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1732. The Constitutional Protection of Socio-Economic Rights in Selected African Countries: A Comparative Evaluation
- Author:
- John Cantius Mubangizi
- Publication Date:
- 03-2006
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- African Journal of Legal Studies
- Institution:
- The Africa Law Institute
- Abstract:
- This article evaluates the extent to which a few selected African countries have incorporated socio-economic rights in their constitutions, the mechanisms through which such rights are realised, the challenges such realisation entails and the approach taken by the courts and other human rights institutions in those countries towards the realisation and enforcement of those rights. The survey examines South Africa, Namibia, Uganda and Ghana. Apart from the logical geographical spread, all these countries enacted their present constitutions around the same time (1990 to 1996) in an attempt to transform themselves into democratic societies. In a sense, these countries can be seen as transitional societies, emerging as they have done, from long periods of apartheid and foreign domination or autocratic dictatorships. The latter is true for Uganda and Ghana while the former refers to South Africa and Namibia. The article concludes that South Africa has not only made the most advanced constitutional provision for socio-economic rights, it has also taken the lead in the judicial enforcement of such rights, an experience from which the other countries in the survey can learn.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Africa
1733. Genomics, Insurance and Human Rights: Is there a Place for Regulatory Frameworks in Africa?
- Author:
- Vincent O. Nmehielle
- Publication Date:
- 03-2006
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- African Journal of Legal Studies
- Institution:
- The Africa Law Institute
- Abstract:
- This article examines the human rights dimension of genetic discrimination in Africa, exploring the place of regulatory frameworks while taking into account the disadvantaged position of the average African. This is in response to the tendency of insurance companies toward making health insurance decisions on the basis of individual genetic information, which could result in genetic discrimination or health insurance discrimination based on a person’s genetic profile. The author considers such questions as the intersection between human rights (right to life, health, privacy, human dignity and against genetic discrimination) in relation to the insurance industry, as well as the obligations of state and non-state actors to promote, respect, and protect the enjoyment of these rights. The article argues that African nations should not stand aloof in trying to balance the competing interests (scientific, economic and social) presented by the use of genetic information in the health care context and that ultimately it is the responsibility of states to develop domestic policies to protect their most vulnerable citizens and to prevent entrenched private discrimination based on an individual’s genes.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, Human Rights, and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Africa
1734. Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
- Publication Date:
- 03-2006
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- African Journal of Legal Studies
- Institution:
- The Africa Law Institute
- Abstract:
- These Rules of Procedure and Evidence as first amended on 7 March 2003, are applicable pursuant to Article 14 of the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and entered into force on 12 April 2002.
- Topic:
- Development, Government, and International Law
- Political Geography:
- Africa
1735. European Chemical Policy and the United States: The Impacts of REACH
- Author:
- Rachel Massey, Frank Ackerman, and Liz Stanton
- Publication Date:
- 09-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- The European Union is moving toward adoption of its new Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) policy, an innovative system of chemicals regulation that will provide crucial information on the safety profile of chemicals used in industry. Chemicals produced elsewhere, such as in the United States, and exported to Europe will have to meet the same standards as chemicals produced within the European Union. What is at stake for the U.S. is substantial: we estimate that chemical exports to Europe that are subject to REACH amount to about $14 billion per year, and are directly and indirectly responsible for 54,000 jobs. Revenues and employment of this magnitude dwarf the costs of compliance with REACH, which will amount to no more than $14 million per year. Even if, as the U.S. chemicals industry has argued, REACH is a needless mistake, it will be far more profitable to pay the modest compliance costs than to lose access to the enormous European market.
- Topic:
- Government, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
1736. Feeding the Factory Farm: Implicit Subsidies to the Broiler Chicken Industry
- Author:
- Elanor Starmer, Timothy A. Wise, and Aimee Witteman
- Publication Date:
- 06-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Since the passage of the 1996 Farm Bill, the U.S. market prices of soybeans and corn have dropped 21% and 32%, respectively. These commodities are sold on the market at a price below what they cost to produce. If U.S. agricultural policies contribute to this trend, then they do so to the benefit of commodity purchasers, particularly the industrial operations that use the commodities as raw material inputs. Corporate-owned livestock operations are a case in point. This paper focuses on the broiler chicken industry, which, in the United States, is fully industrialized and vertically integrated. We compare the average costs of production for broiler feed components—corn and soybean meal—with market prices, and then use these cost-price margins to estimate the amount broiler companies save by being able to purchase feed at a price below production costs. We find that the broiler industry gained monetary benefits averaging $1.25 billion per year between 1997 and 2005 when, following the passage of the 1996 Farm Bill, market prices dropped far below production costs. In contrast, broiler industry gains from low market prices averaged a much smaller $377 million per year between 1986 and 1996. We conclude that the corporate broiler industry is a major winner from changes to U.S. agriculture policy that have allowed feed prices to fall. This finding is not significantly altered when we adjust our calculations to account for the overvaluation of agricultural land, nor does it appear to reverse under future cost/price scenarios. As policymakers turn their attention to the 2007 Farm Bill, they would do well to examine the ways in which agribusiness firms in general, and industrial livestock operations in particular, benefit from policies ostensibly designed to support family farmers. Current U.S. farm policies may be driving industrialization in the livestock production system if they give factory operations the appearance of being more cost efficient than diversified, independent operations that grow their own feed.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Government, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States
1737. Higher Education as a Form of European Integration: How Novel is the Bologna Process?
- Author:
- Anne Corbett
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Research Papers Archive
- Abstract:
- This paper argues that at a time in which higher education has become central to the concerns of EU institutions as well as national governments, it is helpful to understand current policy initiatives - both the spin offs from the EU's Lisbon strategy and the intergovernmental Bologna Process – in the comparative terms of the dynamics of policy-making. Drawing on institutionalist frameworks biased towards process (Kingdon 1984, March and Olsen 1989, Barzelay 2003) and comparative historical analysis, it presents policy initiatives from the period 1955-87, including the supranational European University proposal and the Erasmus programme, as both historical events, and theorised configurations of agenda setting, alternative specification, and choice. It suggests that such a framework can be helpful to both those interested primarily in European integration and those whose interests lie in the dynamics of higher education policy-making in a multi-level setting.
- Topic:
- Development, Education, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Lisbon
1738. Divided Government European Style? Electoral and Mechanical Causes of European Parliament and Council Divisions
- Author:
- Philip Manow and Holger Döring
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Research Papers Archive
- Abstract:
- Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament tend to use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party-political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the Council. This study, which compares empirically the party-political centers of gravity of these two central political actors, shows that opposed majorities between Council and Parliament may have other than simply electoral causes. The logic of domestic government formation works against the representation of politically more extreme parties, and hence against more EU-skeptic parties in the Council. At the same time, voters in EP elections vote more often for these more extreme and more EU-skeptic parties. The different locations of Council and Parliament in the pro-/contra-EU dimension may thus be caused by two – possibly interrelated – effects: a mechanical effect, due to the translation of votes into seats and then into ‘office’, and thus also into Council representation, and an electoral effect in elections to the European Parliament. The paper discusses the implications of this fi nding for our understanding of the political system of the EU and of its democratic legitimacy.
- Topic:
- Government, Politics, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe
1739. European Constitutional Identity?
- Author:
- Wojciech Sadurski
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Research Papers Archive
- Abstract:
- The language of common European constitutional identity is distinguishable from that of common European constitutional traditions in that the former does not focus so centrally on the past, and is independent of the legal doctrinal language of the EU law. When discussing constitutional identity, there are, in particular, the following four questions which deserve to be addressed: (1) What are we doing when we are “constructing” the European constitutional identity; what are the features of the interpretation leading to such a construction? (2) What values/ideals/principles are a part of our constitutional identity? (3) How does European constitutional identity relate to the specific constitutional identities of European nation-states? (4) What is the relationship between the discourse about political integration within the EU and the existence of European CI, as separate from, and paramount to, identities of member states? On that last issue it is submitted that there is no simple connection between ascertaining the dominant identity at a particular level and the implications for the division of authority between the European and national levels within the EU.
- Topic:
- Government, International Cooperation, and Nationalism
- Political Geography:
- Europe
1740. 'Solange, chapter 3': Constitutional Courts in Central Europe – Democracy – European Union
- Author:
- Wojciech Sadurski
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Research Papers Archive
- Abstract:
- Soon after the accession of eight post-communist States from Central and Eastern Europe to the EU, the constitutional courts of some of these countries questioned the principle of supremacy of EU law over national constitutional systems, on the basis of their being the guardians of national standards of protection of human rights and of democratic principles. In doing so, they entered into the well-known pattern of behaviour favoured by a number of constitutional courts of the “older Europe”, which is called a “Solange story” for the purposes of this article. But this resistance is ridden with paradoxes, the most important of which is a democracy paradox: while accession to the EU was supposed to be the most stable guarantee for human rights and democracy in postcommunist States, how can the supremacy of EU law be now resisted on these very grounds? It is argued that the sources of these constitutional courts' adherence to the “Solange” pattern are primarily domestic, and that it is a way of strengthening their position vis-à-vis other national political actors, especially at a time when the role and independence of those courts face serious domestic challenges.
- Topic:
- Democratization and Government
- Political Geography:
- Europe