Search Results

This book provides a legal analysis of the institutional mechanisms and processes which the United Nations (UN) employs force to maintain or restore international peace. The focus is both on the law pertaining to the use of force by the UN and on the development of the emerging institutional processes which the UN uses to maintain international peace. The UN Charter constitutes a collective security system which gives the UN Security Council the primary role to maintain and restore peace and, under Chapter VII, broad powers to achieve these objectives. To deal with an increasing demand for military enforcement action, coupled with its limited military and financial resources, the Security Council delegates its Chapter VII powers to some states (for example the coalition against Iraq) and invokes the regional possibility (a delegation of power to regional arrangements).

This chapter focuses on the role of institutions in facilitating treaty effectiveness. It discusses the importance of international agreements in promoting and sustaining cooperation. It considers treaty design to further reflect on the type of treaties, and the various mechanisms stipulated in these agreements, that contribute to treaty effectiveness by assuaging conflict in situations of water scarcity and increased variability. The chapter argues that the design of a treaty seems particularly relevant in regions where climate change and water variability could impact the ability of basin states to effectively manage shared water. The chapter demonstrates how various mechanisms such as different water allocation mechanisms, as well as additional stipulations, such as, side-payments, issue-linkage, benefit-sharing, adaptability, and information exchange, affect the performance of the treaty in the context of water scarcity and variability. These mechanisms are examined from an empirical and large-n perspective, assessing how treaties with such mechanisms fare compared to treaties devoid of these mechanisms.

This chapter explores organizational case-study research as a means to discover and explain the novel institutional mechanisms they contain. It addresses three problems that CR researchers are confronted with as they develop case-study research. Firstly, the chapter considers the ontological question: ‘what is an organization?’ In tackling this question the chapter extends a framework that categorizes the types of institutional mechanisms which CR researchers can expect to discover through organizational case-study research. Secondly, the chapter considers how researchers might structure their projects to develop novel insights about institutional mechanisms in their research practice. Here, the chapter suggests exploratory, exceptional, and qualifying case studies as three modes of engagement that researchers can employ to ensure or develop novel outcomes. Thirdly, it discusses the issue of data organization and management, specifically, where the researcher’s goal is to explain novel institutional mechanism(s).

This chapter analyses the ‘World Bank’ comprised of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). It traces how transnational environmental advocacy networks (TEANs) used campaigns to oppose the Bank's operations in order to prevent or mitigate the negative environmental impacts of Bank-backed projects and provides a history of the first high profile cases of Polonoroeste in Brazil and Narmada in India where TEANs first challenged the WBG. This chapter also assesses how the networks pressured for institutional mechanisms to ensure greater environmental accountability and adherence to strengthened safeguards and examines the ongoing process of identity change within the World Bank and its affiliates.

This chapter evaluates explores the generalizability of the findings from the in-depth case studies through several more abbreviated case studies of former British colonies. It analyzes eleven additional former British colonies to determine the institutional mechanisms that influenced postcolonial development. These include Hong Kong, Barbados and Malaysia. The findings confirm that indirect rule is strongly and negatively related to broad-based development.

In a recent report by the World Bank, the delivery of public services in India was cited as poor. The report attributed the bad service delivery to poor accountability and lack of autonomy. The problem appears to have something to do with the institutional mechanism for service delivery. This chapter examines the institutional mechanisms adopted by several countries—United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Sweden, and Canada for service delivery in order to determine an appropriate mechanism that could improve the capacity of India’s civil service to deliver effective public services. The key for these countries is the creation of executive agencies for delivering public services. In India, special purpose vehicles have been set up to deliver public services. This chapter also describes about the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

This chapter dwells on the regulatory structure of biotechnology in India. Ranging from the 1989 rules on manufacture and use of genetically engineered organisms until the 2013 biotechnology regulatory authority of India bill, all the rules, regulations, guidelines, protocols, and bills on biotechnology regulation in India have been discussed and analyzed. The institutional mechanism for regulation of biotechnology in India comprising various technical, review, advisory, and approval committees have been presented and appraised. The approach of the Government of India towards biotechnology promotion, the Indian Parliament’s concerns on biotechnology in agriculture, and the Supreme Court’s technical appraisal of biotechnology promotion and regulation have been debated and highlighted. The objective of the chapter is to present, analyze, and highlight the existing and prospective regulatory mechanisms in India on biotechnology with its policy underpinnings from different organizations of the Government of India.

A key dimension of transformative constitutionalism has been the inclusion of justiciable socio-economic rights in Constitutions of the Global South. Yet, to ensure these rights are enforceable, it is necessary to consider whether individuals in these societies can gain access to justice. This chapter first offers a theoretical conception of access to justice as a capability which has two dimensions: an internal dimension relating to the empowerment of individuals to make such claims, and an external dimension relating to the design and availability of institutional mechanisms that are set up to hear these claims and adjudicate upon them. This theoretical perspective is then applied to one particular context to attain the required depth—namely, that of South Africa. The main institutional architecture of the South African democratic constitutional order relating to access to justice is outlined and the shortcomings thereof highlighted. The chapter attempts to provide concrete solutions to these problems as well as possible policy recommendations to enhance access to justice—some of these are drawn from the comparative experience of other Global South countries such as Colombia and India. Ultimately, the chapter links theory and practice: it utilizes a theoretical perspective to generate practical recommendations for enhancing access to justice for all in South Africa.

This chapter examines the factors and processes in how worst cases are imagined. It analyzes the mental and institutional mechanisms at work when people imagine things. It suggests that whether we are looking forward in anticipation or looking back to make sense of a situation the imagination is at work, holding some factors at bay while highlighting others, creating scenarios and then trying to convince ourselves and others of their reasonableness. This chapter also explores the relation between cognitive resilience and virtual worst cases, and explains how to tell a good “what if” from a bad one.

This chapter advocates education for peace, characterized by the UN Secretary-General as ‘the road to peace’. The chapter builds on and expands the idea that education concerning the components of peace, which are discussed in the previous chapters, constitutes a pivotal part of the institutional implementation of peace and a way forward into a more peaceful future. The chapter explores this concept, suggests a tangible approach to education for peace, and explains its importance for promoting peace. The chapter concentrates largely on different sources from the United Nations and international law that refer to the promotion of peace, keeping in mind the institutional mechanisms to foster peace.

This chapter shows that the pursuit of peace often makes use of three institutional mechanisms — church, custom, and law. Contrary to popular perceptions of ‘closed’ island societies, this approach revolves around a basic openness to foreigners and foreignness. This openness is accompanied by a widely shared sense that people — whether they be locals or foreigners — have reciprocal rights. The chapter highlights an extensive and complex entanglement of social relations whereby problems in one realm of life, such as illness, can be entwined with those in another, such as land disputes. One implication of these complex interdependent relationships is that locals, rather than outsiders, are best placed to devise satisfactory conflict resolution interventions.

This Introduction looks at what this next part of the book is about. The chapters that follow defend robust constitutionalism, which is that the value of binding constitutional directives and the value of institutional mechanisms aimed at protecting these provisions, such as judicial review, do not just hinge on their contingent contribution to the substantive merit of the political or legal decisions. Constitutions in addition to judicial review are not just instruments to guarantee good, just or coherent decisions, they are also valuable for other reasons. Binding constitutional provisions and judicial review are valuable because they transform and restructure the relations between the state and citizens in various ways.