Towards a new paradigm of the right to self-determination in the world trading system

There has been a shifting meaning of the right to self-determination, since World War Ⅱ, from territorial decolonisation into other meanings such as the right for indigenous people, minorities, ethnics groups and women＇s rights in the territories of independent states. Furthermore, the new phenomenon signifies that it is also used implicitly in the world trading system by states in maintaining their sovereignty from trade liberalization. This has been a dilemma in understanding the right to self-determination within international law. This paper, however, critically evaluates the potential applicability of the right to self-determination in the world trading architecture. It begins by examining the origins, evolution and current struggle to the right to self-determination in the world trading system. It then addresses in General Exceptions, Safeguard Measures and Special and Preferential Treatment as existing and applied principles in the World Trade Organization. It is highlighted that the real world still needs the right to self-determination as a means of struggling for economic justice. The right to self-determination has shifted from the right to transfer territory politically into the right to the transfer of welfare economically and in particular, the right to self-determination of people into the fight to self-determination of states.     

Political Communication on Arab World Television: Evolving Patterns

This article identifies political communication patterns taking shape on Arab world television. Three distinct patterns of political communication are described. In the traditional government-controlled television pattern, official government policies seem to inspire the form and substance of TV's framing of events and issues. In the reformist government-controlled television pattern, while official stands set the parameters of news coverage, professional newswork practices unfamiliar in traditional government-controlled television are well noted. In the liberal commercial pattern, American-style journalism seems to define television's handling of events and issues. To shed light on these patterns, the writer conducts a supplementary analysis of how three television broadcasters representing the three political communication patterns - Syrian Satellite Channel (SSC), Abu Dhabi Satellite Channel (ADSC), and Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel (JSC) - frame national and regional politics in their news programs.     

Is devaluation contractionary? Empirical evidence for Pakistan

The paper examines the effect of real devaluation on economic growth. In the empirical model we include few other theoretically justified variables e.g., money supply, foreign remittances, and government spending as they appear relevant for Pakistan. The ADF unit root test is used for stationarity of the series. Also, to capture possible structural breaks due to currency regimes shifts, the Saikkonen and Lütkepohl unit root test is used. We apply the ARDL bounds testing approach to cointegration to explore a long run relation among the series; and the variance decomposition method and impulse response function for the direction of causality. The findings affirm cointegrating relation among the series. Real devaluation exerts contractionary effect on economic growth. The results should help in formulating a comprehensive trade policy including the use of competitive devaluation as a tool to correct balance of payments problems.     

Climate resilient planning in Bangladesh: a review of progress and early experiences of moving from planning to implementation

Bangladesh is one of the first least developed countries (LDCs) to develop a long-term climate change strategy, the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). Two funds were set up after developing the BCCSAP, one using government resources (BCCTF) and the other using donor resources (BCCRF). This paper uses the “building blocks” framework to analyse changes that occur when progressing from planning to finance and implementation by comparing the BCCRF and BCCTF. This analysis reveals how governance enablers are influenced by political economy dynamics that steer funding decisions and implementation outcomes, and provides lessons for countries pursuing climate resilience.     

Violence among Arab elementary school pupils in Israel

This article examines the prevalence of violence in primary schools attended by Arab children in Israel and the relationship between such exposure and violent behavior among these children. Participants are 388 Arab children (aged 10 to 12 years) living in three localities in Israel. The research focuses on three of the child's roles in relation to violence: witness, victim, and perpetrator. An adapted Arabic translation of the Violence Exposure Scale-Revised is administered to children in group settings. The children report more exposure to moderate levels than to severe levels of violence. Boys are exposed to more violence as victims, and witness and perpetrate more violence than girls do. Multiple regression analysis shows that the experience of being a victim predicts violent behavior in the children, above the effects of age and gender. The limitations of the study and its implications for future research and theory development are discussed.     

The Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003: the Data Protection Directive and its implications for medical research in Ireland

Directive 95/46/EC on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data has been transposed into national law and is now the Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003. The Directive and the transposing Act provide for new obligations to those processing data. The new obligation of primary concern is the necessity to obtain consent prior to the processing of data (Article 7, Directive 95/46/EC). This has caused much concern especially in relation to 'secondary data' or 'archived data'. There exist, what seem to be in the minds of the medical research community, two competing interests: (i) that of the need to obtain consent prior to processing data and (ii) the need to protect and foster medical research. At the same time as the introduction of the Act, other prior legislation, i.e. the Freedom of Information Act, 1997-2003, has encouraged candour within the doctor-patient relationship and the High Court in Ireland, in the case of Geoghegan v. Harris, has promulgated the 'reasonable-patient test' as being the correct law in relation to the disclosure of risks to patients. The court stated that doctors have a duty to disclose all material risks to patients. The case demonstrates an example of a move toward a more open medical relationship. An example of this rationale was also recently seen in the United Kingdom in the House of Lords decision in Chester v. Afshar. Within the medical research community in Ireland, the need to respect the autonomy of patients and research participants by providing information to such parties has also been observed (Sheikh A. A., 2000 and Irish Council for Bioethics, 2005). Disquiet has been expressed in Ireland and other jurisdictions by the medical research communities in relation to the exact working and meaning of the Directive and therefore the transposing Acts (Strobl et al). This may be due to the fact that, as observed by Beyleveld "The Directive makes no specific mention of medical research and, consequently, it contains no provisions for medical research as an explicitly delineated category." (Beyleveld D., 2004) This paper examines the Irish Act and discusses whether the concerns expressed are well-founded and if the Act is open to interpretation such that it would not hamper medical research and public health work.     

Age at menarche and the related issue: A pilot study on urban school girls

Age at onset of menarche was determined for a group of newly menstruating urban schoolgirls in Bangladesh. Their age at onset of menarche was correlated with their weight, height, and per capita food expenditure (PFE). Results indicated that these girls began menstruation at 12.67 years of age, which is well ahead of rural girls. Age at onset of menarche was positively correlated with weight and negatively correlated with PFE. A strong inverse relation between weight and height of newly menstruating girls indicated the existence of some unstable trend in their physiological processes.Major interests are population education, adolescent psychology, and education.     

Corporate social responsibility commitment of small‐to‐medium enterprises and organizational competitive differentiation: Stakeholder pressure,market orientation,and socioeconomic context effects

This paper aims to examine the role of stakeholder pressure and market orientation in explaining the corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments and the organizational competitive differentiation of small and medium enterprises. The socioeconomic context, that is, favorable versus unfavorable, was used as a moderator in above links. The results verify the strong influence of stakeholder's pressure on CSR commitments and the influence of stakeholder pressure and market orientation on organizational competitive differentiation. The socioeconomic context confirms to have a significant moderating role in the hypothesized links. In a favorable context, stakeholder pressure turns out to be relevant in explaining CSR commitments and the organizational competitive differentiation, and CSR commitments itself also have a significantly positive effect on organizational competitive differentiation. In an unfavorable context, market orientation provides a significantly positive support to CSR commitments and organizational competitive differentiation.