governance are reasons to oppose them being set up, have the SEZ structure changed, or subject SEZs to some form of global regulation. While entertaining some sympathy with this point of view, this chapter assumes nonetheless that SEZs are, in some form at least, here to stay, but consistently with the theme of this book it does not assume that they will or should take a particular form. It is, on the contrary, assumed here that the SEZ concept will prove to be capable of adapting to new circumstances and requirements, and possibly being used for a variety of purposes, provided our deep concerns about the consequences of SEZs can be put to good use in making dramatic improvements in refining SEZ law and governance. It seems inescapable that these new circumstances and purposes include the greater prevalence and dissemination of standards of legality and good governance, human rights and environmental and labour standards (all of which are discussed in this volume), and a greater willingness to challenge the injustices and abuses of privilege that can arise in the context of SEZs. Unhappily this chapter, analysing the example of India’s Special Economic Zones Act 2005, finds that appropriate standards of law and governance are far from being met in this example; indeed accusations of almost every
conceivable defect in law and governance have been levelled at the Indian SEZ structure (Dohrmann 2008; Gopalakrishnan, this volume).1
