Law Commons^™

When Common Interests Are Not Common: Why The Global Basic Structure Should Be Democratic, Andreas Føllesdal

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The global constitution-the fundamental international norms and structures that serve constitutional functions-should include mechanisms of democratic contestation and accountability. This central claim of global constitutionalism faces three objections extrapolated from arguments made by Andrew Moravcsik and Giandomenico Majone in debates about the democratic deficit of the European Union (EU): the global constitution only regulates issues of low salience for citizens; democratic control is explicitly counter to the self-binding system that international regulations aim to achieve; and the EU's track record suggests that democratic control at the international level may be unnecessary to ensure congruence between voters' preferences and actual regulations. …

Multilayered Governance, Pluralism, And Moral Conflict, Thomas Cottier

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The quest for multilayered governance faces the problem of endemic tensions and disagreements in international relations and doubts as to whether nations truly share common values upon which an international society can be solidly built. Values, however, are equally controversial within the nation-state. We find similar tensions within domestic and regional layers of governance. In any system of governance, diverging and competing values are inevitable. There are differences in degree, but not in principle, when comparing traits of domestic and international governance. Legal experience in the fields of human rights and international trade regulation indicates that under such conditions, procedures …

Introduction: Operationalizing Global Governance, Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Operationalizing Global Governance, Symposium. Indiana University Maurer School of Law-Bloomington, Indiana, March 19-21, 2008

Emerging Global Environmental Governance, N. Brian Winchester

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Environmental thinking and activism are steadily gaining widespread, even global acceptance, but are often in conflict with economic interests and international politics. Environmental priorities are further challenged by scientific uncertainty involving effects that in some cases will only become manifest far into the future. Nonetheless, accompanying this global environmental awakening has been an extraordinary number of international agreements on a wide range of critical environmental issues. While many of these environmental regimes lack adequate financial support and sanctions for non-compliance, they involve a variety of non-state actors, suggesting meaningful movement towards an evolving, complex form of global environmental governance. Indeed, …

Deliberative Democracy In Severely Fractured Societies, Adeno Addis

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The world is full of boundaries. Whatever their nature, boundaries provide the conditions for communal or individual identity and agency, and they make collective action possible. That very capacity to define and contain, however, allows boundaries to "close off possibilities of being that might otherwise flourish." Paradoxically, boundaries "both foster and inhibit freedom." This article explores how one particular boundary-ethnicity- has served both as an important source of identity and a cause of deep fracture in societies that this article calls "severely fractured." The purpose of the article is to explore what institutional structures and processes might be appropriate to …

An Essay On The Emergence Of Constitutional Courts: The Cases Of Mexico And Columbia, Miguel Schor

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This essay explores the emergence of the Mexican Supreme Court and the Colombian Constitutional Court as powerful political actors. Mexico and Colombia undertook constitutional transformations designed to empower their respective national high courts in the 1990s to facilitate a democratic transition. These constitutional transformations opened up political space for the Mexican Supreme Court and the Colombian Constitutional Court to begin to displace political actors in the tasks of constitutional construction and maintenance.

These two courts play different roles, however, in their respective democratic orders. Mexico chose to empower its Supreme Court to police vertical and horizontal separation of powers whereas …

Pain, Gain, Or Shame: The Evolution Of Environmental Law And The Role Of Multinational Corporations, Michael Ewing-Chow, Darryl Soh

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The evolution of environmental law in the past century has been linked to the growing acceptance of the notion of collective global responsibility, which entails the notion of sustainable development. At the turn of this century, the focus in environmental law has shifted from the creation of a global framework to deal with environmental problems to that of compliance with these frameworks. As a result, the primary actor of environmental policy has shifted from the state to the corporation. How has environmental law developed so as to encourage compliance by this new primary actor? Conversely, how has the corporation been …

"We're Very Apolitical": Examining The Role Of The International Legal Assistance Expert, Blake K. Puckett

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

International rule of law practitioners are important sources of knowledge transmission in the promotion of global governance. Yet they face significant barriers in their role as bearers of a globalizing legal culture. This article analyzes three of these barriers in the context of rule of law promotion in Central Asia. First, practitioners tend to dismiss the political nature of their work, which local actors then appropriate for their own purposes. Second, this misconception is amplified by the lack of adequate training, experience and continuity among rule of law practitioners. Third, the language barrier and the challenge of translation remain underappreciated. …

Civil Society And Disability Rights In Post-Soviet Ukraine: Ngos And Prospects For Change, Sarah D. Phillips

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article uses an anthropological approach to critically examine the limitations and successes of the contemporary disability rights movement in post-Soviet Ukraine. Case studies of rights legislation and the work of disability advocacy NGOs are detailed to illustrate the paradoxes and problems that imbricate disability rights issues, and the strategies some activists have leveraged to successfully navigate these challenges. The article suggests specific tactics that rights groups in Ukraine might pursue to further enact change in their communities, including pursuing more international partnerships fielding candidates for political office, and launching informational and image campaigns.

Operationalizing Global Governance, Symposium. Indiana University …

A Framework For Understanding Accountability Of International Ngos And Global Good Governance, Michael Szporluk

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) promote good governance through global advocacy and through relief and development work. This article focuses on the latter role. While there are legitimate criticisms of INGOs' lack of accountability, this article argues that a review of the different stakeholders in the relief and development sector and their relationships with one another reveals valuable information about what accountability means and to whom stakeholders should be accountable. The article posits that INGOs should be accountable, above all, to the communities where they are implementing projects. Finally, the article points to many efforts being undertaken by INGOs to improve …

Representativity, Civil Society, And The Eu Social Dialogue: Lessons From The International Labor Organization, Faina Milman-Sivan

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article addresses representativity questions that arise from the formal insertion of private,functional groups within the European Union (EU) governance via the EU social dialogue. It depicts the representativity debate at the EU social dialogue and suggests that important lessons can be learned through the examination of another institutional context in which similar questions have been raised and addressed: the International Labor Organization (ILO) tripartite structure. In addition, it ascertains that the issue of representativity of the EU social partners would further benefit from viewing it in the broader context of the EU "democratic deficit." The article concludes that such …

Navigating The Turbulent Waters Connecting The World Trade Organization And Corporate Social Responsibility, Gustavo Ferreira Ribeiro

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper uses the metaphor of a fisherman's journey into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) "seas" to explore the relationship between them. It is intended to provide the reader with a basic understanding of this relationship. An argument can be made that the WTO and CSR waters are not connected at all: the WTO is an intergovernmental organization regulating rights and duties of its members (mainly states), while CSR concerns primarily non-governmental initiatives dealing with corporate behavior, such as voluntary codes of conduct and certification processes involving social and environmental standards. However, this paper explores …

"The Momentous Gravity Of The State Of Things Now Obtaining": Annoying Westphalian Objections To The Idea Of Global Governance, Timothy W. Waters

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Are there situations in which otherwise attractively complex, sub- and cross-national networks are unlikely to replace the hoary old Westphalian state? Perhaps, but whatever the answer, global governance as a discipline seems to have a hard time fully considering the question. One oft he problems with operationalizing global governance may be the simultaneous profligacy and poverty of the idea itself: its definitional overemphasis on change and consequent inattention to the state's capacity to reconstitute its core functions and thus to achieve a predictable continuity. As a result, for all the excellent work done under its name, global governance as a …