Linking the global to the national: an application of the international pathways model to examine the influence of international environmental agreements on Cameroon’s forest policy

Cameroon’s tropical forest cover is one of the largest in the world. It is home to some of the world’s rarest plant and animal species. However, the country has suffered extensive forest loss for many decades as a result of socioeconomic and political factors. The growing global concern for the health of the world’s forests and related global issues has placed pressure on Cameroon to sustainably manage its forests. The intricacies of domestic and international pressures on Cameroon’s forest sector means that policy makers have to take into consideration the dynamics of the domestic-international nexus in developing the country’s forest policies. The increasingly integrated global governance of the world’s forests—international agreements, protocols and treaties, international program, international institutions, international actors, and international norms—together constitute international policy regimes that have influenced the direction of Cameroon’s forest policy. Employing the international pathways framework model, an analytic model which describes how transnational actors and international institutions affect domestic policies and policy making, this paper examines the extent to which international environmental agreements have influenced the direction of Cameroon’s forest policy and policy making. The application of the international pathways model facilitated analytic review and allowed for a better understanding of how Cameroon has utilized the complex global forest governance arrangements to enhance its domestic forest policy.     

Contestations over the financial linkages between the UNFCCC’s Technology and Financial Mechanism: using the lens of institutional interaction

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to provide financial and technology support to...     

Japan’s position in international climate policy: navigating between Kyoto and the APP

The emergence of technology-oriented agreements such as the 2005 Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) may have significant implications for the future of global climate governance, as these agreements could be perceived as an alternative for the existing international climate regime. It is, therefore, important to examine what has moved countries to be involved in these agreements alongside the UN climate regime. This article seeks to identify possible factors contributing to Japan’s participation in both the UN climate regime and the APP, looking at the position of domestic interest groups, the distribution of climate policy-making at the government level and varying international pressures. It concludes that Japan’s participation in both the APP and the UN climate regime flows from a policy-making process that tries to accommodate conflicting viewpoints at the domestic and international levels. To what extent Japan’s participation in both fora can be regarded as constructive will depend on the partnership’s ability to support the implementation of a future climate regime.

Russia’s role in UNFCCC negotiations since the exit of the United States in 2001

The unexpected exit of the United States from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 signaled the exponential increase in the importance of the Russian Federation as a key player in international climate change politics. Until then a relatively minor player, Russia’s active participation in the evolution of the climate change regime is now considered a paramount and immediate necessity. A longitudinal study of Russian climate policy over the years is therefore a highly useful exercise as it allows for the better understanding of current developments and provides some basis for prediction of its future actions. The primary aim of this article is threefold: First, to offer a comprehensive account of Russian involvement in international climate negotiations. Secondly, to clarify the actual reasons behind Russia’s decision to delay its ratification of the Protocol for almost three long years, and finally, to try and map out the post-2012 positions of Russia on the road to the 2009 Copenhagen Conference of the Parties.     

Informing public policy on science and innovation: the Advanced Technology Program’s experience

The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) collected a unique source of data from highly innovative firms beginning in 1993. These data follow the OECD’s guidelines for collecting innovation data and provide important insights for understanding the innovation process within firms. Although the data are not representative of the population of firms, there is sufficient number of firms in the dataset to test hypotheses and to provide a starting point for calls for innovation metrics. Because of the confidential nature of the data, ATP worked with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) to create a Data Enclave so that researchers could remotely access the ATP data in a secure environment. To initiate the use of ATP data in the Data Enclave, the ATP program funded researchers to undertake research projects that use ATP data. Other organizations have joined the Data Enclave, including the Department of Agriculture and the Kauffman Foundation.

Effects of an Alibi Witness’s Relationship to the Defendant on Mock Jurors’ Judgments

Two studies tested the impact of an alibi witness’s relationship to a defendant on the perceived credibility of that witness. In the first study, 291 mock jurors estimated the frequency with which individuals would invent alibis, the frequency they themselves would do so, and the frequency of interpersonal contact among individuals of varying relationships. The degree of relationship between an alibi witness and a defendant remained a predictor of witness credibility when contact frequency was controlled. In the second study, 512 mock jurors were randomly assigned to case scenarios. Skepticism toward witnesses who are biologically or affinally related to a defendant was greater than skepticism toward a socially linked witness. Both studies supported predications from kinship theory and reciprocal altruism.     

Tobias Asser’s Legacy: The Pertinence of the Institut de droit international to The Hague

Netherlands International Law Review - This article is occasioned by this year’s visit of the Institut de droit international to The Hague. It addresses the seminal role that the Institut (f....     

Levinas’s Contribution to the Law of Hospitality

Liverpool Law Review - This article examines the ethical thinking of Levinas, from which Derrida’s Law of Hospitality is derived, to see if it is sustainable in the face of Badiou’s...     

Greening the security council: climate change as an emerging “threat to international peace and security”

Climate change is a security problem that requires global solutions. Despite some important recent advances, current international responses to climate change are inadequate. This paper assesses whether the United Nations Security Council possesses sufficient legal authority to compel states to address the causes and consequences of climate change. While not advocating the immediate adoption of coercive measures, this paper initiates discussion of this issue, with the goal of developing an institutional framework within which to respond to this emerging threat, if necessary. The paper begins with a brief overview of the clear links between climate change and security, and the inadequacy to date of international remedial efforts. This is followed by a detailed analysis of Security Council legal authority, in particular the UN Charter, including a discussion of its evolving invocation in the context of non-traditional threats. Applying this legal framework to the specific issue of climate change demonstrates the substantial authority of the Security Council to take binding decisions relating to this subject, and its wide range of available enforcement measures, recognizing that political will to exercise and support this authority is required for any successful Security Council efforts to address climate change. The paper concludes that the Security Council has the legal authority to address the causes and consequences of climate change, and that its recent counter-terrorism and non-proliferation measures provide an illustrative institutional framework within which to address this emerging ‘threat to international peace and security’.

The function of international business frameworks for governing companies’ climate change-related actions toward the 2050 goals

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - At the 22nd Conference of the Parties in 2016, the roles of non-state actors in global climate change were emphasized with a...     

Nozick’s Reply to the Anarchist

Central to Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia is a defense of the legitimacy of the minimal state’s use of coercion against anarchist objections. Individuals acting within their natural rights can establish the state without committing wrongdoing against those who disagree. Nozick attempts to show that even with a natural executive right, individuals need not actually consent to incur political obligations. Nozick’s argument relies on an account of compensation to remedy the infringement of the non-consenters’ procedural rights. Compensation, however, cannot remedy the infringement, for either it is superfluous to Nozick’s account of procedural rights, or it is made to play a role inconsistent with Nozick’s liberal voluntarist commitments. Nevertheless, Nozick’s account of procedural rights contains clues for how to solve the problem. Since procedural rights are incompatible with a natural executive right, Nozickeans can argue that only the state can enforce individuals’ rights without wronging anyone, thus refuting the anarchist.     

Governing complexity: How can the interplay of multilateral environmental agreements be harnessed for effective international market-based climate policy instruments?

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Major new multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have entered into force in 2016, including the Paris Agreement (PA)...     

Transnational convergence of public procurement policy: a ‘bottom-up’ analysis of policy networks and the international harmonisation of accessibility standards for information and communication technology

This article seeks to examine how public procurement policies for information and communication technology (ICT), aimed at improving the accessibility of ICT for persons with disabilities, have converged internationally. Convergence, in this instance, refers to the international harmonisation or acceptance of common standards and norms. Distinguishing itself from the predominant authorship in the area, this article seeks to explore convergence from a ‘bottom-up’ perspective, by examining the influence of networks of public and private actors on the design of public procurement standards for accessible ICT. Specifically, it will seek to answer how these actors and networks (varying in their level of coordination) have contributed to policy design in a unique area, public procurement of ICT goods and services. The influence of these networks will be discussed through the use of policy documents and semi-structured interviews, to provide empirical support for examining this ‘bottom-up’ analysis and distinguish it from the standard ‘top-down’ model usually employed in this field. This article also focuses on the role of policy actors in the United States and European Union that participated in the harmonisation of public procurement policy and the legal norms and instruments that give these policies their legal effect.     

How to improve china’s witness protection system: an evaluation on protection of witness in the amendment to the criminal procedure law of china

If the personal and property security of witnesses themselves and their family members could not be protected effectively, witnesses may be reluctant to testify, to present in court, or to give truthful testimony. However, the witness protection system provided by China’s legislation is porous, and the implementation of the current witness protection system in practice is not satisfactory, which causes the serious consequence that a witness is unwilling to testify or does not dare to be present in court. An important measure should be adopted to improve the witness protection system in providing practical and comprehensive protection for witnesses in China. The provisions on the protection of witnesses in the drafted amendment to the Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China is more advanced than the current law, but still too simple and not enough, which cannot change the weak situation of protection of witnesses, and are needed to be strengthened in judicial interpretations after the drafted amendment is passed. Perfection of China’s witness protection system is necessary in practice, which is still dependent on the reform of the judicial system and the working mechanism in China even if the drafted amendment was passed afterwards. China shall apply the provisions in the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the UN Convention against Corruption Convention as a guide and absorb other countries’ and regions’ experience to improve its witness protection system, but the basic point is that it should be based on China’s realities, and localize the specific systems.     

The international drug control regime’s straight jacket: are there any policy options?

All societies have to control individual behaviors that are considered as socially damaging. The use of mind altering drugs is one such behavior. These controls have always been determined locally but in the 20th Century an international drug control regime was developed that established a globally unified normative control system formulated in the three United Nations drug conventions. The global normative system is based on a prohibitionist paradigm. The international norms are very difficult to change and impose strong restrictions on the ways in which countries may manage addictive mind altering drugs. The essay surveys the development of the international drug control regime, identifies its main characteristics and makes a naïve proposal to manage the consumption of those drugs through an insurance system aimed at minimizing the sum of the social costs generated by drug addiction and anti-drug policies.     

Transitions in the negotiations on climate change: from prisoner’s dilemma to chicken and beyond

Frequently, international environmental negotiations have been analyzed in two-agent (2 × 2) games. Yet, in order to involve additional strategies, (3 × 3) games gained attention recently. We employ such a (3 × 3) game setting in order to depict international negotiations on climate change and integrate both the prisoner’s dilemma and the chicken games in this setting. We analyze transitions of negotiation states and describe how ancillary benefits and first-mover advantages influence agents’ behavior in the negotiations, when three different strategies or levels of climate protection efforts are available. Finally, we also integrate strategies to mitigate and to adapt to climate change into the analysis in the (3 × 3) game setting.     

Enhancing climate resilience of transboundary water allocation agreements: the impact of shortening the agreement’s lifetime on cooperation stability

Efficient use of transboundary rivers under climate change requires periodic adaptation of their governing regime to the hydrological realities of the basin. Applying a short-term time horizon to an agreement on water allocation can make it easier for the riparian states to update the terms of their cooperation periodically, and thus, adapt them to changes in water availability resulting from climate change. However, agreements with a pre-agreed termination date can only increase the efficiency of water use if they lead to a stable cooperation. In this paper, I analyze how riparian states’ previous knowledge of the termination date of a water allocation agreement affects the agreement’s stability. The results show that when riparian states are aware of the agreement’s termination date, there is a higher chance for them to free-ride. However, certain cases may occur in which previous knowledge of the agreement’s termination date can contribute to the stability of an agreement by enforcing compliance.     

The ‘Perils’ of an Identity Politics Approach to the Legal Recognition of Harm

In the past, and it still remains the case, people with learning difficulties who are victims of violence have been cast as being in need of protection rather than rights and justice. Such an approach belies an institutionalised perspective of harm that does not readily engage with criminal justice structures or solutions. At the same time, Sect. 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gives the court the power to pass enhanced sentences where it can be proven that a crime was motivated by hostility towards someone because s/he is disabled. However, this provision may simply remain a symbolic pledge to equality that fails to tackle the complex and deep rooted causes of violence and oppression in modern society. The consequences of automatically turning to hate crime ‘solutions’ have yet to be explored. This article will draw from the ideas of a number of thinkers in the context of diverse activism to construct a bridge between current debates about how to theorise and tackle violence and oppression in the modern world and the campaigns fought by people with learning difficulties and their supporters. The hope is that this exercise will not only help people with learning difficulties to access the current debate but will further develop current thinking about how to understand and tackle violence in the modern world.