Globalising cities at the crossroads of migration: Puebla,Tijuana and Monterrey

This article is part of a larger project that focuses in part on the migration dynamics in large Mexican metropolitan areas or globalising cities. In particular, it develops a comparative analysis of the urbanised region of Puebla-Tlaxcala, the metropolis of Monterrey and Tijuana. All three metropolitan areas are important industrial centres that attract rural–urban as well as interstate migrations. Moreover, these urban centres are situated at routes used by migrants from Central and South America to get to the US. Yet, despite the increasing impact of migration(s) on urban areas, very little is known about its characteristics and municipal authorities have not identified inward or transmigration as issues of political importance. For our analysis we intend to map the different migrations through addressing the following question: How are migrations transforming the urban areas of Monterrey, Tijuana and Puebla-Tlaxcala and how are they inserted in and contributing to urban assemblages in these metropolitan zones? For this particular article we have chosen three distinct migratory groups to contrast: Germans in Puebla-Tlaxcala, Haitians in Tijuana and Indigenous populations in Monterrey.     

Ethnocompetitiveness,relations, and networks: towards rural sustainability

Small producers face various obstacles in placing their products on the global market. The most important obstacle is associated with the generation of innovative products in a dynamic context. This article presents a case study which provides support for a methodology designed to quantify the competitiveness of small and medium-sized local producers in relation to other producers in the same region and nation. It explores how the evolution of knowledge relates to the ability of agricultural producers to sell their products in regional and international markets. To do so, it utilises the concept of ethnocompetitiveness, which can be understood as the hybridisation of local knowledges with external or codified knowledge.     

Osirak and the Counter-Proliferation Puzzle

This article focuses on the efforts made by Israel to stymie Iraq's nuclear program from 1974 to 1981. It argues that to fully understand the effects of Israel's campaign, its nonmilitary components need to be addressed, rather than focusing chiefly on the 1981 bombing of the Osirak reactor. While existing views hold that the bombing was counterproductive, this study finds Israel's overall campaign to have been a sophisticated and effective effort at curtailing Saddam Hussein's program. The campaign's main achievement was in buying time that allowed external events to take place, building towards the eventual collapse of Saddam's nuclear program. While Israel's campaign demonstrates that counterproliferation can work, there are instances where it can be highly counterproductive. Buying time can also be achieved without the use of force, through coercive means, as demonstrated by the Iranian case over the previous decade. However, various gradations of military intervention remain an important tool for preventing nuclear proliferation, as demonstrated by the cases of Osirak and the 2007 destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor in al-Kibar.     

Developing Countries and the Implementation of CITES: The Mexican Experience

A key issue for the success of international conventions regulating biodiversity conservation is to understand the different philosophical positions of each party for initially acceding to that convention, and for the measures each party takes to implement that convention. This paper documents policies for wildlife trade regulation in Mexico from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, with emphasis on the process of CITES implementation. Mexico was slow to adopt environmental policies, but when Mexico did recognize wider environmental concerns, the prospect of acceding to CITES was not considered because of existing bans on all wildlife trade in native species. However, Mexico could not control the illegal trade of wild species during the 1980s. Mexico acceded to CITES in 1991 mainly in response to international pressure and to bilateral pressure while seeking to join a free trade agreement. The step of joining CITES was taken without clear analysis about the consequences of being a party to the Convention. Between 1992 and 1996, Mexico had no clear policy about its role within CITES. The period from 1997 to 2001 witnessed an improved legal and administrative structure and a greater internal coordination between the institutions involved with CITES. Mexico has now improved its policy toward international wildlife trade.     

Legal Issues of Satellite Telecommunications,The Geostationary Orbit,and Space Debris

Satellites are the best means for a rapid expansion of telecommunications services nationally and globally. However, the level of that expansion is greatly determined by the availability of the two indispensable tools for satellites, which are orbital positions and radio frequencies. Growing demand for geostationary orbital (GEO) slots and radio frequencies by a rapidly increasing number of commercial satellite operators and expanding dependence on satellites for military purposes give rise to shortage of slots and spectrum to allocate as well as an increase in satellite interference. Concurrently, increasing space activities and anti-satellite (ASAT) tests are generating man-made space pollution, particularly space debris, and consequently are making the use of outer space more expensive and dangerous. The problems shortage of appropriate orbital positions, satellite interference and space debris are serious. Unless resolved in a timely fashion, they would pose significant barriers and dangers to all (civilian, commercial and military) satellites and could result in denial of access to space in practice by all states. This paper first describes the current situation of shortage of GEO positions and increase in satellite interference. Secondly, current international regulatory regime governing the access to and use of these tools has been analyzed with a view to highlight the weaknesses therein. Thirdly, the problem of space debris is discussed with a view to show how difficult it is becoming to carry on space operations and how important and urgent it is to have an appropriate legal regime in place. Finally, a few recommendations are made emphasizing the need for international cooperation in order to strengthen the international regulatory regime so that the required telecommunication services remain readily available to all and outer space remain pollution-free environment to be used for and by all states.     

Lesser-included offenses

The positions taken by prosecutors and defense lawyers on proposed jury instructions on lesser-included offenses provide evidence that juries do not follow the law strictly. This paper develops a simple model of expected utility to predict how jurors make their decisions. The model explains a stylized fact that is inconsistent with the idea that juries always follow the law, namely why prosecutors often object to giving the jury the option of a lesser-included offense. We use the model to evaluate the law concerning jury instructions on primary and lesser-included offenses.     

La constitucionalización del derecho en méxico

In this essay I defend the idea that the mexican legal order has been partially constitutionalized since the amendment to the first article of the Constitution in june 2011. I argue that some conditions of a constitutionalized legal system can be found in this rule. An analysis of those conditions is carried out through the work and in the end I discuss the matter of whether this constitutional change amounts to a new legal paradigm.     

Moderating Factors in Adopting Local e-Government in Spain

This study analyses the factors that influence citizens' intention to use e-government activities offered by municipalities in Spain. For this purpose, we developed a straightforward user behaviour model that considers the components of the TAM and DOI models simultaneously, harnessing their synergies and factoring in the role of citizens' trust. We also examined the moderating role that population size can play in the model's behaviour. Among the results we obtained, it is important to note that user trust not only improved the model's fit, but also showed a significant effect on intention of use for all the population sizes that we analysed. The other significant relationship for all the samples linked ease of use to perceived usefulness. For the other relationships between variables, we observed the moderating role of size for the populations we considered.     

Redistributing the energy tax burden in the Philippines

This paper uses an aggregate modelling approach to assess the impacts of a redistribution of the taxes and duties that currently exist on crude oil and refined petroleum products on the Philippine economy. The approach used in the analysis consists of a general equilibrium model composed of fourteen producing sectors, fifteen consuming sectors, three household categories classified by income and a government. The effects of replacing the taxes and duties on crude oil and refined petroleum products with a more broad based tax on manufacturing and service sectors output on prices and quantities are examined. The results are revealing. For example, the consequences of redistributing the tax burden away from petroleum products to the manufacturing and service sectors of the Philippine economy will be an increase in output by all producing sectors of about 3.5 percent or about 2.4 hundred billion Philippine pesos, a rise in the consumption of goods and services by about 6.1 percent or 1.6 hundred billion Philippine pesos, a rise in total utility by 6.9 or 1.9 hundred billion Philippine pesos, and virtually no change in tax revenue for the government. When subjected to a sensitivity analysis, the results are reasonably robust with regard to the assumption of the values of the substitution elasticities. That is, while the model's equilibrium values do vary in response to different assumptions of the values of these elasticities, the fluctuations are not so enormous to suggest that the model is unrealistically sensitive to these parameters.