Digital Commons Network^™

Climate Change, Forests, And International Law: Redd's Descent Into Irrelevance, Annecoos Wiersema

Annecoos Wiersema

Forestry activities account for over 17% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2005, parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change have been negotiating a mechanism known as REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation – to provide an incentive for developing countries to reduce carbon emissions and limit deforestation at the same time. Many believe this mechanism will not only mitigate climate change but will also provide biodiversity and forests with the hard international law regime that has so far been missing. These commentators assume REDD will develop into this kind of hard international law regime. They …

Diversity Of Plants And Animals In Mountain Systems In Tajikistan, Victor Roy Squires Dr, Neymatalo Safarov Dr

Victor Roy Squires Dr

Tajikistan, a landlocked country, is one of the world's centers of origin of cultivated plants and has a special role in the conservation of mountain biodiversity. The richness of biodiversity shows up at the genetic, species, population, and ecosystem levels. There are many relic and endemic species, with most of the components of biodiversity vulnerable to anthropogenic factors. Close cooperation across borders will be required for conservation of unique and threatened ecosystems in the Central Asian region. Proximate threats such as poaching, overfishing, illegal logging and overgrazing are causing irreversible damage to biodiversity in the Tajikistan hotspot. Threats stem from …

Land Use And Vegetation Cover Dynamics In And Around Kagoma Forest Reserve In Tanzania, Nanjiva Nzunda, Pkt Munishi, Japhet Kashaigili, Geofrey Soka, Joel Monjare

Geofrey Soka

No abstract provided.

The Sustainable Corporation: Lessons From Avatar, Norm Borin

Norm A. Borin

This article uses the fictitious company RDA from the movie Avatar as a textbook case of corporate non-sustainability. We provide a list of mistakes RDA made and provide parallel corporate examples in our own society in the areas of stakeholder analysis, corporate governance and systems thinking using the triple bottom line. For each area we present a framework that companies could use to operate in a more sustainable manner.

Innovations In Governance: A Functional Typology Of Private Governance Institutions, Tracey M. Roberts

Tracey M Roberts

Communities are increasingly looking to private governance institutions, rather than formal government, to set public policy and to manage the environmental and social impacts of globalization. Private governance institutions, sets of rules and structures for governing without government, remain undertheorized despite an expanding literature. Questions remain about why they have arisen, what functions they serve, and whether they are effective. This article advances that literature in several ways. First, the article outlines the inherent limitations of the conventional taxonomy, which groups these institutions based on the identity of their constituent organizations (business interests, civil society, and government entities and their …

Pengelolaan Perbatasan Ditinjau Dari Sisi Sosial, Ekonomi Dan Ekologi, Dr. Zulkifli Rangkuti

Zulkifli Rangkuti

No abstract provided.

The United States – Korea Free Trade Agreement:, Y.S. Lee

Y.S. Lee

The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, currently awaiting ratification of legislatures of both countries, is known to be the most significant bilateral trade agreement since the conclusion of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Both governments have promoted the U.S.-Korea FTA as the trade agreement that will enhance trade between the two countries and promote economic prosperity. The article critically reviews the inherent features of the U.S.-Korea FTA and examines whether the FTA is expected to promote the promised economic prosperity.

Political Economy Of Policymaking In Paraguay, Robert Andrew Nickson

Robert Andrew Nickson

The main objective of this chapter is to analyze the public policymaking process in Paraguay, particularly with regard to the formulation and implementation of policies that affect the generation of remunerative employment. Concretely, the chapter addresses how the broad institutional (i.e., political, administrative and legal) environment influences—both negatively and positively—the potential for formulating and implementing a medium-term employment strategy for poverty reduction in Paraguay. The main policymaking focus of the employment strategy will be on the private sector. However, the potential contribution of an employment strategy for the public sector itself towards poverty reduction is also considered.

The formulation 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 …

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 …

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 …