Digital Commons Network^™

Rethinking Article 422: A Retrospective On Ecuador's 2008 Constitutional Isds Recalibration, Alexander B. Avtgis

Indiana Journal of Constitutional Design

Is Ecuador’s adoption of Article 422 in the 2008 Constitution properly viewed as a “re-statification”1 of Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)? And, since its implementation, has the constitutional article been effective in institutionally insulating Ecuador from the jurisdictional reach of international ISDS? This paper answers both questions in the negative—but qualifies such an outlook by balancing the drawbacks of Article 422 against its successes. Article 422’s provisions, strident in its attempt to create an alternative development vision, did not achieve all that the Constitution’s drafters had hoped. Nevertheless, in its limited effect of detaching Ecuador from certain ISDS fora, it …

Evidence-Based Stakeholder Engagement: The Promise Of Randomized Control Trials For Business And Human Rights, Patrick J. Keenan

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

When a large-scale development project comes to a poor country, that project typically comes with a stakeholder engagement plan, which structures the relationship between those affected by the new project and the proponents of the project. The plan sorts those affected by the project into categories, distributes economic benefits differentially based on those categories, allocates other benefits which can increase or decrease the social power of those affected, defines the ways that people harmed by the project may seek redress for their injuries, and might even modify existing governance structures. In the past decade, through the efforts of large institutional …

The Human Rights Potential Of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Christiana Ochoa, Patrick Keenan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In April, 2008, World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, called for sovereign wealth funds to invest one percent of their capital in Africa. The result will be the International Finance Corporation's Sovereign Funds Initiative and is an attempt to nurture the potential of sovereign wealth funds to contribute to economic development and improved well-being in a number of countries in Africa and elsewhere. This article explores the actual potential of the Sovereign Funds Initiative to realize its desired goals. After exploring and demonstrating the disappointing effects of natural resource wealth, development aid and foreign direct investment on some developing countries, the …

Climate Change, Adaptation, And Development, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Since the signing the Kyoto Protocol, the international community has focused a great deal of attention on measures designed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Much less attention has been paid to climate change adaption. This is unfortunate because, even if the Kyoto Protocol is fully implemented, climate change will generate substantial costs requiring substantial adaptation efforts, especially in the less developed countries (LDCs) of the world's tropical regions.

This paper considers what those countries should be doing in preparation for the effects of climate change, and what the countries of the developed world, including the United States, can and …