ABSTRACT
This chapter is the first of two in which I deal explicitly with the transnational aspects of activist environmental governance but here I focus specifically on the transnational NGO EarthRights International (ERI). In the previous chapter I examined local informal groups, such as the Kanchanaburi Conservation Group (KCG), and in the next chapter I investigate other transnational actors, such as the Shwe Gas Movement (SGM) and coalitions against the Salween Dams, to complete the multilevel, multiscalar analysis. I chose ERI as the central case study of this book, however, because as a transnational social and environmental movement organisation (Caniglia 2002; Rucht 1999: 207), straddling North and South, it provided a compelling case study of an emancipatory governance group (EGG) engaging in activism against environmental insecurity in the South. Having been co-founded by a Kayin exile, it was a key player in the formation of Myanmar’s activist diaspora and had a significant influence on the wider activist exile community.
