‘Ringleaders and Troublemakers’: Malawian (Nyasa) migrants and transnational labor movements in Southern Africa,c.1910–1960

The article examines the transnational role of Malawian (Nyasa) migrant laborers in the emergence and development of African labor and proto-nationalist movements in Southern Africa. Using both archival and secondary evidence mainly from Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, it argues that the history of Southern Africa’s labor consciousness from the early to mid-twentieth century can be enriched by exploring the place of Nyasa migrants in shaping anti-colonial processes across the region. Nyasa migrants, a product of the colonial labor migration system (chibaro/mthandizi), laid the foundations for, and influenced trade unionism in the region, especially between 1910 and 1960. The colonial wage economy created ambiguities of dependence for Africans forcing many into a migrant and capitalist world laden with dilemmas, tightropes, and frustrations that fueled social movements. Malawian migrants who were at the core of such movements within a regional colonial economic system, gained a reputation for being ‘ringleaders and troublemakers’ to the colonial governments. Existing literature has not fully historicized the centrality of Nyasas in molding this critical episode of Southern African history. The historiography has dealt with these dynamics in an ad hoc manner, approaching this Nyasa ‘annoyance’ on a national basis, without drawing on the underlying regional connections.     

Power and property: commercialization,enclosures, and the transformation of agrarian relations in Ethiopia

The transnational agrarian social movement Vía Campesina is campaigning to have the United Nations negotiate and implement a Declaration, and eventually an International Convention, on Peasants' Rights. This article analyzes the origins and demands of the campaign and the place of the claimed rights in international law. Peasant organizations hope to follow in the footsteps of indigenous peoples' movements that participated in the negotiations preceding the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The peasants' rights campaign has succeeded in linking its demands to discussions of the right to food in the United Nations, where concern is growing over the approach of the 2015 target for realizing the Millennium Development Goals, in particular the halving of the numbers of people suffering from hunger. The campaign is likely to face stiff resistance from powerful UN member states, but could achieve substantial advances even if the path to a convention is difficult or never completed.     

Limits to non‐state market regulation: A qualitative comparative analysis of the international sport footwear industry and the Fair Labor Association

Non‐state market regulation has become a central focus and continues to receive scholarly attention. The present paper provides an assessment of the conditions under which multinational firms join a multi‐stakeholder certification initiative. The cases of the Fair labor Association and 17 international sport footwear companies have been selected for this purpose. A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the 17 cases is performed. The paper argues that the combination of sustained NGO pressure and public ownership of a firm is a necessary precondition for firms joining a multi‐stakeholder certification initiative. The theoretical and policy implications of this result are discussed.     

An overview: A new era of tax enforcement – from “big stick” to responsive regulation

Recent developments in regulation and tax administration in Australia inspired this article on tax compliance and responsive regulation. This article analyzes the economics of crime and compliance as the dominant approach to tax enforcement of the past three and a half decades. It evaluates the key advantages and disadvantages of the economic approach as well as its application to tax. The article then explores responsive regulation as an alternative method that draws on the economic paradigm but also supplements this approach with other theories, particularly those involving identity, conflict escalation, and procedural justice. Building on this analysis and a case study of Australian investors in mass marketed tax schemes, the article suggests that the broader, more balanced, and closely tailored method of regulating responsively may enable regulators to draw on the advantages of the economic model while alleviating some of its drawbacks. Responsive regulation may therefore constitute a superior method for regulating compliance.     

Constructing and contesting legitimacy and accountability in polycentric regulatory regimes

The legitimacy and accountability of polycentric regulatory regimes, particularly at the transnational level, has been severely criticized, and the search is on to find ways in which they can be enhanced. This paper argues that before developing even more proposals, we need to pay far greater attention to the dynamics of accountability and legitimacy relationships, and to how those in regulatory regimes respond to them. The article thus first seeks to develop a closer analysis of three key elements of legitimacy and accountability relationships which it suggests are central to these dynamics: The role of the institutional environment in the construction of legitimacy, the dialectical nature of accountability relationships, and the communicative structures through which accountability occurs and legitimacy is constructed. Second, the article explores how organizations in regulatory regimes respond, or are likely to respond, to multiple legitimacy and accountability claims, and how they themselves seek to build legitimacy in complex and dynamic situations. The arguments developed here are not normative: There is no “grand solution” proposed to the normative questions of when regulators should be considered legitimate or how to make them so. Rather, the article seeks to analyse the dynamics of legitimacy and accountability relationships as they occur in an attempt to build a more realistic foundation on which grander “how to” proposals can be built. For until we understand these dynamics, the grander, normative arguments risk being simply pipe dreams – diverting, but in the end making little difference.     

我国跨境,跨国犯罪的类型

跨境、跨国犯罪在我国主要有 :毒品犯罪、走私犯罪、贩卖人口、诈骗犯罪、偷越国边境犯罪、劫持航空的犯罪、黑社会势力暴力犯罪、计算机犯罪、海盗等。     

第二次世界大战后武力使用规范的演进

在国际法体系中,武装冲突法可谓编纂得最为完备的一个分支。经过数百年的积累和铺垫,第二次世界大战后武力使用规范逐渐发展成为完整的规范体系并呈现出四大特征:即为了适应国际关系的新变化武装冲突法扩大了适用范围;使用核武器是否合法成为国际法的重要问题;出现了在武装冲突中"反向"使用武力以达到实现和平目的的新方式——联合国维持和平行动以及在武装冲突中出现了大量作为作战手段而使用的性暴力行为等。然而进入21世纪以后,武装冲突的形态与样式均发生了重大变化,一方面,以无人机、自主作战机器人、纳米生物武器和网络战为代表的新型作战手段方法层出不穷;另一方面,非国家行为体在武装冲突中使用武力的情况有所增加,更出现了私人军事安保公司等法律地位在国际法上尚处于空白的交战主体。以朝核危机为标志,核武器对于国际和平与安全的巨大的潜在甚至是现实的威胁再次凸显,迅速成为国际政治和国际法中的热点核心议题。值得注意的是,即使武装冲突法的基本原则依然相对稳定,但是不断出现的新作战手段和方法,仍然给国际法和国际安全提出了一系列亟须应对的新挑战。     

气候变化背景下外国投资者与政府争端的解决——以我国双边投资协定为例

我国签订的双边投资协定中一般都规定了投资者与东道国政府间投资争端的解决方式,尤其是晚近我国所签订的双边投资协定多数允许投资者将争端提交国际仲裁。但是,在目前全球应对气候变化背景下,作为温室气体排放大国,我国有义务控制和减少温室气体的排放,采取相应的环境规制措施,这些环境规制措施可能会损害或影响到外国投资者在我国的利益。根据双边投资协定,外国投资者可能会将这些争端提交国际仲裁,我国有可能被国际仲裁庭裁定为此对外国投资者承担相应的赔偿责任。面对新形势,我国必须重新审视双边投资协定中投资者与东道国投资争端解决方式的相关规定。     

对影子银行加强监管的国际金融法制改革

2008年金融危机的产生与游离于监管体系之外的影子银行的崩溃密不可分。在后危机时代,国际社会金融监管改革中很重要的一个方面即是加强对影子银行的监管。美欧等发达金融体已纷纷采取多种改革办法加强对其监管。以金融稳定理事会为代表的国际组织亦对影子银行监管进行研究,并形成了相关建议。影子银行对金融体系带来的主要威胁是系统性风险和监管套利,改革现有金融监管法制的重点也在于此。我国应当积极参与此方面的国际金融法制改革,并适时加强国内的法制建设。     

土地用途管制模式的立法转变

我国现行土地用途行政管制模式出现“制度失灵”,公法与私法规范结合的激励性管制应成为行政管制的替代模式。国际上土地用途管制改革已出现了总量管制与弹性管制、社区赋权、规划协议等激励性管制的实证样本,规划的不确定性理论、规划权利理论、管制协商理论为新型管制做出了法学解释。激励性土地用途管制的本质是模仿市场机制的私人自我管制。在我国,国家本位的衰落,土地市场多元利益的并存与竞争,迫切需要以激励性管制替代制度成本过高的传统行政管制。土地用途管制改革的基本路径是,划分行政干预与市场配置土地资源的法定边界,合理嵌入管制的私法规范。