Privatising the green police: the role of NGOs in wildlife law enforcement

This article examines the role of NGOs in wildlife law enforcement, drawing on empirical research conducted within UK environmental law enforcement but also drawing on a review of the academic literature and policy debates concerning NGOs and pressure group activity. It examines the theoretical basis for NGO actions and different policy perspectives, the ideologies employed by NGO's and how these manifest themselves in law enforcement policies and practice. While the focus of this essay is UK and US NGO activity with its professional enforcement activity and policy networks, the impact of wildlife and environmental NGOs is significant in a range of jurisdictions and is a vital component in effective policing of wildlife legislation.     

Municipal Socialism Then and Now: some lessons for the Global South

Given the large and growing literature opposed to the privatisation of services such as water and electricity, it is peculiar that so little has been written about the experience of ‘municipal socialism’—a set of roughly analogous historical movements that used local governments to challenge private service delivery and advance ‘socialist’ agendas from the late 1800s to the 1940s. Although primarily a European and American phenomenon, and emerging from different contexts than those prevailing today, municipal socialism found widespread support and transformed many public services. Results were mixed, with some experiments being little more than (pre)Keynesian attempts to revitalise capital accumulation in the face of ‘irrational’ private sector services, but the lessons are important as these experiments provided the first intellectually and politically sustained resistance to privatisation and other prototypical forms of what we now call neoliberalism, and demonstrated the possibility of effective service delivery by the public sector. This paper reviews these experiments, focusing on the experience of the United Kingdom and drawing lessons for contemporary efforts to build alternatives to privatisation in cities in the South, where local-level, socialist-oriented reforms have been relatively strong.     

Formative Evaluation of an Evidence-Based Intervention to Reduce Long-Term Foster Care: Assessing Readiness for Summative Evaluation

As part of the federal Permanency Innovations Initiative, this local grantee implemented an evidence-based intervention to improve outcomes for children with serious emotional disturbance. The project approach integrates the tenets of implementation science and program evaluation. Formative evaluation used a small sample (n = 76) to assess implementation integrity and statistical association to recommend whether the intervention was ready for summative evaluation (SE). Results showed that most process expectations were met. Statistical findings suggested that the intervention was associated with higher rates of reunification for treatment families as compared to families receiving services-as-usual. Thus, the intervention was recommended for SE.     

Internal Control and Accountability in Non-profit Human Service Organisations

The welfare state regime operative in Australia is highly dependent on the non-profit human services sector. The sector, as an organisational field, has had a series of characteristics applied to it, which assume its superiority over government in many aspects of service delivery. Nevertheless, knowledge about the internal functioning of non-profits is poor. This article presents an initial exploration into one aspect of internal functioning, internal monitoring and control, suggesting that internal mechanisms for control are weak. As welfare state regimes in Europe and North America are restructured, different models of service financing and delivery are being imported into Australia. This article begins to sketch the organisational conditions onto which developing models are being applied, providing an initial base for informed commentary and evaluation.     

Pan Am makes the going great

Abstract

The great Boeing 707/321C cargo jet rolled off the runway toward the unloading ramp of Travis Air Force Base. Turned and stopped by the white-overalled technician waving a long, orange-coned flashlight, its doors rolled open to reveal the lightweight load it had brought on its return from the distant battlefield: one hundred and sixty-eight plastic-wrapped, aluminum-boxed bundles, the bodies of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. Another Pan American World Airways all-cargo charter was ready for unloading.     

Declarations of War and Belligerent Parties: International Law Governing Hostilities Between States and Transnational Terrorist Networks

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Leading the way: the integral role of local government within a multisector partnership delivering a large infrastructure project in an Australian growth region

Multisectoral partnerships with local government have emerged as a strategy for solving ‘wicked’ problems in communities, although research about these types of public–private partnerships is limited. Available evidence suggests that differentials in power and status, value bases and perspectives on priorities have been problematic in partnership building with community. This paper examines the role of local government as the funded, lead organisation, in a public–private partnership for planning, designing and constructing a business accelerator in one of Australia’s growth regions. Partnership scope, role and outcomes were measured against a conceptual framework mapping success indicators. Findings show core principles for successful partnership were achieved and supported by the role, capacity and commitment of local government to forming strong working relationships with consortium partners. Relationship building and commitment to collective project outcomes were pivotal to success. Further research is needed to assess whether emerging trends hold and consolidate over time.     

A Case for Applying the Theoretical Semiotics in the Practice of Trade Mark Law

The application of semiotics in trade mark law is an interdisciplinary endeavour in its infancy. The author traces its genesis in recent years and situates it within the context of general theoretical approaches, in particular of an interdisciplinary kind, appearing in the trade mark law literature in the past. The purposes for which such theories are applied, and questions of methodology arising from this, are examined. In particular, it is observed that semiotic theory has, by and large, been used for the purpose of debating legal policy in trade mark law (especially in the United States), and that this has given rise to argument about the extent to which semiotic theory can exert any normative force of its own upon the law. This article offers a different perspective. It is sought to demonstrate the usefulness of theoretical semiotics in solving trade mark law questions in practice. The author emphasises that this involves no threat to orthodox legal problem-solving methodology (whatever one may think of the orthodoxy), and in particular does not require the normative use of semiotic theory. Taking as a starting point the concept of ‹trade mark use’, and having regard to trade mark law and literature in Europe, the United States and Australia, the author proceeds to demonstrate the proposed approach by reference to some current problems in trade mark infringement.