A Review of “Setting the Standard: Certification,Governance, and the Forest Stewardship Council”

Abstract

As the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establishes itself as one of the premier regimes in international law, member states are increasingly availing themselves of the significant dispute settlement provisions found in Part XV. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is beginning to take its place in the pantheon of major international tribunals. Although its jurisprudence thus far has largely consisted of applications for prompt release of vessels, these cases have arisen from disagreements over fishery practices and the enforcement of fishery laws by coastal states. The ITLOS is developing into a transparent, consistent and speedy forum to adjudicate marine disputes arising from UNCLOS. While the overall scope and reach of Part XV may be uncertain at the present time, especially vis‐à‐vis other dispute settlement institutions, the early activity under Part XV is promising. Those concerned with marine wildlife issues should be encouraged by the potential of Part XV, the ITLOS in particular, to serve as an effective regime in the realm of marine wildlife dispute settlement.     

A Review of “Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases That Changed the World”

Abstract

The biological aspects of illegal harvests of threatened wildlife are outlined. It is shown that local agriculturalists are beneficiaries of illegal harvesting and that competition from agriculture exacerbates the extinction risk. Illegal harvesting of wildlife is driven by the profitability of the exercise, but law enforcement activity can deter poaching by reducing the associated expected profits. Law enforcement may be unable to limit illegal harvesting to levels threatened populations can sustain as a result of perverse consequences or strategic responses by poachers to law enforcement activity. Poaching activity is sensitive to the beliefs of participants about future prices and the availability of wildlife. Erroneous beliefs result in price collapses being observed. Integrating legal markets with increased local control of wildlife and punitive law enforcement strategies may be the most effective and efficient means to constrain illegal harvests.     

What Role for Private Rule-Making in Global Environmental Governance? Analysing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

This article assesses the recent trend of rule-making by private multi-stakeholder initiatives – a hitherto largely unnoticed phenomenon in global environmental governance – by analysing the multiple functions and impacts of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), one of the best-known private institutions in global environmental politics. After clarifying the general context of private governance, I turn to the specific function of private rule-making institutions. I argue that rule-making can be understood as the act of agreeing on both constitutive and regulative rules that prescribe the behaviour of a specific group of actors, whether individuals or organisations. Further, I argue that the FSC, as one example of private rule-making in world politics, performs three additional functions that shape the contours of global governance: (1) facilitating a solution to complex multi-interest problems, (2) brokering knowledge and norms among a wide range of stakeholders, and (3) constituting a learning network in environmental governance.     

Concept of “Semi-Protected Natural Areas” in Environmental Law of Russia and in the Post-Soviet Space: Discussion Questions

The article proves that environmental law of Russia and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) includes a rather wide legal category, which the authors suggest calling “semi-protected natural areas”. It contains land plots, which occupy an intermediate position between common lands and specially protected natural areas (wetlands, water-protective zones, soils included in the Red Data Book of Soils, wilderness areas), as well as between common lands and ecological disaster zones (sanitary protection zones). Further doctrinal research and normative consolidation of this category will allow improving the legal regime of these areas, including existing restrictions and bans in the field of economic and other activity, filling existing legal gaps, forming a more adequate system for counteracting modern environmental threats, including expanding the arsenal of legal means in the field of protection of the environment.     

The Evolving “Nature” of Environmental Risk: A Responsible Approach for Residential and Commercial Real Estate

Environmental losses suffered by commercial and residential real estate owners are becoming more frequent and severe due to evolving regulatory regimes and the changing global climate. This article reviews the nature of environmental risk, specifically within the context of a changing climate, and proposes the large-scale installation of green infrastructure as both a business opportunity for insurers and a responsible approach.     

Conceptualising Multilevel Regulation in the EU: A Legal Translation of Multilevel Governance?

How should we conceive of regulation in the European context? This paper attempts to answer this by developing multilevel regulation as a theoretical concept. The basic aim of the paper is to explore the difference and convergence between regulation and governance and develop multilevel governance and multilevel regulation as two individual heuristic concepts. We suggest that it is useful to frame multilevel governance in the context of regulatory spaces. As an example, we undertake an exploratory investigation of multilevelness of the regulatory space of marketing authorisation of medical devices. This allows us to help focus on certain aspects of the regulatory process by acknowledging that it is no longer located in the hand of a single (governmental) actor and highlighting the necessity of considering interventions beyond the state in addressing regulatory effectiveness problems that may crop up in this context. Ultimately, we assess whether multilevel regulation is a legal translation of the concept of multilevel governance.     

Regional Innovation Systems: The Integration of Local ‘Sticky’ and Global ‘Ubiquitous’ Knowledge

The paper examines how firms in three regional clusters in Norway dominated by shipbuilding, mechanical engineering and electronics industry, respectively exploit both place-specific local resources as well as external, world-class knowledge to strengthen their competitiveness. From these case-studies we make four points: (1) Ideal-typical regional innovation systems, i.e., regional clusters surrounded by supporting local organisations, is rather uncommon in Norway. (2) External contacts, outside of the local industrial milieu, are crucial in innovation processes also in many SMEs. (3) Innovation processes may nevertheless be regarded as regional phenomena in regional clusters, as regional resources and collaborative networks often have decisive significance for firms' innovation activity. (4) Regional resources include in particular place-specific, contextual knowledge of both tacit and codified nature, that, in combination, is rather geographically immobile.     

A Different Reason for “De-Coasing” Environmental Law and Economics

The so-called Coase Theorem is one of the cornerstones of the Law and Economics approach. This paper investigates whether it is appropriate to apply the Coasean framework in the context of Environmental Law and Economics. Even when transaction costs are zero, it is argued that in the specific case of environmental policy the initial assignment of rights will seriously affect the final allocation of resources. To support this thesis empirical evidence backed up by theoretical explanations are presented. The methodological distinction between negligible, domain and heuristic assumptions and the elaboration of a ‘logical time’ of the Coase Theorem are crucial to understand why eventually the Coase Theorem should not be applied to the realm of environmental law and policy.JEL Classification: D23, K0, K32, Q2     

“Behave Like Enraged Lions”: Civil Militias,the Army and the Criminalisation of Politics in Indonesia

Since the end of the authoritarian New Order regime in May 1998, Indonesia has embarked upon a difficult journey towards democracy. One of the key questions raised by the rise of social and political violence in both Java and the Outer Islands since President Suharto's resignation from power is that of the wearing away of the state's monopoly of the means of violence and of its legitimate uses. But the process of the criminalisation of both state agencies and political parties is much older than one would have it. It begun during the late colonial period and gained momentum during the war of independence, in the late 1940s, when army units had to engage in extortion and smuggling to cater for soldiers' needs. Under the New Order, this beam of relationships between the police, the army and criminal gangs was given an official recognition of some sort, hence quasi-legal protection, through the creation of the “System for the Protection of the Environment” (Siskamling). This “system” enabled many petty criminals from the red light districts to join civil and para-military militias and even, at times, to enter public administration. Post-Suharto Indonesia inherited these criminalised “grey areas” between state agencies and the underworld, where one would find numerous masters of violence – people for whom violence is both a way of life and a way of making a living.     

“Iraqnophobia”: A Biomedical History of State-Rearing and Shock Doctrine in Iraq

The history of Western foreign policy in the Middle East has long assimilated Arab culture to sickness. Specifically, the biological episteme of “contamination” has shaped American foreign policy in the Gulf for decades. In so doing, the US Government continually borrowed references from the natural sciences to frame its foreign policy, leading some commentators to claim that biology supplanted philosophy and religion as the primary political category. The article analyses the semantics of Iraqnophobic metaphors, from the British experience of “nursing” Arabs at the close of the First World War to the recent “shock doctrine” of American therapists. First, the paper will concentrate its attention on the metaphors of disinfection and surgical resection. Second, it will address the metaphors of lustration, State-rearing and scientific recovery. Finally, it will explore Iraqis’ rebellion against their self-appointed tutors and doctors. Elaborating on the belligerents’ nursing and biomedical metaphors, the following pages address the life cycle of foreign “legal transplantation”, “antibody” resistance and “immunosuppressant” counterinsurgency in Iraq.     

A Review of Sex Disparities in the “Key Players” of the Capital Punishment Process: From Defendants to Jurors

Extralegal disparities between defendants sentenced to the death penalty and those who receive life without parole disturb even the most resolute advocates of capital punishment. Extensive bodies of research document extralegal factors influencing death penalty outcomes. Although studies largely focus on race and ethnicity, a growing body of research considers the impact of sex on the capital sentencing process. This paper reviews the extant research on the impact of the sex of the victim, defendant, attorney, juror, and judge on capital case outcomes. Women’s scarcity on death row and a previously documented “female victim effect” condemning male defendants who kill female victims, particularly for those committing crimes of sexual degradation, suggests that death row policies and their implementation chivalrously protect female defendants and victims. Conversely, a limited amount of research documents a “domestic discount,” or greater leniency for death-eligible crimes commonly victimizing women than for those victimizing acquaintances or strangers. Although opinion polls document greater support for the death penalty among men than women, juror sex inconsistently predicts sentencing outcomes in the literature. Minimal research on judge and attorney sex finds female judges more liberal in death penalty sentencing than male judges and inconclusive relationships between attorney sex and adjudication. Findings in the research on sex and death penalty outcomes support the existence of a “sex effect” and inform recommendations for future research to expand the body of literature.     

‘Inequality of Goods and Lands’ in Mortgaged Democracies: Paradigms and Effects of Global Comparative Law

Liverpool Law Review - The article reappraises the law’s ‘egalitarian commitment’ in an era of global inequality. It upholds that such an egalitarian predicament scarcely squares...