THE LITHIUM CONUNDRUM IN SERBIA’S SUSTAINABILITY GOVERNANCE: A DIPLOMATIC LITMUS TEST FOR BECOMING OR NOT BECOMING RECONCILED WITH THE PLANETARY LIMITS

Abstract

Technological integration of the silicon chip, personal computer, mobile computing devices, the Internet, and the first smartphone drastically reshaped economic, social, environmental, governance, and global relationships in the 20th century. At its and the second millennium turn, a new type of international relations was agreed upon in the most inclusive United Nations multilateral diplomatic setting, heralding the digital age emergence from the core contradictions of the computer era. Although the principle of respect for nature was put forward, avaricious “carboniferous capitalism” added to its gluttonous menu of critical minerals (silicon, cobalt, lithium, and manganese) the rare earth minerals for feeding its insatiable craving to envelop the global physical space within its coordinates of the free digital flows. ‘Carboniferous capitalism’ counts on the exponential yield of expandingly circulating matter, money, meaning, surplus value, and emotions to overcome its limit. This is the patent disregard for the ginormous pillage of the planet’s wealth, adversely affecting the already most disadvantaged of peoples and worst damaged spaces. Unsustainability is running high despite commitments to sustainable development. When lithium was announced as the key critical material in the 21st century to cure economic, social, and environmental disorders of no-limit capitalism, a new era of geopolitical struggle commenced. The recent lithium insertion into sustainability pursuit parallels its use in 20th-century medical practice as a cure for mental disorders. Helpful at first, often bringing more harm than good. Later, the Nobel Prize award promoted it as an allegedly scientifically proven remedy for disorders in “carboniferous capitalism”. Peddled as material for sustainability, enabling a significant leap forward by contributing to the decarbonization of those human activities negatively impacting climate and harming the people and planet caused both the ‘lithium rush’ and the inflamed grassroots resistance where its mining and production are ongoing or are planned to be undertaken. Lithium extractivist’s ills abound worldwide. The well-recorded and detailed experiences show how, from start to finish, grabbing for it led by major foreign corporations left behind the irreparable destruction of the environment. Lithium believers purport that it advances the transition to a green economy through formal pledges to sustainable mining as a way of human reconciliation with the planetary limits. Instead of consenting to these unduly substantiated claims, societies’ defiance has spiked in the rapidly fragmenting international system. Diplomacy enters the fray to foster negotiated regulations between those who produce lithium and those who hold raw materials for its exploitation. Therefore, lithium is also a diplomatic litmus test, not just for making a genuinely modern world with a sustainable future. A clear bill of its green soundness requires screening its overall processing, from exploration to the final use in the circular economy’s terms. It must guarantee a clean, healthy, safe and secure environment, which is an internationally recognized inalienable human right. Many solely regard the foregrounded issues through the “resource curse” lens. Lithium rapidly becomes a novel global diplomatic actant spanning borders. Being part and parcel of overcoming some limits while pressuring others even more, it is also a new global instigator of human actions from conforming to resisting the redrawing of lines of inclusion and exclusion in the planetary web of networked relationships among humanity and humanity’s relationships with nature. We attempted to disentangle Serbia's lithium mining conundrum in its sustainability governance framework by employing the briefly outlined intersectional conceptual approach and the diplomatic dissection method of relevant textual materials and data.