“The pluses of pulses”: haricot beans and women’s empowerment in Ethiopia

This practical note demonstrates the role that haricot beans play in assisting women to become food and nutrition secure, to generate income, and to have sustainable livelihoods that are resilient to shocks. Based on qualitative research among female and male beneficiaries of a pulse innovation project implemented in southern Ethiopia, the note provides a summary of the critical voices of farmers, and the role that haricot beans play in empowering women. It also outlines some of the challenges that the project faced in achieving its empowerment objectives.     

Investing in multi-stakeholder dialogue to address natural resource competition and conflict

How can multi-stakeholder dialogue help assess and address the roots of environmental resource competition and conflict? This article summarises the outcomes and lessons from action research in large lake systems in Uganda, Zambia, and Cambodia. Dialogues linking community groups, NGOs and government agencies have reduced local conflict, produced agreements with private investors, and influenced government priorities in ways that respond to the needs of marginalised fishing communities. The article details policy guidance in four areas: building stakeholder commitment, understanding the institutional and governance context, involving local groups in the policy reform process, and embracing adaptability in programme implementation.     

Taiwan in the Caribbean: a case study in state de-recognition

The rich and complex recent International Political Sociology (IPS) literature on state recognition has completely ignored the process of de-recognition. The present article uses the case study of Taiwan’s efforts to preserve its ‘diplomatic allies’ in the Caribbean in order to fill this gap. Taking advantage of the IPS development of the constitutive theory of recognition, it introduces and analyses the concept of state de-recognition while emphasizing the deep contradiction between present international law principles and the political reality of national identity building as well as the de-linking of political science and international law understandings of recognition made possible by the progress of the constitutive theory. De-recognition is perceived as resulting in a hierarchical relationship between recognized and de-recognized political entities that is arbitrary and ethically questionable as it ultimately reflects the denial of the right to self-determination of peoples.     

Unpacking the Presumed Statelessness of Rohingyas1

ABSTRACT

The decades-old Rohingya problem, which has affected Myanmar and other Southeast Asia countries, has long been defined in terms of forced migration, statelessness, and humanitarian crisis. As the problems involving Rohingya refugees, forced migrants, and internally displaced persons are commonly believed to have stemmed from the highly discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law, international advocacy has focused on amending or repealing the law as the ultimate solution. Despite the law's several discriminatory provisions, this article argues that the real problem primarily lies in a lack of implementation by successive Myanmar governments and the Rohingya's arbitrary deprivation of the right to nationality and citizenship documentation.     

Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Great changes are underway in how climate and agricultural risks are managed in Vietnam. Uncertainties are emerging regarding the role of the state in managing these risks and what this implies for assumptions regarding hoped-for climate change transformations. Local government control is waning in relation to the expanding roles of the private sector and the growing autonomy of farmers themselves. This article presents cases that illustrate the ways that farmers, private investors, and local authorities are responding to climate risk within roles relating to the other risks involving markets, food security, and pressures on common property resources.     

Towards food sovereignty: interrogating peasant voice in the United Nations Committee on World Food Security

The goal of the direct participation of food producer constituencies – and other citizens – is a key component of food sovereignty, the policy framework first launched by La Vía Campesina and engendering the much wider food sovereignty movement. In this paper, I outline the reasons why the reform of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) can be regarded as historically significant to this goal. Focusing upon the CFS's aspirations for inclusivity, I outline a framework for interrogating the experiences of social movement activists representing food producer constituencies seeking to convert their formal right to participate in the CFS into substantive participation. Going beyond the capturing of their experiences, the framework also reveals the different ways in which their challenges in attaining substantive participation can be overcome, with a particular emphasis upon adjustments within the arena itself. The paper concludes with an overview of the research agenda suggested by Raj Patel (2009), amongst others, and alluded to further in the content of this paper.     

Gettin’ Down Home With the Neelys: gastro-porn and televisual performances of gender,race, and sexuality

This article illuminates how performances of gender, race, and sexuality are integrated with representations of food and food performance in contemporary American cooking television. Interrogating the intersections of food, gender, race, sexuality, and performance, this essay explores how the cable-television show, Down Home with the Neelys, depicts a nouveau gastro-porn anchored in the perceived pornographic level of blackness itself. The author reveals the ways that food and performances of food become a medium of gendering and racialization employed by American popular media. Through the lens of reality television, shows like Down Home (re)produce a certain type of black heterosexuality and gendered enactments of domesticity and space, while challenging dominant televisual reflections of black love and labor. The author argues that the Neelys self-consciously employ a vernacular aesthetic performative of “down home” (a uniquely classed, temporally–spatially situated, and sexualized blackness) to exploit the phenomenon of gastro-porn in a highly lucrative performance that signals the entangled artifice of gender, race, and sexuality. More than offering culinary expertise and education, such cooking instruction reveals the pedagogy of gender, race, and sexuality as visual lessons of a complex and contradictory authenticity. This essay reveals television cooking shows as critical sites for considering the domestic laboring of gendered and racialized sexualities. In particular, shows like Down Home evince the ways that race continues to be rendered in visual terms and the enduring edibility of blackness.     

行政复议适用调解方式的正当性与可行性研究

我国的社会主义法治要求从实体上和程序上切实维护广大人民群众的民主权利和合法利益,尤其要保障当事人的程序权利。调解是行政程序的重要内容,具有正当性,应当充分尊重当事人对解决行政纠纷调解方式的选择权。在法治视野下,调解作为解决行政纠纷的重要手段,在行政复议过程中具有可行性,如调解契合行政复议的立法精神,有助于提高行政效率,有效化解社会矛盾,提升政府公信力。在行政复议乃至行政诉讼的实践中,调解已被广泛运用,而且调解已成为国际上解决行政纠纷的通例。我们要用社会主义法治理念武装头脑,应当建立和全面推动行政复议调解制度,促进社会主义和谐社会建设。     

关于证人不得强迫自证其罪特权之研究

不得强迫自证其罪的特权包括犯罪嫌疑人、被告人的不得强迫自证其罪的权利,也包括证人的不得强迫自证其罪的权利。由于我国没有建立不得强迫自证其罪的特权,这就使得证人作证制度不够完善,难以在刑事诉讼中发挥应有的作用。因此,在借鉴英、美、日等国立法经验的基础上,构建我国证人不得强迫自证其罪特权,必须确立证人不得强迫自证其罪的特权,建立证人豁免制度,完善我国的不起诉制度,以此切实保障证人的合法权益,确保刑事诉讼工作得以顺利开展。     

略析国际海上犯罪刑法适用

国际海上犯罪国际刑法适用模式有两种 ,一般采用间接适用模式。国际海上犯罪中国刑法适用一般规则 ,首先是确定国际海上犯罪刑事管辖权和剖析国际海上犯罪行为特征 ,然后比照中国刑法有关条款规定的犯罪行为特征 ,离解国际海上犯罪整体行为和整合国际海上犯罪具体行为 ,依照中国刑法确定其行为性质 ,如是就可以准确认定其中国刑法规范的罪名。