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212. Free Trade, Smart Borders, and Homeland Security: U.S.-Caribbean Cooperation in a New Era of Vulnerability
- Author:
- Stephen Flynn and Anthony Bryan
- Publication Date:
- 09-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The North-South Center, University of Miami
- Abstract:
- In the hours following the collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers on September 11, 2001, the United States applied a tourniquet to the transportation arteries that feed its national economy. The first campaign in the war to protect the U.S. homeland turned out to be an embargo on its own economy. Given the uncertainty surrounding the attacks, freezing its transport networks first and asking questions later was probably appropriate. But then came the hard part—how to resume global trade and travel after U.S. citizens' confidence in the security of their nation had been rocked to core? In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States, front-line agencies like the U.S. Customs Service, Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Department of Agriculture, and Border Patrol were being called upon to open U.S. borders and seaports once again to legitimate trade and travel. At the same time, they were tasked with exercising increased vigilance in detecting and intercepting would-be terrorists or the means of terrorism, including weapons of mass destruction that might be smuggled in a vehicle, train, truck, or maritime container. Just how the United States arrives at the appropriate balance—between openness to facilitate legitimate commerce and exercising sufficient controls to stem transnational threats to public safety and security—is one of the most critical public policy challenges confronting U.S.-Caribbean relations.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States and Caribbean
213. Achievements in Building and Maintaining the Rule of Law:MSI's Studies in LAC, E, AFR, and ANE
- Publication Date:
- 11-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United States Agency for International Development
- Abstract:
- Over the past two decades the Latin America and Caribbean region (LAC) has undergone a major political transformation. All countries in the region now have elected civilian governments, with the sole exception of Cuba. With this political opening have come economic liberalization and increased opportunities for citizen participation. The region has moved beyond the formality of elections and is now confronting the more difficult challenge of reforming its other political, economic, and legal institutions.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Civil Society, Diplomacy, and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Cuba, Latin America, and Caribbean
214. The Carter Center News, July-December 2002
- Publication Date:
- 12-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Carter Center
- Abstract:
- Building hope is the ultimate goal of the Carter Center's mission to wage peace and fight disease worldwide. We empower people to take control of their own problems by sharing with them the knowledge they need to build a more positive future.
- Topic:
- Democratization and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South America, and Caribbean
215. Access To Information: A Key To Democracy
- Author:
- Laura Newman
- Publication Date:
- 11-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Carter Center
- Abstract:
- Citizens and their leaders around the world have long recognized the risk of corruption. Corruption diverts scarce resources from necessary public services, and instead puts it in the pockets of politicians, middlemen and illicit contractors, while ensuring that the poor do not receive the benefits of this "system". The consequences of corruption globally have been clear: unequal access to public services and justice, reduced investor confidence, continued poverty, and even violence and overthrow of governments. A high level of corruption is a singularly pernicious societal problem that also undermines the rule of law and citizen confidence in democratic institutions.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Democratization, Government, Human Rights, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and North America
216. Back to the Nest? Europe's Relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries
- Author:
- John Ravenhill
- Publication Date:
- 12-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute of European Studies
- Abstract:
- Europe's association with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries was the first of its interregional relationships. In the nearly half century since the signature of the Treaty of Rome, it developed into Europe's most institutionalized and multidimensional interregional relationship. It embraces not only trade and investment issues but also a development "partnership" that includes what has traditionally been the EU's largest single aid program, a joint parliamentary assembly, meetings of organizations representing civil society, and a dialogue on human rights. This chapter examines the factors that have shaped this relationship over the last four decades. The principal focus is on the trade regime, not just for consistency with the other contributions to this volume but also because it is in its trade dimension that the relationship has changed most dramatically over time.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Caribbean, and Rome
217. Toward A Sustainable FTAA: Does Latin America Meet The Necessary Financial Preconditions?
- Author:
- Liliana Rojas-Suarez
- Publication Date:
- 07-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Abstract:
- This paper focuses on identifying preconditions that will ensure the sustainability of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). It argues that the macro, micro, and political conditions advanced in the literature to measure a country's ability to compete internationally, while necessary, are not sufficient to ensure the success and permanence of a free trade agreement. Instead, two additional financial conditions are needed. The first is that each partner in the free trade area needs to have sustainable public debts as determined by the achievement of credible and sustainable structural fiscal balances. The second is that exchange rate regimes across trading partners should be compatible in the sense that adverse shocks in one country do not generate a policy dilemma in other partners between abandoning their exchange rate system or the free trade area.
- Topic:
- Economics and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- South America, Latin America, Central America, and Caribbean
218. Report from Havana: Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward Cuba
- Author:
- Jonathan G. Clarke and William Ratliff
- Publication Date:
- 10-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Official U.S. and Cuban depictions of the effects of the U.S. embargo differ notably from Cuban economic reality. This report, based on the authors' recent visits to Havana and interviews with top Cuban officials, dissidents, and other private citizens, shows that the embargo is not responsible for Cuba's poor economic condition—as Havana claims—nor has it been effective at achieving Washington's goal of isolating the Cuban regime.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Cuba, Latin America, Caribbean, and Havana
219. Caribbean Tourism: Igniting the Engines of Sustainable Growth
- Author:
- Anthony T. Bryan
- Publication Date:
- 11-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The North-South Center, University of Miami
- Abstract:
- Tourism drives economic growth in ways that make it one of the best engines for job creation and development for poor countries that possess natural beauty and relevant infrastructure. The industry is highly labor intensive and encourages entrepreneurship. Under its ambit, property owners, restaurants, and local suppliers of goods and services, among others, develop the habits of risk taking without which no economy can realize its full potential. Tourism holds out the prospect of a better life for those stakeholders who make money from it. Not unlike trade, it improves an economy's competitiveness. Trade does so because it stimulates local suppliers to match the quality and variety of imported goods. Tourism does so because returning travelers to a destination demand the goods and services they have seen in other countries (Elliott 2001).
- Topic:
- Development, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, Latin America, and Caribbean
220. Protest and Collaboration: Transnational Civil Society Networks and the Politics of Summitry and Free Trade in the Americas
- Author:
- Patricio Korzeniewicz and William C. Smith
- Publication Date:
- 09-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The North-South Center, University of Miami
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the politics of hemispheric integration exemplified by the Summits of the Americas held in Miami (1994), Santiago (1998), and Quebec (2001) and the negotiations over the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Our basic premise is that political and institutional arrangements articulating state, society, and economy in Latin America are currently in the midst of a process of reconfiguration unleashed by the acceleration of globalization and attendant crises of state-centered development strategies. More specifically, we believe the Americas are witnessing the emergence of an ensemble of new social and political actors, among the most salient of which are new social movements and civil society organizations (CSOs), organized in networks operating at the domestic, regional, and global levels.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, North America, and Miami