Search Results

There are currently two types of ‘dualism’ in patterns of resource use within developing countries that are relevant to the problem of resource degradation and poverty. The first ‘dualism’ concerns aggregate resource use and dependency within the global economy. The second ‘dualism’ concerns aggregate resource use and dependency within a developing economy. This ‘dualism within dualism’ pattern is symptomatic of a process of resource-based development, accompanied by substantial resource conversion, which often leads to benefits that are inequitably distributed. To reverse this ‘vicious cycle’, specific policies must be aimed at overcoming the structural features of ‘dualism within dualism’ in resource use patterns. Second, policies must also be introduced that improve the overall success of resource-based development that is accompanied by frontier land expansion. Specific policies include reform of land, tax, credit, and other economic policies that generally reinforce the dominance of wealthier households in natural resource and land markets, and promote the speculative investment in these resources as tax shelters.

Using case studies focusing on how developed nations impose environmental risks on developing countries, the chapter reveals how the U.S. and other nations ship banned pesticides or hazardous waste to developing nations. The chapter analyzes the concepts of equal protection and moral heroism or supererogation. It argues that most indigenous people do not give genuine informed consent to such risks and that it is not paternalistic to protect native people. Extending and developing arguments of Peter Singer, the chapter also argues that ordinary citizens have duties (that are not heroic) to help protect innocent victims from first‐world exploitation, even though there are many economic incentives that lead nations to exploit the poor of the world.

This chapter proposes corollaries to basic industrial policy theory, ones based on the outcome of China's telecommunications transformation. It indicates a few points other developing nations should heed if they target key sectors for focused state economic policy intervention. Governments should avoid breeding corrupt practices, limit economic isolation from foreign investment, and encourage some forms of global competition. The chapter argues that if the area chosen for state intervention is well considered, competition is encouraged, and global economic forces are skillfully harnessed, other nations can emulate the equivalent of China's telecommunications revolution in a broad array of economic sectors.

Chapter 1 begins by stressing the severity of climate change (CC) and showing how, contrary to popular belief, atomic energy is not a viable solution to CC. Many scientists and most market proponents agree that renewable energy and energy efficiencies are better options. The chapter also shows that government subsidies for oil and nuclear power are the result of flawed science, poor ethics, short-term thinking, and special-interest influence. The chapter has 7 sections, the first of which surveys four major components of the energy crisis. These are oil addiction, non-CC-related deaths from fossil-fuel pollution, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and catastrophic CC. The second section summarizes some of the powerful evidence for global CC. The third section uses historical, ahistorical, Rawlsian, and utilitarian ethical principles to show how developed nations, especially the US, are most responsible for human-caused CC. The fourth section shows why climate-change skeptics, such as “deniers” who doubt CC is real, and “delayers” who say that it should not yet be addressed, have no valid objections. Instead, they all err scientifically and ethically. The fifth section illustrates that all modern scientific methods—and scientific consensus since at least 1995—confirm the reality of global CC. Essentially all expert-scientific analyses published in refereed, scientific-professional journals confirm the reality of global CC. The sixth section of the chapter shows how fossil-fuel special interests have contributed to the continued CC debate largely by paying non-experts to deny or challenge CC. The seventh section of the chapter provides an outline of each chapter in the book, noting that this book makes use of both scientific and ethical analyses to show why nuclear proponents’ arguments err, why CC deniers are wrong, and how scientific-methodological understanding can advance sound energy policy—including conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiencies.

This chapter describes the Chinese reemergence on the world stage in the 1970s, particularly following their entry into the UN in 1971, and China's attempt to put itself at the head of a rising Third World movement. In order to rebuild its global standing in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, China sought help from the Third World, which blamed the developed nations for economic injustice. The mantle of “Third World unity” in the struggle for economic justice against the “two superpowers” (USA and Soviet Union) provided China with exactly the platform it needed. The Soviet Union answered this reemergence by creating a “natural alliance” between the developing world and the socialist camp against the West. This policy was successful and ultimately situated the Soviet Union as the main champion of the revolution.

This chapter examines how natural resource extraction and armed violence cause social and environmental harm. It first considers armed violence as one of several overlapping and mutually reinforcing elite-controlled mechanisms that enable governments and corporations to control or gain disproportionate access to the natural resource wealth of developing nations. It then shows how armed violence is linked to natural resource extraction in many parts of the world by highlighting ten minerals that contribute to the functioning of the U.S. economy and/or military. It also presents a set of short case studies to illustrate the violent activities associated with the extraction of manganese and copper and goes on to discuss how armed violence supported the activities of the world's three largest mining companies: Rio Tinto, CVRD/Vale, and BHP Billiton. Finally, the chapter demonstrates how armed violence works in conjunction with other elite-controlled organizations and mechanisms by focusing on several mechanisms employed by the World Bank to promote natural resource extraction in Africa.

Using case studies focusing on biased scientific research that helps promote environmental injustice, the chapter argues that there are both deontological and utilitarian ethical reasons for citizens to behave as public‐interest and environmental advocates. These duties are to protect victims of environmental injustice. The chapter also argues that such duties are not a matter of moral heroism or supererogation, but rather normal duties of citizenship in a democracy. Analyzing constraints on public‐interest advocacy, the chapter closes by suggesting a number of ways that citizens might exercise their duties of public‐interest advocacy, particularly through work with nongovernmental organizations or N.G.O.s.

This introductory chapter discusses how our current response to climate change has been inadequate and inequitable. During UN climate negotiations, nations still talk about climate inaction. Developed countries emphasize the importance of climate issues, but climate change is largely a product of their own unconstrained greenhouse gas emissions. Nations downplay their historical responsibilities for the problem, demanding instead that all nations take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—an issue described here as climate injustice. In addition, power relations continue to shift in new ways, particularly as the world warms. The chapter explores these shifting power dynamics and considers their impact on our ability to take sustainable and equitable action, and how we can change course.

This chapter begins by discussing how people's reliance on energy made clear the importance of energy security. It then discusses the history of energy use, security, and imposed geopolitical risk. It also discusses the concept and characteristics of energy security, and mentions several issues in energy security among nations. It provides a brief description of all the chapters discussed in this book.

This chapter focuses on the energy security in Africa. It describes Africa as blessed with abundant energy resources, more than enough to supply her needs. It adds that Africa is underdeveloped, with almost all the countries being classified as low in development, and half ranking amongst the least developed in the world. It notes that development is impossible, or at most an uphill task, in any place where there is no access to conventional energy. It explains that the difference between the rural dweller in a village in Africa and a city dweller lies in the amount of energy available for his use. The chapter is a discourse on energy security in Africa, primarily through the study of continental initiatives under the auspices of the African Union, and on sub-regional cooperative efforts that are aimed at addressing the issue of energy security in west and southern Africa.

This chapter presents an introduction to issues related to intellectual property. The battle over intellectual property has risen to the forefront of contemporary international contests in which developed and developing nations often find themselves in opposing camps. The chapter reveals that as developed nations moved into high-technology industries and services in the last few decades of the twentieth century, they came to rely on knowledge as the central component of their economies. The movement of manufacturing to the developing world has rendered intellectual capital the most important asset of developed nations. Developing nations, on the other hand, resist Western standards of intellectual property, charging that they are economically self-serving and that the developed world, led by the United States, applies these standards in an inconsistent manner. The chapter also discusses the concept of United States champions' worldwide originality and innovation as objective criteria that establish a claim on intellectual property.

This chapter shows how economic instruments can align the rights and obligations of employers and migrants to keep guest worker programs truer to their purpose. It further explains how to minimize the distortion and dependence that are inevitable in guest worker programs, how cooperation can ensure that the exodus of highly skilled migrants does not slow development in countries of origin, and how various policies can protect the rights of migrants. The chapter addresses an important question: “How can guest worker programs be managed so that the inequalities promoting migration narrow over time?” It also proposes that developed nations partially replenish the human capital they have attracted from developing countries by supporting and strengthening primary and secondary schooling systems in migrant countries of origin. For unskilled migrants, the chapter proposes taxes and subsidies to align the rights and duties of employers and migrants.

This chapter discusses how there can be no development and growth without capital, but capital alone does not suffice for development. Other things—phenomena and processes—must happen simultaneously to mobilize capital in ways that would bring about higher output levels and better living standards. Socioeconomic development is an upward movement of the entire socioeconomic system. It occurs through quantitative and qualitative changes in the sphere of production and consumption. Development can also be manifested through the technology of production, methods of management, economic policies, cultural preferences and values, social relations formed within the course of the reproduction processes, and the state of natural environment. The question of output growth and socioeconomic development must be seen as part of a worldwide configuration, laid out in two approaches: the first begins with the economically developed and advanced countries with fixed capitalistic systems; and the other focuses on those that are frequently referred to as “developing” nations.

The book concludes by showing how statements from leaders in India and China today still reek of victimization. Rather then emphasizing the fact that India and China were the victors in colonialism, they continue to emphasize the wrongs done to them. It shows how this book has offered a new way to think about both international relations theory and India, and China. It then offers new pathways for research.

This chapter raises the question of the basis of global health duty to wealthy and developed nations—that they should make a concerted effort to provide medical care for developing nations. There are two approaches that can be used to address the global health duty: language and human rights. Language can determine how a problem is framed and offer a variety of solutions to that effect. The human rights angle is based on judiciary concerns, although there has yet to be a specific mandate for that right.