Strengthening the rule of law in Indonesia: the EU and the combat against illegal logging

Indonesia is an emerging power, but one problem particular taints the success story: corruption. While corruption affects all public policies, its disastrous effects are most visible in forestry. Indonesia is still home to the third largest rainforests in the world, but the country is losing its forests fast. One main driver of deforestation is illegal logging. The strengthening of the rule of law is therefore a key to stop or at least to slow down Indonesia’s deforestation rate. The European Union has been keen to support the Indonesian government in its fight against illegal logging in accordance with the European Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Policy (FLEGT). In September 2013, Brussels and Jakarta have signed a FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement (a FELGT-VPA, more commonly known as “Timber Pact”). Under the Timber Pact, Jakarta promises an overhaul of its forest governance. This reform of forest governance is costly to the Indonesian government, in financial and political terms. After all, many actors profited from the old system. The question arises why the Indonesian government agreed to the Timber Pact. In the first part of the analysis, a rationalist perspective is taken to answer this question, focusing on the political and economical gains for the decision-makers. The second part looks at the issue from a constructivist angle and shows how the norm “fight illegal logging” fitted into the normative framework of Indonesian politics. By combining a rationalist and a constructivist perspective, a broad picture of successful EU norm diffusion is painted.     

The structure of employment and structural adjustment in the Philippines

Growth in the 1970s seemed, at that time, to have brought the Philippines to a rather high equilibrium growth path. But the foreign debt and political crisis in the early and mid‐1980s had brought the economy down to a lower equilibrium path. The recovery years (1987 to 1990) did not prove to be sustainable, given the extreme debt overhang, so that the economy retreated once again to the lower equilibrium path in the early 1990s. Significant debt reduction schemes and the new inflows (remittances of overseas workers and rising foreign investments) allowed a new growth trend. Whether sufficient growth can be maintained in the medium and long term will depend to a large part on uncontrollable external conditions. Significant improvements in trade and industrial policies are needed so that external deficits and imports will finance those sectors that allow for creation of high quality employment. Policy will have to shift resources away from the trade, real estate and other service sectors to strong tradeable manufactures. If the Philippines cannot get out of the boom—bust cycle, labour productivity in the medium and long term will stagnate and the share of those employed in the total labour force will remain stable, leading to stagnating employment opportunities and worsening income distribution.     

Spain as an Object of Jihadist Propaganda

The purpose of this article is to look at the importance and treatment that Spain receives in jihadist propaganda. This study offers a series of empirical observations based on a content analysis of a sample of propaganda produced by jihadist groups between January 1994 and September 2008. The analysis of this material, the context in which it was spread, and a comparison with other Western countries leads to the conclusion that the role played by this country in jihadist propaganda can only be understood by taking into account “structural factors” that have little to do with a greater or lesser level of interference in “Islamic affairs.”     

Outstanding ethical-legal issues on biobanks. An overview on the regulations of the Member States of the Eurobiobank project.

EuroBiobank (EBB) was created in 2001. This is a network of European biological banks made up by 7 member States. The purpose of the network is to ease the access to the biological resources of the human being in patients who suffer uncommon diseases. This study deals mainly with the ethical-legal debate that has arisen in those States, as well as the existing legal regulation and the proposed recommendations for its possible solution. Likewise, there is a special mention about the informed consent, the possible use in the future of the samples in relation to its commercial use as industrial property rights and to Directive 2004/03 that was adopted by the European Parliament 31 March, 2004.     

The political economy of intergovernmental grants: Evidence from a maturing democracy

We evaluate the impact of political forces in the allocation of intergovernmental grants in Portugal, as it matured from a young to an established democracy. Using a large and unexplored dataset we show that political variables condition the granting system, and that their importance changed over time. While tactical manipulation in the distribution of grants among municipalities seems to exist only in the early years of democracy, opportunistic effects are stronger in the latter years. We argue that the latter effect is due to a change in the political environment and to the electorate’s lack of information on intergovernmental grants.     

The structure and evolution of trade in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s

This article analyses trade between some of the most advanced Central and Eastern European countries, using Spain as a benchmark, in order to find the determinants and characteristics of the trade patterns that have emerged in the 1990s. The empirical study includes the calculation of different indexes, namely Balassa's index of comparative advantage and the adjusted Grubel – Lloyd index. The analysis assesses whether these trade patterns can be explained by specialisation according to comparative advantage or by intra-industry trade. While trade theory often treats both as alternatives, I find that for the case of these countries they can complement each other.     

Sub-surface characterisation of latest-generation identification documents using optical coherence tomography

The identification of individuals, particularly at international border crossings, coupled with the evolving sophistication of identity documents are issues that authorities must contend with. Particularly, the ability to distinguish legitimate from counterfeit documents, with high throughput, sensitivity, and selectivity is an ever-evolving challenge.Over the last decade, an increasing number of security features have been introduced by authorities in identification documents. The latest generation of travel documents (such as passports and national ID cards) forego paper substrates for several layers of polycarbonate, allowing security features to be embedded within the documents. These security features may contain information at either the superficial and sub-surface levels, thus increasing the document’s resilience to counterfeiting.As the documents become harder to forge, so does the sophistication of forgery detection. There appears to be an unmet and evolving need to identify such sophisticated forgeries, in a non-destructive, high throughput manner.In this publication, we report on the application of optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging on assessing security features in specimen passports and national ID cards. OCT allows sub-surface imaging of translucent structures, non-destructively enabling quantitative visualisation of embedded security features.