Foreign agents or agents of justice? Private foundations,backlash against non-governmental organizations,and international human rights litigation

The premise of Russia's 2012 “Foreign Agents” Law, one of the first such laws restricting foreign funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is that foreign monies equal foreign agendas. Since then, over 50 countries have adopted similar laws using a similar justification. This paper interrogates this claim of foreign donor influence through examining legal mobilization by human rights NGOs at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). We track donor support for litigation by providing an overview of all foundation grant flows relating to strategic litigation for 2013–2014, and then matching the granting activities of two major U.S. foundations over 14 years to human rights NGO participation in cases before the ECtHR. Further, through case studies of Russian NGOs, we assess the causal role that donor support has played in facilitating their increased involvement in ECtHR litigation. The combined analysis indicates broad patterns of private foundation support to litigating NGOs, but uncovers no evidence that foreign donors were “pushing” NGOs toward litigation as a strategy, but instead more evidence suggesting that NGOs convinced donors to support human rights litigation. Despite the inaccuracy of the justification underpinning Russia's foreign agent law, the law threatens the survival of human rights organizations.     

International energy lending: who funds fossil fuels, who funds energy access for the poor?

Energy demand is surging in the developing world, and international organizations play an important role in the funding of energy projects. However, there is virtually no empirical analysis of how different organizations choose their project portfolios. This article examines the energy funding of different international organizations, with a particular focus on the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and International Finance Corporation (IFC). We use data on 888 projects in 128 recipient countries funded by nine major international organizations during the years 2008–2011. Relative to other organizations, the IDA is found to invest less in fossil fuels and more in projects that improve energy access for the poorest people. The IFC emphasizes fossil fuels while downplaying the importance of energy access. Overall, fossil fuels now receive only a minority of energy funding. However, energy access is only emphasized in a tiny minority of projects.     

Informed consent utilizing satellite imagery in forestry carbon trading with North Korea

Informed consent can assist in mitigating investment risks associated with forestry carbon trading in North Korea by supporting corporate responsibility. Scientific developments for collecting information necessary to informed consent far outpace the development of inter-Korean regulatory frameworks. This paper seeks to identify how the intersection of legal and technological disciplines can foster informed consent, through the responsible application of satellite data. The permanent record of standard satellite remote-sensing systems demonstrates its capability of presenting area-wide visual evidence of forest conditions. Such data are essential to initiating informed consent, establishing a carbon stock baseline, detecting and quantifying rates of land-cover change, and quantifying above-ground biomass stocks as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. This research could be a valuable reference for utilizing the capabilities of satellites with informed consent obligations in North Korea by suggesting the provision of realistic informed consent mechanisms.     

可持续发展的国际法保障

可持续发展是国内法与国际法的既定目标。作为法律价值的一部分 ,可持续发展追求代内与代际的公平。尽管现在已经存在一些实现可持续发展的国际法律机制 ,但意图更加有效地实现可持续发展所应有的法律规则、执行与监督以及争端解决制度 ,关键在于立足于现有的组织机构进行发展与强化 ,而不应试图建构一个新的世界环境组织。在国家之间充分合作、严格遵守有关国际法律机制的基础上 ,全球可持续发展是可能实现的。     

Production,Distribution and Educational Media

From 1970 to 1990, Yugoslav culture was signed by the tight net of Self-Governed Interest Associations (Samoupravne interesne zajednice, SIZ). Understood as one of ex-Yugoslavia's transient eras, when political control over cultural life was given to the boards of professionals and experts, “SIZ time” provided an ideal base for future development of arts management. This article explores the possibilities of applying the positive experience of the SIZ model, modified by contemporary NGO models, as the possible solution for arts management transition problems in Serbia and the region. I conclude that South European state funding and institutional systems cannot provide adequate support for arts management development, thus projects in this field should be undertaken through NGOs, with additional financial support and coordination from the international community. NGOs and the ex-SIZ system give examples of a positive experience in conducting projects in the field of arts management.     

试析联合国人权理事会与涉朝人权问题——兼及朝鲜人权问题对周边国家的影响

朝鲜人权问题一直受到联合国的关注。2004年联合国人权委员会首次将朝鲜列入了国别人权审议名单;2006年联合国人权理事会取代了人权委员会,建立了普遍定期审查机制,并于2010年对朝鲜进行普遍定期审议;蒙丹篷特别报告员多次提交关于朝鲜的人权报告,引起了国际社会的关注和朝鲜的抗议。而朝鲜自身的人权问题也对其周边国家产生着重大影响。     

The Collaborating Cultural Organization: Legitimation through Partnerships

Abstract

The article studies the role of partnerships in Danish cultural organizations. The organizations face a legitimacy crisis. As a response they display openness to society. The article uses the theoretical framework of Orders of Worth and studies the role of the projective city in legitimation work. Openness and differentiated connections are necessary to maintain legitimacy for cultural organizations. The organizations frame their tasks as meetings and facilitation of connections, and they carry out many activities in collaboration with partners. If an organization has too few connections with others, the organization appears isolated and unattractive.     

WTO框架下贸易与环境问题的新发展

如何实现环境保护与贸易自由的协调发展是多边贸易体制中的一个新问题,GATT规则及其争端解决实践对此问题基本上持回避、谨慎的态度。WTO成立后,WTO规则及其争端解决实践的价值天平呈现出向环境保护倾斜的趋势。多哈会谈及坎昆部长会议则再次显示多边贸易体制在向环境保护问题妥协。环境保护问题在多边贸易体制中的这种发展趋势将会对发展中国家的贸易安全提出严峻挑战。     

Converging Markets

The crucible in this scenario for the international climate regime is the emergence of an effective and liquid international carbon market with participation of private entities. In order to make the carbon market effective a bilateral negotiation track will develop, operating in parallel with the multilateral track under the UNFCCC. The purpose of the bilateral track is to integrate the various emissions trading schemes involving private actors. This bilateral track feeds into the UNFCCC negotiations, which still represents the main arena for the international climate negotiations. Through the bilateral, bottom-up negotiations, a multistage system develops, with differentiated rights and duties, complemented by a package of coordinated support mechanisms. The advantages of such a bottom-up approach prove to be, inter alia, fewer negotiating parties, new negotiation arenas, and a new set of selective incentives. The result is a continuously evolving agreement with the potential to gradually broaden participation and deepen the reduction commitments of the international climate regime. Moreover, the bilateral agreements for linking schemes with private actors also represent a fallback in the event of a collapse in the multilateral negotiations.The article has been written by funding from the Central Research Institute for the Electric Power Industry in Tokyo and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It also represents an output of research financed by the Research Council of Norway, project no. 144768/520. The authors thank all three institutions for the funding, as well as the many participants at the workshops where the ideas in the paper have been presented. Their criticism and suggestions have been very stimulating, indeed.     

Equity and cost-effectiveness of multilateral adaptation finance: are they friends or foes?

This paper analyzes potential criteria to allocate international funding for adaptation to climate change, as a response to one of the main governance challenges of international adaptation funding—the prioritization of project proposals given scarce funding. Based on the review of the equity and cost-effectiveness literature and relevant policy documents, we identify three potential indicators for equity (vulnerability level, poverty, equal funding per capita), and three indicators for cost-effectiveness (economic savings in absolute and relative terms, human lives saved). Applying these simple indicators to information provided in all 39 project documents considered by the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) in 2011, we find that projects approved or endorsed by the AFB rank high according to one cost-effectiveness indicator (absolute economic savings), while they rather rank low according to all equity and further cost-effectiveness indicators. Furthermore, we analyze whether equity and cost-effectiveness are two contradicting goals, or whether ways can be found to reconcile both goals in multilateral adaptation finance. We conclude from both the theory and the 39 analyzed project documents that a pure economic definition of cost-effectiveness tends to be in contradiction with equity but that trade-offs between equity and cost-effectiveness can be limited if relative economic savings or human live savings are used as indicator for cost-effectiveness.     

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation and North American Migratory Bird Conservation: The Potential of the NAAEC Citizen Submission Procedure

This article examines the citizen submission process laid out in Articles 14--15 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the 1993 environmental NAFTA “side agreement.” These articles set out a process by which nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or individuals may file a submission alleging that one of the Parties to the agreement “is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law.” The paper traces developments set in motion by two submissions alleging failure to enforce migratory bird legislation. The first targets the United States, the second, Canada. Developments in these and other Article 14--15 cases have enfeebled an instrument that, from the outset, many regarded as having quite limited potential. These cases indicate, nonetheless, that the procedure still has some limited usefulness as a way of highlighting implementation failures. NGOs that do choose to invest in pursuing a citizen submission process would be advised to combine these efforts with other approaches to mobilizing public pressure.     

WTO与国际金融组织关系的协调与发展

世界贸易组织(WTO)与国际金融组织(IMF和世界银行)之间在重叠的权限方面的协调与合作是维护世界经济健康平稳发展的基本要求。由于国内政策能够对贸易产生巨大和快速的影响,全球性的政策管理变得越来越重要,这要求WTO这个管理多边贸易体制的机构必须加强与国际金融机构的合作,共同维护国际经济秩序的稳定发展。为此,本文探讨了WTO与国际金融组织关系的协调与发展问题。     

Determinant factors of university spin-off: the case of Korea

Increasingly more research has examined the creation of university spin-off firms as are seen as an important source of regional and national economic growth. However little is known about the factors influencing the formation of university spin-off in Asian countries, especially in Korea. This paper contributes to the literature on academic entrepreneurship by deepening our understanding on determinant factors of university spin-off in the case of Korea. We investigate organizational and institutional factors highlighted in the literature as influencing the creation of university spin-off companies. The Korean government has implemented the INNOPOLIS Research Institute Spin-off (IRIS) program to enable universities to create new firms within special research and development (R&D) zones to commercialize public R&D output. The capability of universities to establish new firms through the program varies; consequently, this study utilized 122 universities from 2013 to 2015 to analyze determinant factors that affect university spin-offs. Panel logit and negative binomial analysis results indicate that university location has the highest positive influence on IRIS. Government-sponsored funding has a negative impact; however, the likelihood that universities create spin-offs and the number of IRIS firms are positively and significantly affected by publications, patents, research funding, and number of university spin-offs.     

跨国公司人权责任的规制及其反思

在追究跨国公司的国际人权责任方面，目前主要有三种规制方式：国家对跨国公司的管制；来自非政府组织和其他国际组织的监督以及跨国公司的自律。但这些途径尚不足以成为跨国公司承担人权责任的有效保障．因而必须采取措施强化跨国公司国际人权责任的规制。     

Challenges and Outcomes at the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

From 1 to 12 December 2003, the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention took place in Milan, Italy. This conference continued the laborious effort of developing an international climate regime by preparing for the Kyoto Protocol’s entry into force. Some two dozen decisions were adopted on a wide range of options for responding to climate change. This paper assesses the progress achieved at the conference on a number of issues. Among these were operational details for implementing forestry projects under the Convention’s Clean Development Mechanism, and guidelines for reporting on greenhouse gas emissions and removals from agriculture, forestry and land-use change. Parties also decided on rules with respect to two funds, the Special Climate Change Fund and the Least Developed Country Fund. With respect to developing countries, Parties continued discussions on rules for building response capacity in light of the expected adverse effects of climate change and transferring environmentally sound technology. They also discussed how to incorporate scientific advice from the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into the negotiations. Although Russia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol prior to the conference, Milan demonstrated momentum and interest among Parties to support the climate regime. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether the detailed discussions were able to contribute to preparing for the long term. To this end, this paper concludes that more discussion and leadership is required to bridge the North/South gap if a post-2012 climate regime is to stand.     

WTO多边贸易体制与国家经济安全

WTO多边贸易体制的建立,标志着以规则和制度为基础、以经济实力作为支撑力量的新型国际安全格局的确立。在这种国际安全格局中,国家经济安全在维护国家利益和国家安全中发挥基础性作用。WTO多边贸易体制对国家经济安全造成宏观和微观方面的影响,放大了国家经济安全原有的风险因素,并增加了新的风险因素。在WTO多边贸易体制下,国家经济安全的最大风险来自于因制度冲突而产生的制度风险。能够在多种程度上减少乃至避免这种制度冲突和制度风险,决定了主权国家、尤其是发展中国家和经济转型国家能够从WTO多边贸易体制中得到效益的程度,进而决定了其在维护本国国家经济安全中的能力。     

Unilateral CDM—can developing countries finance generation of greenhouse gas emission credits on their own?

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was originally seen as an instrument with a bi- or multilateral character where an entity or fund from an industrialised country invests in a project in a developing country. The sluggish implementation of incentives for industrialised country companies to embark on CDM projects and low carbon prices led to a preference for just buying Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) instead of investing in projects. Thus a third option has gained prominence—the unilateral option where the project development is planned and financed within the developing country. We propose that a project should be called “pure unilateral” if it involves no foreign direct investment (FDI), only has the approval of the Designated National Authority (DNA) of the host country and sells its CERs after certification directly to an industrialised country. Unilateral projects can become attractive if the host country risk premium for foreign investors is high despite a high human, institutional and infrastructural capacity and domestic capital availability. Moreover, transaction costs can be reduced compared to foreign investments that have to overcome bureaucratic hurdles. On the other hand, technology transfer is likely to be lower, capacity building has to be undertaken by the host country and all risks have to be carried by host country entities. The potential to carry out unilateral CDM projects strongly varies among host countries. Whereas several countries from Asia and Latin America can design and implement projects autonomously, most of the Sub-Saharan countries rely on foreign support. International donors of capacity building grants should increasingly address those countries that are not presently focused on by foreign investors and support them in the design of local projects.

Removing fuel subsidies: How can international organizations support national policy reforms?

This article investigates how international organizations can support fuel subsidy reform. Departing from earlier studies, we focus on the ability of international organizations to assist national governments directly in the enactment and implementation of national reforms. While international organizations lack the capacity to directly enforce policy or force countries to abolish subsidies, they can increase the cost of reform reversal by governments that have a preference for reform but worry about the credibility and durability of their reforms. Moreover, international organizations can support learning from peers. In practice, governments interested in subsidy reform can announce a public commitment and submit progress reports to peer review by other countries under the auspices of an international organization. We characterize the institutional design of international organizations for success, discuss the role of the civil society in the process, and offer short illustrations from recent efforts by international organizations to promote fuel subsidy reform.     

Building successful technology transfer teams: A theory of cascading commitment

The attempt to transfer a technology from a publicly funded laboratory to a profit-oriented manufacturer can be a lengthy and complex process, involving several organizations and several key individuals within each organization. For example, a product technology transfer team may include the public lab itself, one or more end user organizations during product development and trial, a transfer agency, a public funding agency, the receptor manufacturer, and a private funding agency. Studies of such multi party transfers have suggested many factors that have contributed to their success or failure. We feel that most of these factors can be organized under the rubric of a more general theory of cascading commitment. Specifically, in this paper we propose that the likelihood of a transfer's success can be substantially affected by excellent management of the team building process by the public lab's R&D manager/director. Successful teams are built by gaining the commitment of appropriate individuals from appropriate organizations in a sequential cascading effect, by insightful and customized solicitation of each new team member to join at the appropriate stage of commercialization. To do this, the manager must be cognizant of, and individually appeal to, each new team member's perceptions of three sets of variables: evidence of the prior members' credibility, evidence of the prior members' commitment, and the set of personal benefits to be gained from participation.