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⁶ See UN Commission on Legal Empowerment for the Poor, Making the Law work for Everyone (CLEP, 2008).

⁷ There is a massive, open-ended scope of commodities that may be considered electronic waste at the end of their lifecycles. National legal categorizations aside, the term e-waste ultimately encompasses all discarded objects embedded with an electronic chip. See Hilty, L. M., “Electronic Waste—An Emerging Risk?” Environmental Impact Assessment Review 25 (2005): 431–435, at 431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁶ See Soto, Hernando de, The Other Path: The invisible revolution of the Third World (New York: Harper & Row, 1989);Google Scholar The Mystery of Capital: Why capital triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else (New York: Basic Books, 2000).

¹⁷ de Soto, The Other Path, 242–252.

¹⁸ de Soto, The Mystery of Capital, 218.

¹⁹ See von Benda-Beckman, Franz “Mysteries of capital or mystification of legal property?” Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 41 (2003): 187–191;Google Scholar Bromley, Daniel W., “Formalizing property relations in the developing world: the wrong prescription for the wrong malady,” Land Use Policy 26, no. 1 (2009): 20–27;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gilbert, Alan, “On the mystery of capital and the myths of Hernando de Soto,” International Development Planning Review 24, no. 1 (2002): 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²⁵ Ibid., 11.

²⁶ In 2003, the 17^th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) recommended defining informal employment through the unification of the traditional enterprise-based concept, with a broader jobs-based concept. See Hussmanns, Ralf, Measuring the Informal Economy: From employment in the informal sector to informal employment (Geneva: ILO, 2004).Google Scholar

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³¹ See Guy Mundlak, “Industrial Citizenship, Social Citizenship, Corporate Citizenship: I Just Want My Wages,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law 8, no. 2 (2007): 732–733: “The comprehensive coverage of national collective agreements may also leave a residue of individuals and groups who pay the price for national agreements […] Not only are those who are marginalized in such corporatist arrangements excluded from the main venues of economic representation, but the gap between the majority who are adequately represented and those who are not creates a situation of severe relative deprivation.”

³² Harvey, David, Social Justice and the City (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009 [Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1973]), 326–327.Google Scholar

³³ See ILO, Decent Work and the Informal Economy. Informal workers are highly spatially restricted. Take for example, migrant labour and residency restrictions in developed and developing countries. The residency permit system in mainland China (“hukou”) as well as the prohibition on mainland Chinese nannies to work in Hong Kong, present explicit discriminatory spatial practices towards rural migrant labour.

³⁴ Lefebvre, Henri, Writings on Cities, trans. Kofman, Eleonore and Lebas, Elizabeth (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 174.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space (Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991), 13.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., 195.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ See for example, the Self-Employed Women’s Association discussed in Elizabeth Hill, Worker Identity, Agency and Economic Development: Women’s empowerment in the Indian informal economy (London, New York: Routledge, 2010). On recyclers’ cooperatives in Brazil (catodores de lixo) see Ana Amélia Calaça Magni and Wanda Maria Risso Günther, “Cooperatives of waste pickers as an alternative to social exclusion and its relationship with the homeless population,” Saude soc: São Paulo 23, no. 1 (2014): 99–109. ILO Recommendation No. 193 (2002) on the Promotion of Cooperatives expressly mentions the important role of cooperatives in transforming informal economy work “into legally protected work, fully integrated into mainstream economic life.”

⁴⁰ Benhabib, Seyla et al., Another Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁴⁴ Holston, James, “Spaces of Insurgent Citizenship,” in Making the Invisible Visible: A multicultural planning history (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 37–56, at 39.Google Scholar

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⁴⁷ Medina, Martin, The World’s Scavengers: Salvaging for Sustainable Consumption and Production (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006), 75–85.Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ United Nations Human Settlements Program Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities: Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities 2010 (London, Washington, DC: UN-HABITAT/Earthscan, 2010); Chikarmane, Poornima and Narayanan, Lakshimi, “Transform or Perish: Changing Conceptions of Work in Recycling,” in Challenging the Legal Boundaries of Work Regulation, ed. Fudge, Judy, McCrystal, Shaye, and Sankaran, Kamala (Oxford and Portland, OR; Hart Publishing, 2012), 49–66;Google Scholar Furedy, Christine, “Social Aspects of Solid Waste Recovery in Asian Cities,” Environmental Sanitation Reviews 30 (1990): 2–52;Google Scholar Didero, Maike, “Cairo’s Informal Waste Collectors: A multi-scale and conflict sensitive perspective on sustainable livelihoods,” Erdkunde 66, no. 1 (2012): 27–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁵² See Pellow, David N., Sonnenfeld, David, and Smith, Ted, ed., Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006);Google Scholar ILO, Tackling Informality in e-Waste Management: The potential of cooperative enterprises (Geneva: ILO, 2014); Gibbs, Carole et al., “Transnational White Collar Crime and Risk: Lessons from the global trade in electronic waste,” Criminology & Public Policy 9, no. 3 (2010): 543–560;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Grossman, Elizabeth, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics and Human Health (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006); European Environment Agency, Waste Without Borders in the EU? Transboundary shipments of waste (Copenhagen: EEA, 2009).Google Scholar

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⁵⁸ Foundational legal instruments include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) as well as all eight fundamental ILO Conventions that Ghana has ratified.

⁵⁹ Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, art. 24.

⁶⁰ See Oteng-Ababio, M., Amankwaa, E. F., and Chama, M. A., “The local contours of scavenging for e-waste and higher-valued constituent parts in Accra, Ghana,” Habitat International 43 (2014): 163–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁶² Grant, Richard and Oteng-Ababio, Martin, “The Global Transformation of Materials and the Emergence of Informal Urban Mining in Accra, Ghana,” Africa Today 62, no. 4 (2016): 2–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁶⁴ Grant and Oteng-Ababio, “Mapping the Invisible,” 55.

⁶⁵ Act 917, Hazardous and Electronic Waste Control Management Act, Parliament of the Republic of Ghana (10 August 2016), http://greenadgh.com/images/documentsrepository/HazardousandElectronicWasteControl.pdf

⁶⁶ Ibid. Art. 20–28.

⁶⁷ Ibid. Art. 32.

⁶⁸ Ibid. Art. 33.

⁶⁹ Ibid. Art. 9.

⁷⁰ Ibid. Art. 9, 37.

⁷¹ Old Fadama is a distinct area; however Agbogbloshie and Old Fadama are commonly referred to interchangeably and as one entity. In 2009, the population of Old Fadama was estimated at close to 80,000 individuals. See Housing the Masses, Final Report to People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements on Community-led Enumeration of Old Fadama Community (Accra: Housing the Masses/People’s Dialogue, 2010).

⁷² Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, A Precarious Future: The Informal Settlement of Agbogbloshie, Ghana (Geneva: COHRE, 2004).Google Scholar

⁷³ The Government of Ghana received initial funding of $73 million from the OPEC fund for international development, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Development. An additional $48 million in funding came from the Belgian Government and a loan from the Standard and Charter Bank of London. See R. Grant, “Out of place? Global citizens in local spaces: A study of the informal settlements in the Korle Lagoon environs in Accra, Ghana,” Urban Forum 17, no. 1 (2006): 1–24.

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⁷⁵ Krobo, Edusei, Korle Lagoon Project Official Opening, (Ghana Public Records and Administration Archives, 1963), quoted in Debbie Onuoha, “Decongesting Accra,” The Johannesburg Salon 7 (2014): 123–130.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ See Center on Housing Rights and Evictions.

⁷⁸ Fundamental human rights and freedoms are guaranteed under Article 12(1) of the Constitution of Ghana. The community also invoked Article 23, which requires that administrative decision-making be fair and reasonable, and Article 33, which requires Courts to ensure Fundamental Rights.

⁷⁹ Govt. of South Africa et al. vs. Irene Grootboom et al., Constitutional Court of South Africa, Case CCT 11/00, 4 October 2000.

⁸⁰ Issa Iddi vs. Accra Metropolitan Assembly [2002] Misca 1203/2002 (Ghana, High Court of Justice), 12.

⁸¹ Atupare, Atudiwe, “Reconciling Socioeconomic Rights and Directive Principles with a Fundamental Law of Reason in Ghana and Nigeria,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 27 (2014): 71–106.Google Scholar

⁸² “Government finds 10m Euro for Sodom and Gomorrah resettlement,” The Statesman, Friday, 21 July 2006, quoted in Braimah, Farouk (2011) “A Decade of Struggles and Lessons in Old Fadama,” Slum Dwellers International Blog, http://knowyourcity.info/2011/11/a-decade-of-struggles-and-lessons-in-old-fadama/

⁸³ See Ghana TV3 Network, “Vanderpuije: There’s no place to resettle displaced Sodom & Gomorrah residents,” 24 June 2015, http://tv3network.com/all-news/news/local/vanderpuije-there-s-no-place-to-resettle-displaced-sodom-gomorrah-residents.html; Ghana, Atinka News, “CSIR secures court injunction on Sodom & Gomorrah land at Adjen Kotoku,” 26 June 2015, http://www.atinkaonline.com/index.php/politics/atinkanews/2180-csir-secures-court-injunction-on-sodom-gomorrah-land-at-adjen-kotoku.html

⁸⁴ See Frederick Ato Armah, David Oscar Yawson, and Alkan Olsson Johanna, “The Gap Between Theory and Practice of Stakeholder Participation: The case of management of the Korle Lagoon, Ghana,” Law, Environment and Development Journal 5, no. 1 (2009): 73-89. The authors cite ineffective information flows between the AMA and the community, as well as within the community itself, as obstructing Old Fadama residents’ participation in the policy cycle.

⁸⁵ Ibid. Ato Armah et al. note that in 2007, civil society organizations within the community began playing an active role in KLERP policy implementation.

⁸⁶ The last “official” renewal of the eviction order was in 2009. See Josh Lepawsky and Grace Akese “Sweeping Away Agbogbloshie Again,” Discard Studies: Social Studies of Waste, Pollution and Externalities, http://discardstudies.com/2015/06/23/sweeping-away-agbogbloshie-again/

⁸⁷ Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Slums upgrading document (Accra: AMA, 2013). In this government document Agbogbloshie market and Old Fadama are zoned as “insecure” and “illegal.”

⁸⁸ See Mariama Awumbila et al., Can Rural-Urban Migration into Slums Reduce Poverty? Evidence from Ghana, Working Paper 13, Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium (2014): 19.

⁸⁹ Grant and Oteng-Ababio, “Mapping the Invisible.”

⁹⁰ Prakash and Manhart, Socio-economic assessment and feasibility study, 26.

⁹¹ Ibid., 30.

⁹² Okolo, Ijeoma, E-waste management in Accra: Examining informal workers and informal–formal linkages for sustainable recycling, MA/MSc Dissertation, King’s College London, 2013.Google Scholar

⁹³ Grant and Oteng-Ababio, “Mapping the Invisible.”

⁹⁴ Pure Earth Blacksmith Institute, Ghana (Agbogbloshie) E-waste Recycling, project description, http://www.pureearth.org/project/agbobloshie-e-waste/

⁹⁵ Email communication with Pure Earth, 12 December 2016.

⁹⁶ Seth J. Bokpe, “EPA, others to set up e-waste recycling facility,” Graphic Online, 31 March 2016, http://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/epa-others-to-set-up-e-waste-recycling-facility.html.

⁹⁷ Sankaran, “Informal employment and Labour Law”; Adelle Blackett, “Situated reflections on international labour law, capabilities, and decent work: The case of Centre Maraîcher Eugène Guinois,” Revue québécoise de droit international (2007): 223–244; Harry Arthurs, “Labour Law without the State,” University of Toronto Law Journal 46, no. 1 (2007): 1–45.

⁹⁸ Rittich, Kerry, “Formality and Informality in the Law of Work,” in The Daunting Enterprise of the Law: Essays in Honour of Harry Arthurs, ed. Archer, Simon, Drache, Daniel, and Zumbasen, Peer (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017): 116.Google Scholar

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