Are There Any Global Egalitarian Rights?

This article considers whether or not there are any global egalitarian rights through a critical examination of the political philosophy of Ronald Dworkin. Although Dworkin maintains that equal concern is the special and indispensable virtue of sovereigns and the hallmark of a fraternal political community, it is far from obvious whether the demands of equality stop at state borders. While some scholars in the field—most notably Thomas Pogge—posit the existence of negative rights in relation to social and economic inequalities at the global level, here I try to defend the existence of positive global egalitarian rights by appealing to Dworkin’s own two principles of ethical individualism. I also set out the framework for a version of what I call global luck egalitarianism based on Dworkin’s equality of resources and try to respond to David Miller’s charge that comparative principles of justice do not apply at the global level.

Financial Institutions between Effectiveness and Legitimacy – A Legal Analysis of the World Bank,Global Environment Facility and Prototype Carbon Fund

Environmental financing is one of the crucial issues of international environmental law and its implementation. From an environmental perspective a prerequisite for success is that financial resources are used in an environmentally effective way. Whether the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) can be perceived as effective environmental actors has to be measured by their objectives, their potential to promote accepted environmental standards and their relevant funding practices. After significant improvements of their environmental policies, the World Bank must be considered the most important institution for environmental financing due to its involvement in environmental trust funds but also in regard to its regular lending practices. The GEF remains exceptional due to its institutional structure and scope, whereas the PCF is an example of public–private partnerships that might be a model for future financing via trust funds. Since acceptance of institutions can only be created if they are considered to be legitimate, legitimacy is closely tied to effectiveness. The main criteria for legitimacy are state consent and the equality of states as well as supplementary considerations such as transparency and public participation. From this perspective the World Bank, GEF and PCF structures of voting and participation have come a long way, and despite their particularities and deficiencies they reflect to a varying degree elements of legitimate decision making.     

A Theoretical Note on Commodification of Labour Power in China and the Global Putting-Out System

This article captures China’s role in global manufacturing through the prism of conceptualisation of the commodification of labour power in Marxist theory. It argues that modalities of China’s labour force co-optation in assembly and lower value added production for export of consumer goods to advanced economies carries more of a family resemblance with putting-out systems of the pre-capitalist era than with the commodification of labour power sensu stricto marking the capitalist era from the mid-nineteenth century.     

Is Politics Behind Trade? The Impact of International Trends and Diplomatic Action on Brazil's Exports during Globalisation

Although it is well known that domestic and international factors converge to affect a nation's foreign policy orientation and trade, their actual weights vary. Brazil's situation during globalisation sheds light on this issue. Through statistical and qualitative analysis, this article shows how structural factors, rather than diplomatic action, influenced the direction of Brazil's exports as the country became more integrated into the world economy. It was only under Cardoso's presidency that trade had an impact on bilateral diplomacy. The findings contradict conventional wisdom, which emphasises the state's role in driving Brazilian integration into the global economy.     

Fundamentos de derecho comparado y global: ¿Cabe un orden común en la globalización?

The current crisis is global, for historical reasons (for the end of a period dominated by the national-State), space (planetary-scale) and materials (affecting almost any social institution). We can take the opportunity to evaluate and to come back to the beginning of the new paradigm, the spirit of San Francisco, after World War II, when people believed in the possibility to contribute all together to the common good, by international organizations.     

From global workers to local entrepreneurs: Sri Lanka’s former global factory workers in rural Sri Lanka

Abstract

Working in Sri Lanka’s urban free trade zones (FTZs) introduces Sri Lanka’s rural women to neoliberal ways of fashioning selves, which subsequently not only shape village entrepreneurial activities but also initiate negotiations in kinship, marriage, domestic arrangements, and community relations. The knowledges and networks that they develop while at the FTZ allow former workers to connect with global production networks as subcontractors, making them part of the cascading system of subcontracting that furthers the precarity of regular FTZ work. This article explores how these former workers manipulate varied forms of capital – social, cultural and monetary – to become local entrepreneurs and community leaders, while simultaneously initiating changes in rural social hierarchies and gender norms. When neoliberal economic restructuring manifests within local contexts it results in new articulations of what it is to be an entrepreneur and what it is to be a worthy, young, married woman. Overall, the paper sheds light on the fragmented and uneven manner in which neoliberal ethos take root in rural South Asia.     

国家级科技企业孵化器的时空特征及影响因素

该文运用点密度渲染、全局自相关分析和地理探测器方法对中国国家级科技企业孵化器的时空分布特征和孵化器效率的影响因素进行了分析。研究结果表明,第一,在所考察样本及其时空阶段内,中国国家级科技企业孵化器分布密度基本呈现由东部沿海往西部内陆递减的特征,同时呈现孵化器数量空间集聚态势;第二,各个影响因素对科技企业孵化器效率的影响力度不同,且在中国的东、中、西和全国四个层面各因素的影响力度也存在差异;第三,不同因素交互作用后呈现双线性加强态势。创新水平、政府政策、基础设施水平和外商直接投资水平对国家级科技企业孵化器的效率有重要影响。不同地区为提高科技企业孵化器的效率,应注意多种因素的协同和搭配。     

后脱欧时代“全球英国”外交战略及其前景

英国约翰逊政府将"全球英国"作为后脱欧时代对外政策的目标,宣称要利用重新获得的自主权,在国际舞台上积极作为,维系英国具有全球影响力的大国地位。然而在实践中,"全球英国"面临诸多挑战,甚至陷入左右为难的选择困境。其原因有多个方面,主要是"全球英国"构想存在内在缺陷,英国内部政治嬗变削弱了对外政策的弹性。当然,英国仍试图在外交上有所作为,尤其是维持某种程度的战略自主,因而仍将是国际格局中的一个重要变量。     

Internet Regulation Process Model: The Effect of Societies,Communities, and Governments

The Internet is often seen as borderless and unmanageable and, therefore, not fully understandable. Starting from the assumption that it can be understood, we begin an attempt to organize the Internet by characterizing it as a behavior space in which groups categorized as societies, communities, and governments interact. We emphasize the utility of organizing the Internet and focus specifically on attempts by societies, communities, and governments to regulate the flow of information. We posit an Internet regulation process model that, we believe, explains most of the efforts to regulate the Internet. In addition, we provide some insight into the relationships between and within the various groups involved. Our conclusions center on the observation that political power (especially Western political power) has been a defining factor in the regulation of the Internet as governments have played a prominent role in regulatory action.     

Knowledge as civilizational role play: China watching by its Southern neighbours

Colonial and postcolonial relations have always constituted sites of knowledge production in the Global South. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to the production of knowledge of a Global South self vis-à-vis the West. However, the literature has not seriously attended self-knowledge production in the Global South with regard to non-Western others. The paper compares South and Southeast Asian think tanks to reflect upon a common identity strategy of small nations to become a civilizational bridge between competing major neighbours. Specifically, China experts in these areas host more or less a common wish or even a desire to be a bridge over the difference of China and its potential rival in India, the West, or both. The bridge role is a rare sensibility in the postcolonial critique of the West. Watching China from its Southern Third World neighbourhood incurs such an agenda. Relying on interviews of retired diplomats and think tank experts, the paper also discusses how the abovementioned methodological characteristics affect the enactment of the bridge role.