The Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the questions of identity,territory and political destiny of the indigenous Nuba of the Sudan

ABSTRACT

The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 was successful in ending the longest war in contemporary Africa. However, its implementation has been below the expectations of several communities, particularly in the war-torn regions of the Nuba Mountains, the Southern Blue Nile and the Abyei Area, widely referred to as ‘contested’, ‘marginalised’, ‘transitional’ areas or ‘border territories’. While many interwoven causes were behind the eruption of the protracted civil wars in the Sudan (Elnur 2009; Johnson 2006; Khalid 1987), the political question of sub-national identities and their intrinsic link with specific territories (Murphy 1991; William and Smith 1993) is hypothesised here as a prime factor in extending the civil war into these three areas. Taking the Nuba and their claimed territory of the Nuba Mountains as an example, this article will, first, trace the political striving of the Nuba people and their shift from peaceful political movement to armed struggle; second, it will examine their political status during the peace negotiation process; and third, it will analyse their political responses to the outcome of the CPA and its impact on their future political choices in view of the April 2010 election results, and the projected right to self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan, to be exercised through the referenda in 2011.     

Institutional reform and political party engagement: Challenges to democratic transformation in post-CPA Sudan

ABSTRACT

This article looks at the role of institutions and political parties as main agents of the democratisation process in the Sudan, following the signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). A review of the historic weaknesses of intermittent democratic rule in the Sudan, since its independence in 1956 and through to the signing of the CPA, is offered. Those elements of the CPA critical to institutional reform and democratisation are identified and their implementation assessed, including the results of the CPA-mandated elections held in April 2010. The four principal political parties and their capacities to contribute to democratic transformation are analysed.     

Participation of African member states in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trading system

Abstract

The core purpose and goals of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are to enhance growth by allowing each country to trade freely according to its comparative advantage. The other stated main objectives of the WTO are: raising standards of living; providing full employment; reduction of tariffs and non‐tariff barriers; and the elimination of discriminatory treatment. According to the current orthodox economic view, trade openness is essential for growth: countries that liberalise their imports and orientate production towards exports are assumed to have faster growth than those that do not, and the faster the rate of opening, the greater will the prospect be for development. The emphasis on trade liberalisation and export orientation in the past ten years following the adoption of the Uruguay Round has led to phenomenal growth in world merchandise trade, which has grown consistently faster than output. The orthodox view approach is today expanded and modified with the view that liberalisation measures are not sufficient by themselves and should be accompanied by other factors such as sound macroeconomic policies, good governance and a modern infrastructure. Africa's dependence on primary commodities as a source of export earnings has meant that it is vulnerable to weather conditions, market vagaries, and price volatility, arising mainly from supply shock and the secular decline in real commodity prices. The attendant terms of trade losses have exacted heavy costs in terms of incomes, indebtedness, investment, poverty and development. Therefore, the basic approach that liberalisation has a direct link to economic growth and should be undertaken as fast as possible is being questioned and has been challenged by empirical studies in recent years. The relevant studies have shown that there is a lack of relationship between the degree of trade liberalisation and the rate of growth. The emerging paradigm accepts that there are possible costs, as well as potential benefits of trade liberalisation to a particular developing country, depending on the conditions in that country, and the type of liberalisation undertaken. The other impediments and weaknesses identified as affecting effective, efficient and economical participation of African members in the WTO include rapid liberalisation as potential source of fiscal instability; general absence of peace, security and democracy; globalisation and lack of competitive ability; supply‐side constraints; high export concentration ratio; problems of implementation; exclusion and/or marginalisation from knowledge‐based economy; and lack of capacity. The Doha Development Round was initiated to attend to, and address, these problems, and it is still too early to predict the outcome. African countries need to look for African solutions to their socio‐economic and political problems, adopting transdisciplinary approaches in the context of the African Renaissance paradigm.     

The need to improve the living conditions of women in Nuba Mountains,Southern Kordofan

ABSTRACT

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) not only ended Africa's longest civil war, it aimed to transform Sudanese society. A critical element of this transformation is uplifting the status of women. This article surveys the conditions faced by women in two villages in Nuba Mountains/Southern Kordofan, principally their ability to access land for farming, credit facilities and barriers to education and health services, and whether the implementation of the CPA has resulted in any concrete changes.     

Balancing domestic regulation and trade liberalisation under the GATS: universal access issues in South Africa's telecoms sector

The service sector increasingly has become the cornerstone of a great number of economies in both the developed and developing world. The main barrier to trade in services is the imposition of domestic regulations which are aimed at ensuring the affordability, availability and efficiency of services. Such domestic regulations are important for services and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) consequently recognises the right of countries to regulate in order to achieve these goals. The GATS, however, also seeks to discipline such regulations to ensure that they do not hinder trade in services. This article seeks to assess these seemingly competing interests in the context of South Africa's history and its burgeoning telecommunications sector.     

Discount Rates for the Evaluation of Public Private Partnerships,by David F. Burgess and Glenn P. Jenkins (Eds.)

This article provides a critical overview of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Russia and Kazakhstan and examines the rationale underpinning such partnerships. The analysis discusses the reasons why governments in Russia and Kazakhstan focus principally on concessions as a form of PPP and goes on to provide a critical assessment of the key approaches and situational factors relating to concessions in these two countries.

The article finds that external globalization impulses pressed Russia and Kazakhstan to align their policies and institutions with western orthodoxy and perceived international best practice. An ever-increasing emphasis on use of PPPs has been a key feature of this alignment. However, the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan have increasingly resorted to concessions as progress with the development and implementation of Western style PPP models has stalled. This article concludes that the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan have demonstrated an overly optimistic approach to PPP and as a result may have substantially understated their overall concessional risks and costs. Features of Russian and Kazakhstani PPP arrangements such as ambiguity in output specification and extensive reliance on government subsidies, combined with lack of expertise of private partners, may significantly decrease concession benefits.     

我国BOT投资制度设计中的若干问题

BOT投资方式在我国已经有近十年的历史,但其进展并没有达到人们期望的程度,相关法律制度不完备是主要原因之一。理性地设计项目相关各方的权利和义务,是建立科学的BOT投资法律制度的前提。本文着墨于BOT项目的股债比例、汇兑管理、政府的商业性保证和政策性保证、项目资产抵押、项目主办人、特许权协议的性质和法律适用等主要法律问题的分析,希冀对BOT投资方式的制度设计有所裨益。     

The Road to EU Membership. Enforcing Competition Policy in Hungary: Double Protection and Domestic Developments

The present article is concerned withthe so-called process of harmonisation to theCommunity Law, which is taking place in thecentral eastern European countries, candidatesto join the European Union. Specifically, thisarticle deals with the building of a matureHungarian competition policy, inaccordance with the acquis communautaire,as part of a larger long-term programme ofpro-market decisions concerning privatisationand market openness. On the one hand, theso-called iterated multi-level interaction indifferent arenas between Hungarian institutionsand the Union, structured on path-dependentdynamics, influences the mechanisms and thetiming of harmonisation to the EuropeanUnion. On the other hand, the gradualempowerment of an independent national Office of Economic Competition and theprogress made to the adaptation of policystructures and policy behaviours to theEuropean Union's canons and laws are taken asthe main factors explaining the development ofa clear, predictable, and transparent processof competition law enforcement. Byfollowing a multidisciplinary approach, thisarticle combines an analysis of the meaning ofboth the Hungarian Competition Act and theprovisions on competition contained in the Europe Agreement, alongside a study of theirenforcement experience, revealing a gap betweenthe high consistency of the Hungariandiscipline on competition protection withEuropean Union law and the real enforcement capacity.     

TRIPS-Plus Free Trade Agreements and Access to Medicines

The battle over access to essential medicines revolves around the rights to issue compulsory licenses and to manufacture and export generic versions of brand name drugs to expand access. Global brand name pharmaceutical firms have sought to ration access to medicines and have used their economic and political clout to shape United States trade policy. They have succeeded in getting extremely restrictive TRIPS-Plus, and even US-Plus, intellectual property provisions into regional and bilateral free trade agreements. Asymmetrical power relations continue to shape intellectual property policy, reducing the amount of leeway that poorer and/or weaker states have in devising regulatory approaches that are most suitable for their individual needs and stages of development. While the overall trend is disturbing, some recent activities in the World Health Organization and evidence of greater unity behind health-based TRIPs flexibilities provide some grounds for cautious optimism.     

论WTO协议在我国的适用

本文以WTO协议在我国的适用为中心议题 ,以国际法和国内法关系的理论为指导 ,论述了条约的国内适用和我国适用条约的方式 ;专门阐述了WTO的性质和我国加入WTO的承诺。作者得出的结论是 :WTO在我国的适用方式应当是直接适用 ,当其与国内法发生冲突时有优先的效力。