A TRIO BANDS TOGETHER

正It’s time for Beijing to lose some economic weight and synergize with neighboring Tianjin and Hebei Province By Deng Yaqing JOINT RECRUITMENT:A talent exchange fair for the Jing-Jin-Ji region is held at China International Science and Technology Convention Center in Beijing on April 23     

论WTO透明度原则在争端解决中的适用

透明度原则是WTO法律制度当中的基本原则之一,对于监督各成员方遵守WTO 法律框架,进而推进自由贸易发挥着重要作用。该原则在争端解决中的适用经历了先冷后热的过程,凸显出透明度原则应对非关税壁垒的优越性。在适用过程中,争端解决机构确立透明度原则适用对象和透明度标准,认为透明度原则适用于对成员方的国内部门法的整体审查,认为透明度原则应当能够保护贸易者的预期。在此基础上,在众多的案件中总结出争端解决机构的一贯立场以期能够对未来的透明度案件产生借鉴意义。     

Transparency as a Core Public Value and Mechanism of Compliance

Abstract

Private security contractors are just the tip of an outsourcing iceberg. Across the three Ds of defense, diplomacy, and development, American foreign policy has been privatized. The Obama administration inherited a government that had been hollowed out to an unprecedented extent, and in many realms it had and has no choice but to depend on contractors to conduct what used to be state business. This essay examines the reasons for and unintended negative consequences of this outsourcing of American power. It argues that turning the clock back and returning everything to in-house assignments is both undesirable and impossible. Instead, government must pursue contracting in ways that do not undermine the public interest. It can do this by identifying the things that should never be outsourced and ensuring that the letter and spirit of the Federal Funding Transparency and Accountability Act is upheld. Greater transparency in contractor–government relations will foster private security contractor compliance with ethical norms while bolstering our capacity for self-government. Transparency is thus both an end in itself and a means to sustainable democratic deliberation. While tension can exist between national security and open government, that tension is often overestimated.     

部门预算透明度:指标、问题与建议

部门预算是政府预算的基础和核心组成部分。为了解部门预算的公开程度,本文抽象了部门预算的要素,设计了12条标准,对2010和2011年公布的中央部门预算进行评估。评估结果表明:我国部门预算透明度在提高,但也存在不少问题,如部门预算的关键信息,特别是经济分类信息较少;功能分类信息的公布也没有详细到具体项目;公布的部门预算信息内容和形式不统一,且分散在各自的网站上。针对部门预算公开中存在的问题,文章提出了进一步改革的建议。     

The immediate impact of the global financial crisis and neo-liberal austerity policies on in-work poverty dynamics in Lithuania

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the extent and features of in-work poverty in Lithuania in the aftermath of the global economic crisis of 2007–2008. It argues that the significant expansion of the phenomenon during this time period was fostered by neoliberal policies that have been shaping the welfare system in the country for more than two decades. Furthermore, it draws attention to employment conditions and seeks to understand the experiences of those who live in in-work poverty. This article reveals that, during the period investigated, in-work poverty in Lithuania was associated with being a woman, having children, belonging to single-parent household, and being employed in a precarious working environment.     

An institutional assessment of the public interest and accountability committee (PIAC) in Ghana’s oil and gas sector

ABSTRACT

Ghana’s Petroleum Revenue Management Act 815 (amended to Act 893 in 2015) established the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) in 2011 with the mandate to ensure accountability and transparency in the management and usage of oil and gas revenue. This paper critically examines the activities and operations of the PIAC from 2011 vis-à-vis its legally reposed mandate. It points to severe deficit in accountability but improvements in transparency in the management of oil and gas revenues in spite of the existence and operations of the PIAC. After eight years of operation, the PIAC continues to suffer monumental challenges that undermine its effectiveness in serving as an accountability and transparency initiative in Ghana’s oil and gas sector. The paper makes some recommendation based on the empirical challenges of the PIAC identified to strengthen the PIAC to deliver effectively on its mandate.     

Government Mapping of the Third Sector: A Government Innovation for Regulation and Coordination? Perspectives From the Third Sector

This article examines the policy tool of a registry of civil society organizations in a regulatory transparency framework. A registry serves as a government ‘mapping’ tool by collecting data on civil society and nonprofit organizations. Do government efforts to map the third sector hinder or foster nonprofit organizations’ capacity and their coordination? The balance between regulation and the strengthening of nonprofit organizations’ capacity and the coordination of goods and services through government innovations like the registries—i.e., third sector mappings—might indeed have the potential to foster a more effective and efficient third sector.     

The reformists: Kalahi and the performances of local government officials in Bohol,Philippines

To make sense of the gap between the theory and practice of community-driven development (CDD), development scholars and practitioners have proposed that the success of interventions is relative to the reform-mindedness of local government officials. This article sheds some light on the good governance performances of local government officials as part of the CDD programme Kalahi in the province of Bohol, Philippines. It highlights that locally, mayors who styled themselves as reformists enjoyed heightened power and electoral victories. In parallel, the province experienced a pattern of ‘growth with immiserisation’ and persistent political clientelism wrapped in a discourse of pro-poor development.     

Southern Europe and the Eurozone Crisis Negotiations: Preference Formation and Contested Issues

South European countries were severely hit by the eurozone crisis. Adopting the theoretical framework of prospect theory, this article conducts an empirical analysis of the interpretation of the situation by the South European political leaders in terms of gains and losses. After discussing the stances of South European countries vis-à-vis a number of contested issues which emerged during the 2010–2013 negotiations, the article goes on to provide a comparative account of the determinants of national preference formation with respect to the eurozone crisis reforms in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain, paying special attention to the relationship between governments and parliaments.     

The global farms race: land grabs,agricultural investment,and the scramble for food security

In a widely read paper, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank and others propose systematic property rights formalization as a key step in addressing the problems of irresponsible agricultural investment. This paper examines the case of Cambodia, one of a number of countries where systematic land titling and large-scale land concessions have proceeded in parallel in recent years. Cambodia's experience exemplifies the challenges of the ‘formalization fix’ – the proposition that property formalization constitutes a preferable front-line defense against land grabbing – and highlights formalization's uneven geography as an issue that has yet to generate adequate discussion internationally. Three dimensions of Cambodia's less-than-successful formalization fix efforts stand out: (1) the spatial separation of systematic land titling and agribusiness concessions that emerged during the 2000s and has only recently begun to be addressed; (2) the deployment of property formalization as a means of land grabbing, especially when applied selectively and unevenly; and (3) the political arena of efforts to legitimize ‘state land’. The paper questions the formalization fix as a policy solution, and argues for both greater spatial transparency in property formalization efforts throughout the global South, and greater attention to the problem of unmapped state land in general.