Small and smart: the role of Switzerland in the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols negotiations

This paper looks at Switzerland to examine the role of a small state during the negotiations of the Cartagena and the Nagoya Protocols to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The influence of this small country was substantial at some point in the negotiation processes and on important features of the protocols. The main explanatory factors for this influence are identified as the competence and the tactical skills of the Swiss delegations as well as the flexible and timely mandates they received. This was reinforced by the way the position formation process was organized at the domestic level, namely a lead ministry strongly committed to the process and an efficient coordination between domestic actors, including the delegations. The Swiss delegations were thus able to support the progress of the negotiations, and in parallel to secure some of their interest, by assuming entrepreneurial and intellectual leadership strategies in function of the evolution of domestic and international constraints and opportunities.     

Politics and propaganda of the provisional IRA

Abstract

So long as the declared objective of the Provisional IRA's violent campaign was the abolition of the Protestant‐dominated Northern Ireland Government, many Northern Catholics gave political or moral support. Propaganda mobilized this audience and was also directed outwards, mainly towards America and Britain, utilizing ancient myths, current allegations or revolutionary fervor according to the taste of each audience. But once Stormont had fallen, the Provi‐sionals were unable to convince their supporters that the IRA had been wise to reject negotiations offered by the UK Government and instead to adhere to a strategy of uniting Ireland by force. Violence became an end in itself, appealing only to minority audiences held under propaganda's spell, and diminishing rather than enhancing the prospects of a united Ireland.     

外交政策中的环境问题

我们正在步入一个新时代.在这个新的时代里,环境以及与环境相关的问题将会是一个谈判、争论、潜在冲突中的基本问题,因此,把环境问题作为一个外交政策问题来谈,是很有必要的.     

A new political system

Nomination: Trichotomy or dichotomy? by Arend Lijphart, p.125
Nomination: Semi–presidentialism: A political model at work by Gianfranco Pasquino, p.128
Reflections: The political system of the European Unionby Maurice Duverger, p.137     

Suite violence: Why managers muder and corporations kill

This paper examines the area of organizational deviance leading to avoidable death, injury and harm. Corporate activity creates a large number of victims and yet this area is neglected in the literature. Evidence indicates that business kills, maims and poisons; that we are dealing with organizational deviance; but that iy is difficult, legally and organizationally, to pin down precisely the motives and behhaviour of managers in suchh cases. Significant corporate violence is rooted in a multiplicity of situational factors, the embeddness of socio-economic activity and post-hoc rationalizations. The paper highlights one specific strand in business deviance; how structure and culture shape the managerial mind and influence behaviour in ways that foster deviance and cause harm. A range of social-psychological processes are examined that open opportunities, and rationalizations, for rule-breaking. Corporations can create and environment that leads to risk-taking, and even recklessness, resulting in high casualties and severe harm. Companies then get away with ``murder' because the law and the courts are not geared to organizational deviance and corporate violence. The organization causes the deviance and then forms the legal and institutional defence against facing up to the full consequences of the deaths, injuries and suffering among victims.     

Police Corruption and its Prevention

This article has two themes. Firstly, that police corruption is not an individual aberration of an incidental nature that can be readily combated with temporary, repressive measures. The 'new realism' on this maintains that corruption and police misconduct are persistent and constantly recurring hazards generated by the organisation itself. Secondly, there is consensus on effective measures to tackle it and to promote integrity. Ingredients are strong leadership, a multi-faceted organisational strategy, a well-resourced internal affairs unit, proactive techniques of investigation, and persistent efforts to promote professional standards. The essence is a judicious and sophisticated balance between negative and positive social control. Policing is about the rule of law and due process: corruption and other forms of police deviance undermine the legitimacy of the police organisation and by implication the state. A 'clean' police is a crucial barometer of a healthy society. One can have few illusions about the difficulty of achieving this but a comparative review of the experience in four societies - USA, Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands - provides clear indicators about reform, control and leadership in fostering integrity and in tackling corruption.     

ACCès à information et reassignments personnel's: le précédent qéuébcois

Sommaire: En 1982, l'Assembly e nationals du Québec a jumele, sous me seule loi, l'acces a I information et la protection des reassignments personnel. Elle a mandate un organism nouveau, la Commission d'acces a I information (cai), pour assurer la surveillance de ce regime. Vingt ans plus tard, un premier bilan permit de saisir la faqon dont ce mandat a &b mis en muvre, tout en degageant les raisons et les circumstances de I'Clargissement des tlches assumées par la cai. Comme la plupart des assembltks legislatives du Canada ont imité le «modele» qubbkois dans ce domaine en crbant le poste de Information and Privacy Commissioners, les questions qui dkoulent de cet examen revCtent une portbe plus large. Ces questions portent notamment sur la co‐existence de plusieurs mandats et sur la responsibilities de cet organism a l'egard du sedeur privb en matiere de reassignments personnel. Elles visent aussi le sens du reattachment de cette Commission a l'Assemblee nation ale en tant que « chien de garde » de l'administration publique. Abstract: In 1982, the Quebec national assembly brought access to information and the protection of personal information together under one piece of legislation. It created then a new independent body, the “Commission d'acces a l'information (cai)” (information and privacy commission), to ensure the monitoring of this legislation. Twenty years later, a first assessment of the path taken by Quebec reveals how the cai has been fulfilling its mandate and identifies the reasons and circumstances for extending the scope of the cai's responsibilities. As most of the legislative assemblies in the rest of Canada have imitated the Quebec “model” by creating the position of information and privacy commissioner, the questions that arise from this examination have a broader scope. These questions bear mainly on the co‐existence of several mandates and on the commission's accountability to the private sector with regard to personal information. Moreover, they focus on the meaning of the relationship of this commission to the national assembly as the watchdog of the public administration.