International Economics Commons^™

International Organization And Poverty Alleviation, William F. Felice, Diana Fuguitt

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The World Trade Organization and Human Rights: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Sarah Joseph, David Kinley & Jeff Waincymer. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. 2009.

and

Global Poverty, Ethics and Human Rights. By Desmond McNeill & Asunción St. Clair. New York, NY: Routledge. 2009.

and

Hypocrisy Trap: The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform. By Catherine Weaver. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2008.

Legal Mechanization Of Corporate Social Responsibility Through Alien Tort Statute Litigation: A Response To Professor Branson With Some Supplemental Thoughts, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Response argues that as ATS jurisprudence “matures” or becomes more sophisticated, the legitimate limits of the law regress. The further expansion within the corporate defendant pool – attempting to pin liability on parent, great grandparent corporations and up to the top – raises the stakes and complexity of ATS litigation. The corporate social responsibility discussion raises three principal issues about how a moral corporation lives its life: how a corporation chooses its self-interest versus the interests of others, when and how it should help others if control decisions may harm the shareholder owners, and how far the corporation must …

May Roundtable: The Downfall Of Human Rights? Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Downfall of Human Rights” by Joshua Kurlantzick. Newsweek. February 19, 2010.

Rights & Interests: Trade & Disputes, Howard Guille

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weight Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policy-Making. By Susan Ariel Aaronson & Jamie M. Zimmerman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 337pp.

and

Public Values & Public Interest: Counterbalancing Economic Individualism. By Barry Bozeman. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007. 219pp.

and

The Impact of the WTO: The Environment, Public Health & Sovereignty. By Trish Kelly. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2007. 220pp.

Economic Development At The Cost Of Human Rights: China Nonferrous Metal Industry In Zambia, Brian Chama

Publications and Scholarship

The international human rights system is primarily based on the relationship between the state and its citizens. The overarching question is where the responsibility for human rights does and should lie in a world where the movement of human beings, goods, and capital are increasingly transnational in scope. The amount of responsibility that powerful actors like international corporations should have for protecting human rights is unclear. How this responsibility should be understood in relation to the responsibility of the state to protect its own people from human rights violations and also pursue strategies to hold international corporations accountable is also …

"The Female Entrepreneur"?, Cath Collins

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I read the “Women’s Crusade” article that forms the centrepiece of this month’s roundtable with initial interest, gradually turning to a vague sense of disquiet spiced with occasional disbelief. After a few more readings, I tried highlighting the passages that bothered me and stringing them together. Countries “riven by fundamentalism”— that’s presumably the Islamic variety, rather than the Christian variant which holds such sway in the US. The suggestion that “everyone from the World Bank to the US [...] Chiefs of Staff to [...] CARE” now thinks that women are the answer to global extremism hides too many questionable assumptions …

Considering The International Monetary Fund And World Bank: Lending Effectiveness In Sub-Saharan Africa, Daniela A. Wohlwend

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sub-Saharan Africa is a place of unequivocal beauty, diversity and history; it is also the most impoverished and neglected area on the planet. With an objective look at what has gone wrong in the past five decades of International Monetary Fund and World Bank lending, along with strategic assessment and planning, sub-Saharan Africa does not have to remain the home to unimpeded, rampant poverty.

Youth Migration And Poverty In Sub-Saharan Africa: Empowering The Rural Youth, Charlotte Min-Harris

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Sangaré, a poor young farmer from a village in southern Mali, leaves his wife and three children to find stable employment in the capital city of Bamako. What he finds is an unrewarding reality that leads him from small job to small job, only earning about US 22 cents per day. These jobs range from selling sunglasses, to shining shoes, to driving a rickshaw. Unfortunately, his income has not proved enough to provide for his family, as his aunt has since adopted his daughter, and his children cannot attend school. The inability to find stable employment in Bamako has forced …

Human Rights Abuses Along The Dominican-Haitian Border, Calla Cloud

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A 122 mile-long border separates the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Of the two countries, Haiti’s human rights abuses are much more somber than the emerging developments of the Dominican Republic. Haiti’s stagnant economic situation has contributed to perennial political instability and lack of infrastructure, having a particularly confounding affect on the rights and labor conditions of Haitian citizens. There are a myriad of reasons why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Two of the most prominent include its violent political history and the gradual deterioration of its economy. In the context …

Ali Wyne On Understanding Poverty Edited By Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Roland Bénabou, And Dilip Mookherjee. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 496pp., Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Understanding Poverty Edited by Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Roland Bénabou, and Dilip Mookherjee. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 496pp.

The Place Of Human Rights Law In World Trade Organization Rules, Stephen Joseph Powell

Stephen Joseph Powell

WTO rules routinely are linked to the inability of nations to make meaningful progress in sharpening environmental and other human rights protections, for example, the failure of the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development to usher in any new treaties despite the bright promise of the Rio Earth Summit of the previous decade. The common brief of environmental, medical, and development interest groups is that the market principles of supply and demand, comparative advantage, and non-discrimination on which global trade rules are built have encumbered pursuit by nations of fundamental non-economic objectives that must in any reasoned legal hierarchy …

The Mote In Thy Brother’S Eye: A Review Of Human Rights As Politics And Idolatry, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Michael Ignatieffs provocatively titled collection of essays, Human Rights As Politics and Idolatry [hereinafter Human Rights], is a careful examination of the theoretical underpinnings and contradictions in the area of human rights. At bottom, both of his primary essays, Human Rights As Politics and Human Rights As Idolatry, make a claim that is perhaps contrary to the instincts of human rights thinkers and activists: namely, that international human rights can best be philosophically justified and effectively applied to the extent that they strive for minimal ism. Human rights activists generally argue for the opposite conclusion: that international human rights be …

Rising Temperatures: Rising Tides, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Transboundary environmental problems do not distinguish between political boundaries. Global warming is expected to cause thermal expansion of water and melt glaciers. Both are predicted to lead to a rise in sea level. We must enlarge our paradigms to encompass a global reality and reliance upon global participation.