States and Common Pool Resources

The neo-institutionalist theory on the management of common pool resources by states in terms of international regimes is based on dubious assumptions about states as players. If one starts from alternative assumptions about interaction between asymmetrical players and the advantages of opportunistic behaviour, then it is easier to account for the collective action difficulties in a regime such as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), which handles the environmental problems in the Baltic Sea region.     

Museum Outreach Programs to Promote Community Engagement in Local Environmental Issues

Ideas of ‘community’ and ‘community voice’ have been mobilised in collaborative programs developed between the National Museum of Australia and the Murray‐Darling Basin Commission since 1992. This collaboration is set within a broader context of changing ideas and practice around governance, community and environmental issues. The recent Murray‐Darling Outreach Project (MDOP), a series of museum outreach projects with regional communities aiming to increase community engagement in local environmental issues in the Murray‐Darling Basin, is specifically examined. Evaluation research on the MDOP found that the approach to program development significantly shaped the types of voices, range of issues presented and the nature of the communicative forums established. The potential impacts on online audiences are discussed along with broader implications for government agencies involved in community partnerships.     

The right to culture and the culture of rights: a critical perspective on women’s sexual rights in Africa

The opposition of ‘culture’ and ‘rights’ is not uncommon in feminist legal discourse. This article argues that such an approach is fraught with danger as it creates an extremely restrictive framework within which African women can challenge domination; it limits our strategic interventions for transforming society and essentially plays into the hands of those seeking to perpetuate and solidify the existing structures of patriarchy. Drawing examples from a parallel research on Gender, Law and Sexuality, I propose that a more critical and interpretative approach to these two concepts may present a different perspective to portrayals of ‘tradition’ as constraining and/or fixed often displayed in mainstream feminist legal thinking.