Digital Commons Network^™

China's Strategic Interests In Cambodia: Influence And Resources, Sophal Ear, Sigfrido Burgos

Sophal Ear

A Viable "Sweatshop Free" Model? The Ilo's Better Factories Program And Labor Rights In Cambodia's Garment Industry, John A. Hall

John A. Hall

The International Labour Organization's (ILO' s) innovative program, Better Factories Cambodia ("Better Factories"), represents one of the more important attempts made by the international community to promote labor rights in a developing nation. The lessons Better Factories offers are significant for all stakeholders in the global labor market and suggest at least the outline of a practical blueprint for the future promotion of international labor standards globally. While the ILO's program in Cambodia has achieved notable success in reaching specific criteria, future ILO efforts elsewhere must be adjusted to reflect lessons learned in the Better Factories model. Specifically, future programs …

Multi-Agent Simulation Of Alternative Scenarios Of Collaborative Forest Management, Herry Purnomo, Yurdi Yasmi, Ravi Prabhu, Linda Yuliani, Hari Priyadi, Jerome K. Vanclay

Professor Jerome K Vanclay

International calls for sustainable development advocate that forest management should be carried out in a multi-stakeholder environment. The importance of community participation is acknowledged in theIndonesian Act No. 41 on Forestry (1999). However, it is not clear how to achieve this in areas already allocated to a concession holder. Current regulations offer little flexibility for concessionaires to develop site-specific management, or to involve local communities in forest management. The research reported here examines the application of simulation techniques to explore scenarios of sustainable forest management addressing those limitations. Several scenarios have been developed using multi-agent simulation to examine social and …

Interpreting Worldviews And Theories Of Change On Capacity Development Of Social Change Organizations, Alfredo Ortiz Aragón

Alfredo Ortiz Aragón

No abstract provided.

The International Tropical Timber Organization And Conservationist Forestry Norms: A Bridge Too Far, Gerry J. Nagtzaam

Gerry J Nagtzaam

This article explores the attempts to create an global tropical timber regime and examines its underlying competing environmental norms of exploitation, conservation and preservation. It outlines a history of forestry exploitation over time and tracks the stilted development of a global tropical timber regime. It further examines the development of the International Tropical Timber Agreement and its concomitant Organisation. Legro’s test of the robustness of a norm is applied to the tropical timber regime to determine when and why, and through whose agency, normative change has not been effected within the International Tropical Timber Organisation where conservationist norms have failed …

Parapolitics, Shadow Governance And Criminal Sovereignty, Robert Cribb

Robert Cribb

No abstract provided.

Reducing Emissions From Deforestation In Developing Countries: International And National Governance (Case Study Of Indonesia), Nathaniel Mangunsong

Nathaniel Mangunsong

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Bali in December 2007 resulted in a landmark decision on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (RED). This scheme promises an option of reducing deforestation as well as promoting carbon credit as an alternative income-generating activity within forest countries. However, there are still some challenges and issues that must be resolved before there can be successful implementation of this scheme such as the issues of leakage and permanence. These issues need to be addressed through establishing strong international and national governance. On the international level, there is a need …

Retooling Law Enforcement To Investigate And Prosecute Entrenched Corruption: Key Criminal Procedure Reforms For Indonesia And Other Nations, Leslie Gielow Jacobs, Benjamin B. Wagner

Leslie Gielow Jacobs

Public corruption is THE development issue of the twenty-first century. Players in the global campaign agree that criminal law enforcement is an essential cornerstone in a comprehensive strategy to fight the entrenched public corruption that plagues so many developing countries. But while much progress has been made in amending national laws to define the necessary corruption crimes, very little legislative attention has been paid to updating the procedural tools that police and prosecutors need to succeed. In this Article, we address this critical deficiency. Using insights gained from inside the United States Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office …

Mr. Smith Goes To Nairobi: The Unwritten Role Of Local Actors Within International Environmental Law, Caleb W. Christopher

Caleb W Christopher

This article first describes the existing participatory landscape of international environmental law. Local or regional governments, under a traditional federal model of domestic environmental law, are often responsible for undertaking some degree of discretionary enforcement of national policy. In addition, a variety of other tools, including citizen suits, public hearings and rulemaking comment, afford local communities with some degree of direct participation. However, under traditional international law, local communities often lack meaningful participatory mechanisms. Local government’s role includes very limited regulatory abilities and international business solicitation. Local communities may have a limited role during public comment periods of environmental impact …

Forest Health Monitoring In The Ngangao Forest, Taita Hills, Kenya: A Five Year Assessment Of Change, Paul C. Rogers, B. O'Connell, J. Mwang'ombe, S. Madoffe, G. Hertel

Paul Rogers

Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) provides a standardized detection-level survey of forest and tree characteristics for large forested areas. We have adopted FHM methods from this temperate-based program to tropical forests in the Eastern Arc Mountains (EAM) of Kenya and Tanzania. This paper reports the first assessment of trend data in the EAM over a period from 2001 to 2006. Growth and diversity statistics are presented for 11 forest plots in Ngangao Forest; only six (of 45) species constitute the predominance (68%) of basal area growth. Four endemic trees were tallied in our survey: Dasylepis integra, Leptonychia usambarensis, Macaranga conglomerata, and …

Is International Trade Really Making Developing Countries Dirtier And Developed Countries Richer?, Maria Vittoria C. Carminati Garbino

Maria Vittoria C Carminati Garbino

The current assumption in most of the literature surrounding international trade and environmental law is that these two areas are at odds with each other. This strong belief that development and the environment are a zero-sum game has led some to believe that developing countries in search for prosperity cannot have trade as well as environmental protection. However, emerging studies as well as a review of actual case-law indicates that this is not necessarily true. This Comment illustrates how developing countries have been able to navigate their way between development and sustainability, thus creating cracks in the otherwise seamless assumption …

Hunting The Living Dead: A 'Peso Problem' In Corporate Liabilities Data, Umberto Cherubini, Matteo Manera

Matteo Manera

Recent literature has pointed out that information asymmetries may be the reason for the poor performance of structural credit risk models to fit corporate bond data. It is well known in fact that these models lead to a strong understatement of the credit spread terms structure, particularly on the short maturity end. Possible explanations stem from strategic debt service behavior and, as discovered more recently, the problem of accounting transparency. This raises the possibility that some of these flaws could be reconducted to a sort of “peso problem”, i.e. that the market may ask for a premium in order to …

Crossing, Scott Abbott

Scott Abbott

No abstract provided.