Funding Global Public Goods: The Dark Side of Multilateralism

The funding of global public goods, such as climate mitigation, presents a complex strategic problem. Potential recipients demand side payments for implementing projects that furnish global public goods, and donors can cooperate to provide the funding. We offer a game‐theoretic analysis of this problem. In our model, a recipient demands project funding. Donors can form a multilateral program to jointly fund the project. If no program is formed, bilateral funding remains a possibility. We find that donors rely on multilateralism if their preferences are relatively symmetric and domestic political constraints on funding are lax. In this case, the recipient secures large rents from project implementation. Thus, even donors with strong interests in global public good provision have incentives to oppose institutional arrangements that promote multilateral funding. These incentives have played an important role in multilateral negotiations on climate finance, especially in Cancun (2010) and Durban (2011).     

World Ministerial Conference on Organized Transnational Crime

As we head toward the end of the millennium we, as specialists and experts in the field of international criminal justice, must pause to reflect seriously on the issue of global organized crime. Study in this regard requires that more rigorous attention be focused on the future directions of research, the creation of a network of regional and worldwide scholars to perpetuate a collaborative agenda, and data collection for comparison of various activities associated with law enforcement and correctional operations. We must find a more unified systemic approach to crime control. Regardless of whether a nation is large or small, developed or underdeveloped, rich or poor, every society is confronted with the task of controlling organized crime.

Organized crime is indeed a universal phenomenon. It has long been predicted that international organized crime will become a major force in the commercial, financial and military sectors of every country, eventually affecting directly the destiny of all countries. We may soon be confronted with an economic and financial crisis, in that governments everywhere cannot afford to watch events unfold by saying “there is no solution to the problem because it is beyond our ability to control the problem.” We must find a solution.

On June 26, 1995, American President William Clinton, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations at the ceremony held in San Francisco called for, “Support through the UN of the fight against forces of disintegration from crime syndicates and drug cartels. They cross borders at will. Nations can and must oppose them alone, but we know, and the Cairo Conference reaffirmed, that the most effective opposition requires strong international cooperation and mutual support.”

The original idea for a global high‐level conference on organized crime came from a magistrate who devoted his life to fighting the Mafia, Judge Giovanni Falcone, who died in a bomb attack in May 1992, in Italy. Following Judge Falcon's death, the Minister for Justice in Italy took on the idea of holding this conference in his address to the General Assembly that year. The conference was held in Naples two years later, organized by the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch of the Secretariat of the U.N., under the guidance of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and in accordance with the Economic and Social Council resolution 1993/29 of July 27, 1993, and the recommendation of the Commission was made at the second session. The 142 states represented at the Conference unanimously adopted the Naples Political Declaration and Global Action Plan Against Organized Transnational Crime, which was later approved by the General Assembly by resolution 49/159 on December 23, 1994.

For further information regarding the topic of international and transnational organized crime and associated issues, see World Ministerial Conference on Organized Transnational Crime, Naples, Italy, United Nations, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Newsletter, No.26/27, November 1995; speech by President William Clinton on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the U.N., San Francisco, June 26, 1995; A Law Enforcement Source book of Asian Crime and Cultures: Tactic and Mindset, Douglas D. Daye, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1997; Transnational Criminal Organizations, Cybercrime and Money Laundering: A Handbook for Law Enforcement Officers, Auditors, and Financial Investigators, James R. Richards, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1999; and Global Report on Crime and Justice, by UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Graeme Newman, ed., New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.     

When a pariah party exploits its demonised status: the 2019 Finnish general election

Abstract

The governing Centre and Conservative parties played the ‘economy’ card – we’ve got Finland ‘back into shape’; the green parties, the Greens and Left Alliance, played the ‘climate change’ card, demanding action to go with the talk; the Social Democrats played the ‘caring’ card and the need for a Finland that cares for the elderly, the low-paid and young persons; the Finns Party in contrast played the ‘no one likes us, we don’t care’ card, seeking to exploit its pariah status for electoral gain. The adoption of a siege mentality strategy, designed to capitalise on its ostracised position, served to mobilise protest support and the Finns Party came within a whisker of beating the Social Democrats into second place. The Social Democrats then turned the clock back and put together the type of left?centre (‘red mud’) coalition that had characterised Finnish governments for half a century from the mid-1930s onwards.     

After the green gold rush: the construction of climate change as a market transition

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence of a representation of climate change amongst business and political elites as an axiomatic frame of long-term economic strategy. In this representation, the rationale for action on climate change is liberated from the premise of an exogenous physical threat, and replaced by incentives endogenous to the market in the form of opportunities in the so-called carbon economy. The relationship between climate science and action upon climate change has in this process become markedly different from common assumptions whereby science is either ignored or obfuscated, or followed faithfully as the evidence base for policy. Strikingly, the abandoning of climate ontology as irrelevant to corporate decision-making has enabled a large-scale investment of capital into the policies nominally designed to tackle climate change.     

International support for action on climate change and democracy: exploring complementarities

International support for democracy and climate action (mitigation; adaptation; addressing climate loss and restoring damage) are two distinct spheres: motivations, purposes, activities and the relevant literatures exist independently of one another. This article challenges this separation by investigating the scope for policy complementarities that potentially could further both democracy support’s objectives and climate action. Findings that address possible future scenarios where global warming exceeds safe limits or where democracy and democratisation are threatened by climate change impacts are worth exploring. The article’s provisional findings are mixed but provide grounds for believing that democracy support and democratisation potentially could gain from taking support for climate action into consideration and that climate action might benefit too.     

Examining the Scope for National Lesson‐drawing on Climate Governance

The need to understand the scope for comparative lesson‐drawing on national‐level climate mitigation policy has acquired added significance due to the current impasse in international‐level governance. Greater policy learning or lesson‐drawing among peers at the national level could, to an extent, foster meaningful developments by overcoming generalised international apathy and inaction. In this respect, we analyse the features of one significant example of national climate policy in order to examine the scope for lesson‐drawing, thereby setting out a normative research agenda. The UK Climate Change Act 2008 remains one of the few examples of legally enshrined national mitigation legislation and hence provides a relevant, but surprisingly under‐researched, source of learning for policy‐makers worldwide. By analysing its development, critical features and implementation, this article shows that—despite criticism of the sustainability and implementation effectiveness of the Act—some aspects of the policy could provide lessons for other states, and hence are potentially transferable extraterritorially, although lesson‐drawing itself is conditional on contextual constraints.     

Climate change refugees

Under the UNHCR definition of a refugee, set out in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems do not qualify for refugee status and the protection that come from such status. In a recent paper, I defended the essentials of the UNHCR definition on the grounds that refugee status and protection is best reserved for people who can only be helped by granting them refuge in a safe state for an indefinite period of time, and argued that this does not include most people fleeing from natural disasters. This claim is most strongly challenged by the possibility of displacement from climate change. In this paper, I will explore to what degree the logic of the refugee convention, as set out in my earlier paper, can and should be extended to those fleeing the results of climate change.     

Is there an obligation to reduce one's individual carbon footprint?

Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most efficient and effective in bringing about significant changes, there are still good reasons to contribute individually to reducing emission. After all, for most people the choice is between reducing one's individual emissions and not doing anything. The author hopes this paper shows that one should not opt for the latter.     

EU Legislation to Reduce Carbon Emissions from Cars: Intergovernmental or Supranational Policy Making?

This article examines the making and implementation of the 2009 European Union (EU) regulation on cars and CO₂ emissions (Regulation [EC] No 443/2009). As the first legally binding measure to target the CO₂ emissions of passenger cars, this regulation represents a milestone in EU efforts to reduce the climate impacts of road transport. The analysis draws on two central theoretical perspectives on EU policy making: liberal intergovernmentalism and supranationalism. Both offer important insights, but their explanatory power varies with the policy‐making phase in focus. The analysis shows that the Commission and the car industry were instrumental in shaping what eventually became an industry‐friendly regulation applicable in all EU countries. However, far from being a case of closed negotiations between the industry and the Commission, Germany and other EU countries defending the interest of manufacturers of high‐emission vehicles made use of their powers during the decision‐making phase and succeeded in watering down the Commission's proposal.     

Australian climate policy and the Asia Pacific partnership on clean development and climate (APP). From Howard to Rudd: continuity or change?

This article explains, first, why Australia’s government under John Howard, together with the United States Bush administration initiated the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) and, second, why the succeeding Rudd government continued to support this initiative. Climate policy under the conservative Howard government (1995–2007) in Australia was largely dictated by fossil fuel and mineral sector interests, and reflected a close alliance with the Bush administration. The Howard government shunned the Kyoto Protocol, refused to set national binding greenhouse gas reduction targets and preferred voluntary cooperative measures with industry. The APP was part of the Howard government’s strategy to demonstrate some policy movement on climate change while postponing serious action. Climate change was a key issue in the election of the Rudd Labor government in Australia in December 2007. The Rudd government quickly ratified Kyoto, adopted emission reduction targets, and moved to introduce emissions trading. The Rudd government’s decision to continue involvement with the APP, albeit with diminished funding, was a pragmatic one. The APP was supported by industry and provided bridges to China and India—both key countries in the post-2012 UNFCCC negotiations. Finally, in order to assess the long-term outlook of the APP, the article provides a preliminary assessment as to whether the APP advances technology transfer.