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The Past, Present, And Future Of The United Nations: A Comment On Paul Kennedy And The Parliament Of Man (El Pasado Como Prologo: El Futuro Glorioso Y El Turbio Presente De Las Naciones Unidas (Revista De Paul Kennedy, El Parlamento De La Humanidad)), Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

American University, WCL Research Paper No. 2008-72Abstract:This is the original Spanish language version of an essay (10,000 words) appearing in the Revista de Libros (Madrid), considering the history and future of the United Nations and global governance through the lens of Paul Kennedy's recent work, The Parliament of Man. The essay is highly skeptical of what it describes as platonism about the future of the UN as the seat of global governance. It offers an alternative view of how to consider the work of the UN, in three areas: security, economic development, and values. The essay argues that, particularly with …

The Role Of Private Sector Investment In International Microfinance And The Implications Of Domestic Regulatory Environments, William A. Langer

William A Langer

The Role of Private Sector Investment in International Microfinance and the Implications of Domestic Regulatory Environments

By William Langer

Microfinance – the practice of providing small, working capital loans and other financial services to poor individuals unable to obtain access to commercial sources of credit – has been able to transform the lives of over 100 million microentrepreneurs and their families in various regions throughout the world. Despite this impressive achievement, microfinance currently reaches only 10% of the estimated demand for microfinance services, comprised of approximately 1 to 1.5 billion self-employed poor persons worldwide. Practitioners agree that in order to …

September Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"The New Colonialists" by Michael A. Cohen, Maria Figueroa Küpçü, and Parag Khanna. Foreign Policy. July/August 2008.

Saving Lives: A First Step Toward Freedom Not Dependence, William F. Felice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

During the nineteenth century, European powers extended and deepened their brutal domination of the so-called “uncivilized” (sic) nations and peoples around the world. These efforts were named “colonialist” and were based on the uprooting of indigenous peoples, the export and pillage of natural resources, cultural displacement, direct political control, and economic exploitation and the creation of dependency by the Europeans. While the European states gained colossal economic benefits from these arrangements, the colonized peoples were left with failed states and bad governments. Advocates of these colonialist policies often justified these actions on the basis of a deep-felt ideological belief in …

Nothing "Colonial" About It: Service Delivery And Accountability, Todd Landman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

At one level, there is little in “The New Colonialists” with which I disagree. The necessary state capacity in developing societies for basic service delivery is in many cases absent, significantly weak, or has been corrupted in ways that produce tremendous inequality of access and disproportionate social outcomes that are related to race, ethnicity, poverty, gender, and other categories of social identity. It is true that in the presence of weak state institutions, widespread corruption, and underdeveloped infrastructure, a large number of national and international non-governmental agencies and organizations have sought to redress such imbalances through their work in providing …

Cosmopolitanism And Rationalizing Tendencies, James Pattison

Human Rights & Human Welfare

When phone-in talk shows, the press, and undergraduates debate the case for cosmopolitan accounts of global distributive justice, there are a number of standard rationalizations given for why we don’t have a duty to help. These include: “we have duties only to our fellow countrymen”; “poverty is caused by corrupt leaders, so not our fault, and therefore not our responsibility“; and “humanitarian aid is counter-productive.” Unlike the other two sorts of rationalization, the latter claim does not necessarily deny the moral cosmopolitanism premise that we have extensive duties to relieve the suffering of those beyond our borders. Rather, it follows …

In With The Old, Out With The New, Brent J. Steele

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Michael Cohen, Maria Figueroa Küpçü and Parag Khanna make some compelling arguments about the inherent drawbacks regarding the role diverse networks of NGOs play in keeping at-risk populations alive throughout the world. We are informed that these groups are “the new colonialists,” agencies much like the old European empires. These new colonialists are apparently enforcing a cycle of dependency which prevents the development of state structures, structures that apparently sustain these populations more effectively. The problem with this thesis is that the authors do not seem to entertain the possibility that the nation-state is itself an (old) colonial construct, and …

21st Century Trade Agreements: Implications For Development Sovereignty, Rachel D. Thrasher, Kevin P. Gallagher

Rachel D Thrasher

This paper examines the extent to which the emerging world trading regime leaves nations the “policy space” to deploy effective policy for long-run diversification and development and the extent to which there is a convergence of such policy space under global and regional trade regimes. We examine the economic theory of trade and long-run growth and underscore the fact that traditional theories lose luster in the presence of the need for long-run dynamic comparative advantages and when market failures are rife. We then exhibit a “toolbox” of policies that have been deployed by developed and developing countries past and present …

Soboba Band Of Luiseño Indians Water Rights Settlement Act Of 2008, United States 110th Congress

Native American Water Rights Settlement Project

Federal Legislation: Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians Settlement Act, PL 110-297, 122 Stat. 2975 (July 31, 2008). The Act ratifies the Settlement Agreement dated June 7, 2006, between the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, US, Eastern Municipal Water District, Lake Hemet Municipal Water District and Metropolitan Water District of Southern CA. The Tribe will receive an adequate and secure future water supply (9,000 acre-feet per year); $18 million from Eastern and Lake Hemet water districts for economic development; $11 million from the federal government for water development; and 128 acres of land near Diamond Valley Lake for commercial development. The …

Slides: The Urbanizing West: Limits To Water, Limits To Growth, Lora A. Lucero

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Lora A. Lucero, AICP, American Planning Association

18 slides

Liberia's Gemap: A New Wave In Development Intervention?, Edefe Ojomo

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Backlash: Assessing The Political Response To Kelo, Ilya Somin

Ilya Somin

The Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which upheld the power of government to condemn private property for purposes of economic development, generated a massive political backlash from across the political spectrum. Over forty states, as well as the federal government, have enacted post-Kelo reform legislation to curb eminent domain. This Article is the first comprehensive analysis of the legislative response to Kelo. It challenges the validity of claims that the political backlash to Kelo will provide the same sort of protection for property owners as would a judicial ban on economic development takings. Most …

Toward An Alternative Normative Framework For Copyright: From Private Property To Human Rights, Mary Wong

Mary Wong

As a species of intellectual property, copyrightable works are assumed to be a form of private property, for which exclusive rights are conferred and which may be assigned, licensed and transferred as property. This article questions this fundamental assumption, in terms of both its consequences on rights of access and use by non-owners, and its limitations on the ability of copyright law to accommodate broader socio-cultural norms and values embodying wider notions of creativity and development. It argues that, for copyright law to more fully reflect these norms and values, a more flexible framework is required. Although attempts have been …

Testing An Individual Systems Model Of Response Evaluation And Decision (Red) And Antisocial Behavior Across Adolescence, Reid Griffith Fontaine, Chongming Yang, Kenneth A. Dodge, John E. Bates, Gregory S. Pettit

Reid G. Fontaine

This study examined the bidirectional development of aggressive response evaluation and decision (RED) and antisocial behavior across five time-points in adolescence. Participants (n = 522) were asked to imagine themselves behaving aggressively while viewing videotaped ambiguous provocations, and answered a set of RED questions following each aggressive retaliation (administered at Grades 8 and 11 [13 and 16 years]). Self- and mother-reports of antisocial behavior were collected at Grades 7, 9/10, and 12 (12, 14/15, and 17 years). Using structural equation modeling, we found a partial mediating effect at each hypothesized mediational path, despite high stability of antisocial behavior across adolescence. …

Poverty, Trade, And Political Theory, Fernando R. Teson

Fernando R Teson

Economists generally agree that free trade leads to economic growth. This proposition is supported both by theoretical models and empirical data. Further, while the empirical evidence is more limited on this question, the general consensus among economists holds that trade restrictions are likely to hurt the poor. Even if the latter consensus turns out to be wrong, if free trade leads to superior growth, governments would have more resources to redistribute to the poor. It is surprising then that philosophers do not advocate liberalizing trade as a way to improve the welfare of the poor as a class. While many …

Richard Burchill On Contemporary Human Rights Ideas By Bertrand G. Ramcharan. New York, Ny : Routledge, 2008. 192 Pp., Richard Burchill

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Contemporary Human Rights Ideas by Bertrand G. Ramcharan. New York, NY : Routledge, 2008. 192 pp.

Interactive Pre-Clearance Development, Kareem U. Crayton

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

Construccion Vs. Desarrollo: La Raiz De Nuestros Malentendidos Sobre El Principio De La Vida, Richard Stith

Law Faculty Publications

Este ensayo argumenta que el fracaso de nuestros debates públicos sobre el aborto y la investigación destructora de embriones se debe, en gran parte, no a distintas valoraciones de la vida humana individual sino a distintas concepciones e intuiciones acerca del proceso de gestación. Un grupo lo trata como un proceso de construcción y el otro como un proceso de desarrollo. Se muestra que estos dos incompatibles modelos de reproducción explican las distintas posturas que por lo general se encuentran en los debates sobre la vida. Por último, se examinan las ventajas históricas, teóricas, e intuitivas de cada modelo.

This …

Chapter 16: Applied Anthropology Of Law, Postscript - Update Apr09-Jan10, Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Chapter 16 focuses on applied anthropology and contains a renewed appeal, directed to the younger generation, to become engaged in culture-pertinent legal work. Currently much debated issues are ethnocentrism, modes of thought, identity, inalienable rights, problems related to the US, Europe, and Islam, as well as multicultural, ecumenical, foreign aid, and comparative issues. Applied anthropology is the use of anthropology in a prescriptive sense. Anthropologists are sometimes asked to prepare economic or political steps to be taken by international organizations, national governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foreign aid groups, military planners, environmental expert teams, trade unions, etc. …

Immigrant Remittances, Ezra Rosser

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Remittances, the sending of money from immigrants back to their home countries, are the newest anti-poverty, development activity of the poor to be applauded by international institutions and economists. Exceeding foreign aid and private investment to many developing countries, remittances are being hailed as a new, untapped resource with powerful poverty alleviation and potential development attributes. After presenting the poverty, developmental, and economic characteristics of this new transnational connection between immigrants and their loved ones, as well as the dangerous effects of excessive remittance regulation, the author argues that remittances should be understood as an anti-poverty tool, but not as …

Lessons Learned From The Gulf Of Maine Case: The Development Of Maritime Boundary Delimitation Jurisprudence Since Unclos Iii, Stuart B. Kaye

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Chamber of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its judgment on the location of the maritime boundary between Canada and the United States in the Gulf of Maine, on October 12, 1984. Less than two years before, after many years consideration, and an almost complete failure of consensus during the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III),1 the international community adopted the text of Articles 74 and 83 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.2 These two almost identically-worded articles provided the formula for delimiting the maritime boundaries between …

Negotiating For Social Justice And The Promise Of Community Benefits Agreements: Case Studies Of Current And Developing Agreements, Patricia E. Salkin, Amy Lavine

Scholarly Works

A community benefits agreement (CBA) is a private contract negotiated between a prospective developer and community representatives. In essence, the CBA specifies the benefits that the developer will provide to the community in exchange for the community's support, or quiet acquiescence, of its proposed development. The promise of community support may be especially useful to a developer seeking government subsidies or timely project approvals. The CBA is a relative newcomer to the toolbox of strategies that communities may utilize to ensure that development occurs consistent with the sometimes more narrow goals and desires of neighborhood residents, as opposed to the …

Domestic Bonds, Credit Derivatives, And The Next Transformation Of Sovereign Debt, Anna Gelpern

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Not long ago, financial markets in most poor and middle-income countries were shallow to nonexistent, and closed to foreigners. Governments often had to rely on risky borrowing abroad; the private sector had even fewer options. But between 1995 and 2005, domestic debt in the emerging markets grew from $1 trillion to $4 trillion. In Mexico, domestic debt went from just over 20% of the total government debt stock in 1995 to nearly 80% in 2007. Foreign and local investors are buying. Over the same period, derivative contracts to transfer emerging market credit risk surpassed the market capitalization of the benchmark …

Privatization, Efficiency, Gender, Development, And Inequality— Transnational Conflicts Over Access To Water And Sanitation, Srini Sitaraman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace by Vandana Shiva. Boston, MA: South End Press, 2005.

and

Gender, Water, and Development edited by Anne Coles and Tina Wallace. New York: Berg, 2005.

and

Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power by Sanjeev Khagram. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.

What Happened To Africa?, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair—A History of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith. New York: Public Affairs, 2006. 752 pp.

Domestic Bonds, Credit Derivatives, And The Next Transformation Of Sovereign Debt, Anna Gelpern

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Not long ago, financial markets in most poor and middle-income countries were shallow to nonexistent, and closed to foreigners. Governments often had to rely on risky borrowing abroad; the private sector had even fewer options. But between 1995 and 2005, domestic debt in the emerging markets grew from $1 trillion to $4 trillion. In Mexico, domestic debt went from just over 20% of the total government debt stock in 1995 to nearly 80% in 2007. Foreign and local investors are buying. Over the same period, derivative contracts to transfer emerging market credit risk surpassed the market capitalization of the benchmark …

Intellectual Property For Market Experimentation, Michael B. Abramowicz, John F. Duffy

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Intellectual property protects investments in the production of information, but the literature on the topic has largely neglected one type of information that intellectual property might protect: information about the market success of goods and services. A first entrant into a market often cannot prevent other firms from free-riding on information about consumer demand and market feasibility. Despite the existence of some first-mover advantages, the incentives to be the first entrant into a market may sometimes be inefficiently low, thereby giving rise to a net first-mover disadvantage and discouraging innovation. Intellectual property may counteract this inefficiency by providing market exclusivity, …

Brain, Gender, Law: A Cautionary Tale, Carlin Meyer

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Chinese Takings Law From A Comparative Perspective, Chenglin Liu

Faculty Articles

When acquiring private property, governments may exercise one of three options: confiscation, consensual exchange, or eminent domain. Under the first approach, the government can confiscate private land without seeking consent from private owners and without paying compensation to them. Alternatively, under the consensual exchange approach, the government can only acquire private property through arm’s-length negotiations in an open market. It requires the government to obtain consent from private owners and pay mutually agreed purchase prices, determined by both the government as a willing buyer and private owners as willing sellers. The third approach is through eminent domain, which denotes when …

Achieving Early And Substantial Greenhouse Gas Reductions Under A Post-Kyoto Agreement, John Dernbach

John C. Dernbach

This article explains why policy makers should seriously consider substantial early reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a part of any post-Kyoto framework, and sets out suggested elements of a framework for early action in a post-Kyoto agreement. Substantial early reductions are needed because of the growing urgency of the climate change science, the precautionary approach identified in the Framework Convention on Climate Change as a decision-making principle, the fact that cost-effective measures are now available, and the significant non-climate benefits (security, economic, social, and environmental) that can be achieved by implementing them. As a practical matter, too, long-term greenhouse …