Geoengineering governance-by-default: an earth system governance perspective

Geoengineering—the deliberate interference in the climate system to affect global warming—could have significant global environmental and social implications. How to shape formal geoengineering governance mechanisms is an issue of debate. This paper describes and analyses the geoengineering governance landscape that has developed in the absence of explicit geoengineering regulation. An Earth System Governance perspective provides insight into the formation of norms resulting from an overlap in international treaties and from the actions of engaged non-state agents. Specifically, the paper explores the instruments and actors having effect in existing formal and informal geoengineering governance mechanisms. It finds that geoengineering is subject to a form of ‘governance-by-default’. This is due to a situation in which state actors have not resolved the tension between two legal norms: that of ‘precaution’ and that of ‘harm minimisation’. This governance-by-default is characterised by uneven regulation from existing multilateral agreements established for other purposes, an absence of regulation specifically focused on geoengineering, guidance from an international ambition to hold global average warming below 2 °C and to achieve net-zero emissions in the second half of the century, and strong normative engagement by the research community. Governance-by-default is likely to be a stopgap development until more enduring and focused governance emerges.     

Networks of organised black market labour in the building trade

The building industry is a sector characterised by a large number of opportunities to commit economic crime. In Sweden, the level of tax avoidance in the building trade is estimated to be substantial, and the use of black market labour extensive. This article focuses on the organised use of black market labour in the building industry, which may be described as a form of both economic and organised crime. To date only a very small number of criminological studies have examined the use of black market labour in this sector of the economy. The article focuses on two of the central roles found in the context of organised, black market labour: the “fixer” and the “criminal entrepreneur”. The fixer is an individual with expertise in the methods of economic crime. The criminal entrepreneur acts first and foremost as a link between a client and the manpower required by this client. In this paper, fixers and criminal entrepreneurs are studied on the basis of data from the Swedish Register of Suspected Offenders. The analysis shows that the networks of fixers and criminal entrepreneurs overlap one another to some extent. There are nonetheless a number of differences between the two groups and also between their respective networks. The networks of the fixers are larger than those of the criminal entrepreneurs, and the individuals that comprise the fixers’ networks are suspected in connection with much larger numbers of offences. The fixers more often commit offences together with others and also have larger numbers of suspected co-offenders than the criminal entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the criminal entrepreneurs are suspected of having maintained their ties to suspected co-offenders for longer periods of time than the fixers. The fixers appear to specialise in fraud and forgery offences, whereas motoring offences, smuggling and drug offences are more common among the criminal entrepreneurs. The networks are highly male-dominated and on balance they are comprised of much older individuals than those of traditional offenders. Many of the fixers and criminal entrepreneurs are suspected of committing offences with the same co-offender for a long period of time. Further out in the networks, co-offenders are replaced more often. Tax offences are very common in both types of network, both in those parts of the network that are close to the fixers and criminal entrepreneurs, and also in more distant parts of the networks. In the more distant parts of the networks, there is also an increase in the proportion of offences that individual network members are suspected of committing. Judging from the material examined in the current study, violent offences do not appear to be very common among either fixers or criminal entrepreneurs. The networks examined are largely comprised of individuals suspected of economic offences. These individuals are linked together with one another by means of direct and indirect contacts that produce semi-legal networks of individuals with knowledge of organised black market labour.

Studying Illegal Online Trades in Plants: Market Characteristics,Organisational and Behavioural Aspects,and Policing Challenges

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research - Illegal commerce in plants and their derivatives threatens and destroys numerous species and important natural resources, and may cause...     

Enter at your own risk: free movement of EU citizens in practice

The citizenship jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice has raised hopes for a more social Europe and triggered fierce debates about ‘social tourism’. The article analyses how this case law is applied by EU member state administrations and argues that they are actively containing the Court’s influence. As a result, rather than reconciling the logics of ‘opening’ and ‘closure’, they are heading towards an uneasy coexistence between free movement and exclusive welfare states. The argument here is illustrated with empirical evidence from Austria and Germany. Although both countries have taken different approaches to EU migrants’ residency and social rights, they produce similar effects in practice: increasingly, EU migrants are being tolerated as residents with precarious status without access to minimum subsistence benefits. Ironically, attempts to restrict residency rights have resulted in a temporary extension of EU migrants’ access to welfare in some instances.     

Neopatrimonialism and beyond: reassessing the formal and informal in the study of Central Asian politics

Neopatrimonialism has emerged as the central conceptual label applied by scholars to understand the politics of the Central Asian republics. Like the use of neopatrimonialism in other regional settings, this article argues that the concept has become susceptible to concept misinformation and stretching. Adopting a critical perspective, this article highlights three significant problems with the application of neopatrimonialism in the study of Central Asian politics: its appropriateness and operationalisation; the difficulty in ontologically and empirically untangling the formal and informal; and an inherent normativty in its application. While not advocating an abandonment of the concept, the article considers instead how it can be used better in conjunction with additional analytical approaches and/or concepts. The article proffers that a focus on either formal-institutional structures; discourses of power; and the concept of ‘multiple modernities’ would aid comprehension of the region and resolve the three issues highlighted in this work.     

‘Frenchmen’ in Polish Mines: The Politics of Productivity in Coal Mining in Poland 1946–1948

In the period 1946–1948, 13,721 Polish miners were repatriated by the state from France to Poland. The repatriation was vital to the development of coal mining. This repatriation was distinct because it did not involve returning to Poland people who had been displaced during the war. These Poles had emigrated to France during the interwar period. After a successful start, when over 5,000 men and their families came to Poland in 1946, the project came to a halt. Poland was not a welcoming environment for these men and France wanted to retain them.