Les dockers dakarois. L’organisation du travail dans un port ouest-africain, 1910–1990s

This paper deals with the long-term evolution of dock labor in Dakar. Through the utilization of archival sources and their analysis, this investigation explores the changes that occurred in this sector and primarily the reform plan developed during the world wars but that was never introduced into the labor regulations, mainly due to the colonial regime. In addition, this paper studies the legal changes since the 1970s when the dockers’ statute was settled. Furthermore, this research uses oral testimony from retired Senegalese dockers to study the way these workers observed these structural changes. It is the first time that this topic has been explored for the port of Dakar from a historical long-term perspective.     

War-torn countries,natural resources,emerging-power investors and the UN development system

The unsustainable aid dependency of war-torn countries – most of which are rich in natural resources – makes it imperative to start gradually replacing aid with foreign direct investment (fdi) and exports. This article identifies ways in which stakeholders – governments, the international community, including the UN development system, foreign investors, and local communities – could work together in a ‘win-win’ situation. Most crucial is avoiding conflict-insensitive policies that fuel discord by putting governments and foreign companies, often from emerging markets, in direct confrontation with local communities. The control of natural resources is often a root cause of conflict, and the latter’s exploitation can become a major challenge as wars end. The peculiarities of war-torn countries are discussed along with the specific impediments to attracting fdi into the exploitation of natural resources. An effective and fair legal framework is necessary to ensure that investors do not operate as ‘enclaves’, creating new conflicts.     

Paths to the recognition of homo-parental adoptive rights in the EU-27: a QCA analysis

Although the recognition of the adoptive rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) couples is a socially salient topic, cross-national variation regarding this issue has been largely underexplored in social science research. With the aid of configurational analysis, this article fills this gap and shows the conditions that explain the recognition of the adoptive rights of homosexual couples in the countries of the EU-27. It is argued that two different paths led to this outcome. All countries where adoptive rights were recognized had higher degrees of secularization and lower levels of social homophobia. In addition, in Northern European countries, the Protestant background and absence of conservative governments for a certain time period seemed to be the determinant. However, for the remaining European countries that recognized these rights, rising levels of gender equality appeared to have a more salient role.     

Legitimacy of Inequality in a Highly Unequal Context: Evidence from the Chilean Case

Economic inequality is usually assumed to be a threat to social cohesion and democracy. Nevertheless, this opposition of inequality and democracy is based on further assumptions such as (a) that people perceive economic inequality accurately, and (b) that, by and large they consider inequality unjust. Research into distributive issues has not found consistent support for neither of these assumptions. Quite the contrary, empirical evidence indicates that economic inequality is widely misperceived and that inequality is to some extent considered legitimate. So far most of the empirical evidence in the area of legitimacy comes from experimental studies in the developed world. The present research aims at widening the scope of legitimacy studies by focusing on Chile as a case country, one of the societies with the highest economic inequality worldwide, guided by the question to what extent is economic inequality considered legitimate in a context of high economic inequality? In addressing this question, and based on previous evidence, the article proposes a way to evaluate (a) the legitimacy of inequality at a country level via survey research, and (b) the role of inequality perception and justice ideologies in the justification of economic inequality. The data to be analyzed is the public opinion survey International Social Justice Project (ISJP), implemented in Chile in the year 2007 (n = 890). Multivariate analysis results reveal signs of legitimacy of inequality in Chile, opening a series of issues regarding the acceptance and stability of unequal distributions.     

The status of human cloning in the international setting]

The General Assembly of the United Nations submitted a Declaration on Human Cloning in March 2005. The text of such Declaration was the result of a difficult and long process, taking more than three years. Being a Declaration instead of a Resolution, it has not legal capability in inforcing United Nations members to act according to its recommendations. This article begins with an explanation of several terms referred to cloning. Different countries' legislation on cloning is analyzed. Positions of the same countries at the Convention of the United Nations are as well analyzed. Comparing both countries' views shows that national legislation on cloning is independent and orientated by some countries' particular interests and biological and ethical views on these issues. Future developments on human cloning and its applications will be shared among all countries, both the ones currently allowing and supporting "therapeutic" cloning and the ones now banning it. In such case, it would be important to reach agreements on these issues at an international level. The article discusses possible legislative developments and offers some proposals to reach such agreements.