The Quest for a United Nations Specialised Agency for the Environment

Abstract

Recent years have seen intense intergovernmental deliberations on issues concerning governance in the field of environment. Their aim has been to address the role of the institutions that provide platforms for international environmental cooperation. There are two main lines of enquiry: the role of regime-specific institutions that cater to sectoral regulatory frameworks (popularly known as multilateral environmental agreements, or MEAs); and the role of institutions that are established to follow up on global environmental conferences or a specific environmental task. Most of these institutions reflect intergovernmental consensual process. However, there are concerns about their proliferation and there is a growing cacophony of calls to ‘bring coherence to the fragmented landscape of MEAs, intergovernmental bodies, UN system entities and other international organizations’ (Sha Zukang (2011) ‘Legal and policy dimensions of sustainable development: expected contribution of Rio + 20’, Environmental Policy and Law, 41(6), pp. 244–246, at p. 245). In fact the need to bring order to environmental governance has assumed great importance and urgency if environmental cooperation is to be achieved. This paper explores, in particular, the role of the United Nations Environment Programme and its potential for conversion to a specialised agency of the UN.     

Doing Politics in a Depoliticised Society: Social Change and Political Deactivation in Chile

This article explores the process of political deactivation in Chile which has taken place since the military coup of 1973. Its stresses a series of political, social and cultural factors which have produced an increasing depoliticisation of the Chilean population under both the Pinochet regime and the current Concertaciòn governments. The forced depoliticisation generated by repression and fears under the military government marked the genesis of political deactivation. Since the late 1970s the marketisation of Chilean society and its increased consumerist orientation have weakened even further the readiness and interest among Chilean citizens to participate actively in party politics. In addition, in recent years politicians and politics in general have experienced in Chile a growing decrease of prestige and credibility. The media, and particularly the television, have become the main arenas in which new style politicians sell their electoral products to a depoliticised mass who expect quick and concrete solutions to their particular problems and demands.     

Japan's Environmental Cooperation with China During the Last Two Decades

Up until now, Japan's environmental cooperation with China has principally been in response to requests by the Chinese government, with Japan making major contributions in the areas of environmental policy, human resource development, and environmental management systems, and the construction of physical infrastructure. Unlike some other Western donors, Japan is heavily engaged in resolving various environmental problems throughout the whole of China, and these contributions will continue to play a powerful role in improving China's environment for many years to come. Moreover, Japan has also made a major contribution to the raising of environmental awareness among the general public throughout China, and has been instrumental in empowering Chinese environmental citizen's groups. Specifically, Japan has been providing the Chinese government with yen loans and technical cooperation, and has supplied it with many new concepts and mechanisms in the areas of environmental policy, management systems and physical infrastructure, as well. Japan has also provided a foundation for the development of China's environmental industry by means of technology transfer and human resources development. By supplying grant aid to different parts of China, Japan has played a pioneering role in the field of environmental protection in China, enabling the expansion of training and educational facilities and programs to which the Chinese government failed, due to putting a premium on a high economic growth, to allocate sufficient budget despite its awareness of the gravity of the problems that it faces. NGO environmental cooperation programs that use Japanese government grassroots and NGO grant aid and assistance of the Japan Fund for Global Environment have been highly significant factors in the resolution at the regional level of the serious environmental problems that have arisen throughout China. The role that these have played in intensifying exchanges and friendly relations at the grassroots level between Japan and the Chinese people has been highly commendable. In particular, environmental cooperation programs with China through the ten-year-old Sino-Japan Friendship Centre for Environmental Protection (SJC) have not been confined solely to solving China's environmental problems, and have accordingly helped to build a foundation for environmental cooperation with China's various neighbors and thus helped to enhance China's standing internationally.     

The environmental dilemma in Taiwan

While econoists and academics across the globe have praised the many advances in Taiwan’s miracle economic development since the 1950s, the costs of such rapid economic growth are quickly becoming evident in the deterioration of the environment of the island. The immense beauty of Taiwan’s landscape has been seriously harmed in many areas as a result of the rapid economic growth of the nation. Air and water pollution, soil contamination, and nuclear radiation leaks, as well as deforestation had become serious problems by the 1980s. This study gives a brief overview of the state of Taiwan’s environment today, assesses government activities to clean up the environment in Taiwan, examines the role foreign nations and citizens’ groups play in Taiwan’s environmental efforts, and gives some views about the future of the environmental movement in Taiwan.     

Environmental protection in Chinese foreign policy

The environmental aspect of Chinese foreign policy has been neglected in the study of Chinese foreign relations. Yet it has become increasingly important since the late 1980s. Beijing’s increased interest in environmental diplomacy is closely linked with its security, economic, environmental and foreign policy interests. Recognizing the seriousness of its deteriorating domestic environment, the growing international attention on the ecological threats, and the need to improve China’s image and international status, Beijing has begun to pay special attention to environmental diplomacy. Yet China’s priority of economic development, its limited resources, its concerns about sovereign infringement, and trade barriers determine the features of China’s practice in this area.     

Working class power and state formation in Mao Zedong's thought, 1931–1934

One facet of contemporary debates surrounding international development and humane governance is the growing attention being focused on participatory governance as a method of reducing poverty and increasing social rights. The article evaluates the evolutionary forms of participatory governance in the Philippines since the mid-1990s. Various administrations have attempted to introduce participatory programs concerned with poverty reduction and agrarian reform in the Philippines. Various institutional obstacles and the failure of many non-government organisations to engage with these processes at an adequately strategic level, however, have hampered these attempts. The rhetoric of participation has often been contradicted by a commitment to forms of neo-liberal governance that facilitate the exclusion of public scrutiny and debate over issues of development strategy and security. The article concludes by arguing that real progress on establishing participatory forms of governance requires taking measures that challenge embedded power relations. Non-government organisations are better served by maintaining more oppositional political stance.     

Too Big to Fail: Explaining the Timing and Nature of Intervention in the Australian Wool Market, 1916–1991

From the early twentieth century, many Australian farm products have had their prices set by some form of intervention, often administered by a statutory marketing board. Wool was different: intervention, other than war‐related exigencies, came much later and in a different mechanism, a reserve price scheme (hereafter RPS). The RPS that operated from 1970 until its collapse in 1991 has been roundly criticised. Four key elements explain the belated emergence and particular form of price controls: the specific characteristics of wool — its importance to the economy, its export orientation, and its non‐perishability; the shifting locus of economic and political power in favour of small farmers; the declining influence of the wool‐selling brokers and their associations; and the rise of statutory bodies and their capture by key figures supporting increased government participation.     

近20年来东南亚华商在中国大陆的投资

1978年中国实行改革开放政策以来,国民经济取得了较快的发展,年平均增长率超过两位数。1980年代以来,东南亚华商的经济实力有了较大的加强,中国与东南亚国家的关系也得到了改善,东南亚华商开始向中国进行投资,尤其是在广东和福建侨乡地区。东南亚华商的投资,极大地促进了侨乡社会经济的发展。东南亚华商在中国引进外资的过程中,起到了先锋和桥梁的作用,在以侨引台、以侨引外等方面起了重要的作用。     

The village institutes experience in Turkey

This paper sheds light on the Village Institutes experience in Turkey from the late 1930s to the mid‐1940s. The Institutes have given rise to many academic and political controversies, and have remained an issue of confusion. This was owing partly to the lack of understanding of the real nature of the growing interest by the Kemalist elite in rural issues in the 1930s, and partly to the way that the power and importance of peasantist ideology had been underestimated, especially as it had gained wide currency amongst the governing elite in the 1930s and 1940s. This article begins by analyzing the historical and intellectual context of the period, and moves on to the development of the concept of the Village Institutes, assessing its most important and controversial characteristics. Finally, a new theoretical interpretation is offered within a critique of existing, widely‐held explanations that have dominated the theoretical literature on the issue for so long.     

Security cooperation in Northeast Asia: Problems and prospects

During the past five years there have been a growing number of proposals for dialogue, “regimes” and other cooperative institutions designed to enhance regional security. This article critically evaluates the key proposals and notes the objections that have been raised against them. It goes on to argue that many of these objections are without validity. The article contrasts the considerable progress in this area, which has been achieved in Southeast Asia with the absence of progress in Northeast Asia — and suggests some reasons for the difference. The article concludes with an analysis of some of the contradictory elements of such concepts as “cooperative security,” “security cooperation” and “common security,” which are gaining increasing currency in the region.     

‘Things are not working now’: poverty,food insecurity and perceptions of corruption in urban Malawi

ABSTRACT

Malawi is one of the world's least urbanised countries, but its cities are growing rapidly and poverty in urban Malawi is becoming a prominent political issue. Food insecurity is a widespread manifestation of urban poverty in Africa, especially in informal settlements. This article is based on in-depth interviews with food insecure residents of Lilongwe’s informal settlements who, when asked why they were food insecure, overwhelmingly pointed to the Cashgate corruption scandal as a cause. There have been many political corruption scandals in Malawi, but the Cashgate scandal, which was revealed in September 2013 and reverberated throughout the political culture, has been among the most prominent and consequential of these scandals. The article seeks to contribute to literature on the political dimensions of urban food security in Africa while also presenting a way of understanding corruption from the point of view of vulnerable people whose lives have been directly and indirectly affected.     

Authoritarianism and UMNO's factional conflicts

Abstract

Do democratic political regimes facilitate more robust environmental and natural resource regulatory policies? Yes, in many cases. Using detailed cases of natural resource policy making in Thailand, however, we find that neither political parties nor civil society nor state institutions do well in representing diffuse interests, mediating among conflicting ones or defining compromises and securing their acceptance by most key players. Gains in environmental or natural resource policy making have not been dramatically more likely under democratic regimes than under “liberal authoritarian” ones with broad freedoms of speech and association. We argue that Thailand's democratic political system features weak linkages between groups in society and political parties, lacks alternative encompassing or brokering institutions in civil society, and that these features account for a tendency for political democracy to fail to deliver on its policy potential in Thailand.     

Corporate South Africa and biodiversity in a green economy

Abstract

Environmental protection and conservation efforts pose a major challenge the world over, more so for newly industrialising countries that need to strike the precise balance between environmental preservation and future economic development. An arduous challenge for business and the government is the reconciliation of economic growth, development and natural resources conservation. Biodiversity conservation is no longer the preserve of national organisations or state bodies. Companies as users of biodiversity and contributors to its degradation and loss should be a part of the solution as well. The general business world has since entered a new era in terms of its role in aiding and disabling the move towards sustainable development. This is partly attributed to an evolution in policy making from treating the corporation as a problem to perceiving it as a vehicle for economic development and, in this context, integral to the concept of an African renaissance. It is against this backdrop that the article takes stock of the manner with which the corporate sector is conserving and preserving biodiversity as well as methods and modes that are used to do this. It also highlights some of the theories that have been posited to do this which in turn can assist in mapping future engagement. This article aims to present a case for further including the private sector in conserving and preserving biodiversity as a sub stream of environmental issues facing the world today.     

'To move or not to move': Reflections on the resettlement of artisanal miners in the Western Region of Ghana

This article critically reflects upon the shortcomings of the‘Prestea Action Plan’, an ambitious initiative undertakento facilitate the resettlement of artisanal miners operatingin the Western Region of Ghana. The aim of the exercise wasto identify viable areas for the thousands of operators whowere working illegally in the town of Prestea, an area underconcession to the US-based multinational, Golden Star ResourcesLtd. At the time of its launch, it was one of the few supportinitiatives to target artisanal miners, whose claims to landare generally not recognized by governments. It was a particularlysignificant exercise in Ghana because it suggested that theauthorities, who traditionally have exercised a policy of non-negotiationwith such groups, had finally recognized that dialogue was neededif the growing rift between the country's indigenous artisanalminers, foreign mining companies and government bodies was tobe bridged. It soon emerged, however, that despite its commendablepolicy objectives, the Plan was fundamentally flawed—problemswhich would undermine the entire exercise.     

Indonesia: The politics of inclusion

Much commentary on Indonesian politics since the fall of President Suharto in May 1998 has suggested that Indonesia's political system has remained just as exclusionary as it was prior to his fall, despite becoming much more democratic and decentralised. In contrast to this view, we argue that Indonesia's political system has become more inclusive, if only somewhat more so. The fall of Suharto and the subsequent process of democratisation have removed key obstacles to organisation by poor and disadvantaged groups and their NGO allies, making it easier for them to engage in collective action aimed at achieving pro-poor policy change. By making attainment of political office dependent on the support of the voting public, many of whom are poor and disadvantaged, these developments have also created an incentive for politicians to pursue policy changes that favour these groups or at least that appeal to them. At the same time, however, we argue that poor and disadvantaged groups have not become major players in the policy-making process. Despite the fall of Suharto and democratisation, these groups continue to lack the resources possessed by other participants in the policy-making process. Whereas the politico-bureaucrats and well-connected business groups have been able to exercise influence over policy by buying support within representative bodies such as parliament and mobile capital controllers, the IFIs and Western governments have been able to exercise influence by virtue of their structural power, poor and disadvantaged groups have had to rely on less potent ways of exercising influence such as holding demonstrations, engaging in lobbying activity and participating in public debates. We illustrate these points with reference to two policy issues: land reform and mining in protected forests. The article concludes by considering the future prospects for inclusive policy-making in Indonesia.     

欧洲环境法的法典化运动及其启示

20世纪80年代末欧洲国家针对发展迅速的环境立法中出现的冲突和重叠开始进行重组,重组的一个基本特征就是环境法的法典化。环境法法典化的最主要目的是对环境法进行简约化和系统化。由于立法传统和理念的不同,环境法法典化采用了不同体例,但总的来说,法典化提高了环境立法的质量和内在协调一致性,全面重视各类环境问题,从整体上促进了对环境的保护。     

The Minefield of Australian Military History

Between 2014 and 2018 Australia, like many other nations, is commemorating the centenary of the First World War. This article explores the difficulties that many academics have in traversing the divide between academic and popular history, and suggests why the public reaction to academic military history is often so hostile. It points to the role of national ideals that are underpinned by the Anzac mythology surrounding egalitarianism, mateship and martial courage, and to the role performed by conservative commentators. However, the article also argues that the popularity of military history in Australia, and growing signs of openness to challenging interpretations from some organisations, present opportunities for academic and professional historians, who in turn must rise to the challenge as part of their responsibilities as public intellectuals.     

The European Union in Sudan: A Missed Opportunity?

Abstract

International organisations active in Africa are often criticised for their ineffectiveness. So too is the European Union (EU), which is also accused of failing to assume a more prominent conflict management role in war-torn countries. This article examines the EU’s capacity and readiness to take on such a role in one such country, the former Republic of Sudan, home to Africa’s longest-running civil wars and the first ‘genocide’ of the 21st century. It begins by outlining the EU’s record in Darfur and the North–South Peace Process. Drawing upon 25 interviews and Hill’s ‘capabilities–expectations model’, it then questions whether the EU’s ‘capabilities’ (resources, instruments, unity) were ‘fit for purpose’ in Sudan’s hostile target setting. It concludes by identifying settings that have been more propitious for a conflict-related management function and by suggesting that the EU should better manage expectations about future security roles.     

Oil Funds: Perils and Opportunities

Soaring oil prices since the early 2000s has led to a historic transformation of wealth from consuming regions to major oil exporters. In recent years many of these exporters have set up oil funds to utilize their massive and growing oil revenues. These funds are divided into two categories – stabilization and saving funds. Their large investments in Western markets have raised concern that they might be driven by political and strategic interests rather than commercial concerns. This study examines oil funds in the Persian Gulf. It discusses US and European proposals to regulate oil fund investments and argue against excessive regulation.     

从国内、国际政治的角度解析东南亚环境的困境与机遇

本文旨在从国内政治和国际政治的角度探析东南亚环境困境的根源与出路。东南亚曾被认为是全球环境的模范区,但如今的东南亚也是全球环境恶化浪潮下的重灾区。区域内国家重发展、轻环保的决策思路,以及普遍存在的腐败与行政低效率是导致环境恶化的国内原因。而国际市场对源自东南亚的、以消耗资源为主的产品的高度需求,以及需求国政府有意、无意地忽视过度消费资源类产品对东南亚环境的负面影响,则是导致东南亚环境恶化的国际原因。因此,解决东南亚环境困境仍需要内、外两方面的努力——发达国家为东南亚发展中国家提供必要的资金与技术援助,区域内国家在决策中注意环保,并遏制腐败、提高行政效率,这些都有助于改善东南亚的环境困境。