The GATT‐WTO system: Environmental friend or Foe?

Abstract

The GATT‐WTO system has been attacked for being at best indifferent to the environment and at worst hostile to it. However, rather than being an environmental foe, the GATT‐WTO system is environmentally‐friendly in many respects. Several World Trade Organization agreements — the Agreement on Agriculture, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures — not only permit but encourage WTO member‐countries to implement national programs and laws to protect the environment free from WTO interference. Multilateral initiatives through organizations such as the WTO, as opposed to unilateral bullying, are the surest way of securing robust legal protections for the environment.     

Opposition politics in Malawi: hopeful signs amid the warnings

Across Africa, governments are either peacefully and legitimately ousted, or forced to share power, through the ballot box. In Malawi, the emergence of many political parties since the advent of a multiparty dispensation in 1993 signalled the flourishing of pluralism and opposition politics. However, in the May 2009 elections, the Malawi Congress Party and the United Democratic Front, which constituted the opposition, were largely rejected by the electorate in favour of President Bingu Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), credited for his sound economic policies emulated internationally. The reduced presence in parliament of parties outside of the Democratic Progressive Party coalition is troubling. This development has stimulated debate on the opposition's role and ability to defend democratic governance, and the challenges facing it. On the other hand, the DPP's landslide victory has to some degree demonstrated that it is possible to ‘de-regionalise’ and ‘de-ethinicise’ the configuration and alignment of political interests and forces, confirming for other African countries that the analysis of African politics need not be oversimplified into ethnic and cultural terms as is often the case. This paper contends that democratic governance is promoted by a credible opposition that effectively acts as an alternative government. Therefore, there is need for addressing the major factors that militate against its operations to enable it play its rightful role in Malawi's emerging democracy.     

Asia–Pacific news

This column provides a country by country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

Reviews

From Mad Max to Sane Elaine

Elaine Showalter, Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, £16.39; Picador, 1998, £6.99

But Words Can Never Hurt Me

Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, New York and London: Routledge, 1997, £40.

Women in Theatre: Practitioners’ Voices

Lizbeth Goodman, Feminist Stages: Interviews with ‘Women in Contemporary British Theatre, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996, £18. Joanne Tompkins and Julie Holledge (eds), Performing Women/Performing Feminisms: Interviews with International Women Playwrights, Australasian Drama Studies Association Academic Publications 2, University of Queensland, 1997. Elaine Aston (ed.), Feminist Theatre Voices, Loughborough Theatre Texts, University of Loughborough, 1997, £7.99.

Heidi Stephenson and Natasha Langridge, (eds), Rage and Reason: Women Playwrights on Playwriting, London: Methuen, 1997, £9.99.

Life and Death in the Next World

Christine Brook‐Rose, Next, Manchester: Carcanet, 1998, £9.95 pbk.     

Book reviews

B.J.C. McKercher, Transition of Power: Britain's Loss of Global Pre-eminence to the United States, 1930-45, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, xii + 403, £40, ISBN 0521 440 904

Joseph A. Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany, 1933-39: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War (London, MacMillan Press Ltd., 1998), xii + 259 pp. £?? ISBN 0-333-72007-5.

William I. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-54, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1998, pp.291. £37.50 hardback, £14.50 paperback.

R. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus 1954-1959 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998). 347 pp. £48 hb. ISBN 0-19-820538-4.

Michael L. Krenn, Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department 1945-1969 (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999). Viii + 223pp. £15.95 pb. ISBN 0-7656-0381-0

Jerrold L. Schecter, Russian Negotiating Behavior (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998). 225 pp. ISBN: 1-878379-78-X.     

American standards: definition and differentiation through nonprofit regulation

Nongovernmental organizations are deeply enmeshed in global governance, as promoters and, increasingly, subjects of regulation. Focusing on the proliferation of self-regulatory initiatives, this article asks: Why do NGOs adopt governance initiatives? Do their subsequent regulatory experiences match their expectations? It investigates these questions through the analysis of InterAction, the American international NGO alliance, and its PVO Standards. Based on interviews with NGO leaders, it emphasizes collective meaning over material benefit: American NGOs constitute themselves as American NGOs through standards, with which they underscore their professionalism and market orientation. These gains do not accrue equally, however, with large, central organizations perceived to benefit most from regulation.     

Pathways to aggression: A factorial survey of “Routine conflict”

Based on data collected in 1994 from a factorial survey of 2052 respondents, this paper examines how routine conflict may escalate into aggression taking into account social context and characteristics of the victim and offender. Following Luckenbill and Doyle's (1989) suggestion, we developed a series of scenarios to examine the influence of structural position on the emergence of disputes and the legitimation of aggression. The analysis reveals a direct relationship between the intensity of an attack with the emergence of a dispute and the legitimation of aggression. Results indicate that situational aspects of structural position do not extend beyond sex differences. This emphasizes the generalizing effect of male on male confrontation in the legitimation of aggression. The strengths and limitations of scenario-based research for understanding violence in society are discussed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology, Miami, November 1994.     

A behavior profile of polydrug abusers

Polydrug abusers have been thought to present with characteristic behavior profiles and to suffer from brain damage. In this study, an attempt was made to delineate the behavior characteristics of polydrug abusers using the Personality Inventory developed by Bear and Fedio for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). In addition to a group of normal youths, a contrast group comparable to the polydrug abusers in psychiatric history, education, socioeconomic status, and family history was employed. Results revealed that for almost all traits the scores of polydrug abusers were the most extreme, while those of the controls the least, with the scores of the contrast group falling in between. The inventory correctly classified 87% of the experimental, 81% of the control, and 71% of the contrast group. The profile of personality traits that identified the polydrug abusers considerably overlapped with the profile of TLEs reported by Bear and Fedio, although the significance of the overlap is at present unclear. Future research is suggested to examine a possible limbic system involvement in polydrug abuse.Received his M.D. and F.R.C.P. from University of Toronto. Main interest is adolescent psychiatry.Received her Ph.D. from University of Toronto. Main interest is psychopathologies of childhood and adolescence.Received her M.A. from University of Toronto. Main interest is psychopathologies of childhood and adolescence.