Ambitious Reform Research Articles

Investment Arbitration Reform and the Pacific Rim Consensus

As UNCITRAL Working Group III discussions on investment arbitration reform continue, geography remains a relevant factor when analyzing investment treaty practice, although not along traditional North-South lines. Over the past several years, three distinct models of investment treaty practice have emerged, which can be identified by geographic region: (i) a European model (as reflected in recent European Union practice), (ii) a ‘regional South’ model (as reflected in recent practice by Brazil, India, and the Southern African Development Community), and (iii) a Pacific Rim model (as reflected in the CPTPP as well as recent treaty practice by the ASEAN States, the Pacific Alliance States, China and Korea). Of the three models, the Pacific Rim approach most closely resembles the extraordinarily active investment treaty practice that occurred in the 1990s and 2000s. The Pacific Rim model can be seen as retaining three fundamental elements from that earlier treaty practice: (i) the ability of disputing parties to select decision-makers, (ii) the imposition of treaty obligations on States but not investors, and (iii) the inclusion of a core set of substantive obligations. Recent treaty practice by ASEAN, the Pacific Alliance, China and Korea, together with the entry into force of the CPTPP, illustrate the resilience of the Pacific Rim model. This Pacific Rim consensus on investment treaty practice could be further confirmed by the conclusion and entry into force of an RCEP investment chapter that follows the Pacific Rim approach. The availability of investment chapters following the Pacific Rim model in two mega-regional FTAs (CPTPP and RCEP) would create significant opportunities for institutionalization in the Pacific Rim region, in particular through the potential development of a CPTPP appellate mechanism and an RCEP appellate mechanism. In addition, China's recent UNCITRAL submission illustrates how the Pacific Rim model can be preserved while considering, at the same time, significant levels of institutionalization within the investment arbitration regime. The compatibility of the Pacific Rim model with ambitious investment arbitration reform, together with the widespread acceptance of the model, confirm the importance of the Pacific Rim consensus for the future of the investment arbitration regime.

La revisión del régimen jurídico de la privacidad en la Unión Europea

Es conocido el momento de madurez que atraviesa el instituto de protección de datos personales en la Unión Europea, con una ambiciosa renovación de su régimen común, que obligará a revisar la regulación interna de los Estados miembros. La Directiva 95/46/ CE, del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, de 24 de octubre de 1995, relativa a la protección de las personas físicas en lo que respecta al tratamiento de datos personales y a la libre circulación de estos datos, tiene los días contados merced a la aprobación del Reglamento (UE) 2016/679, del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, de 27 de abril de 2016. El cual obedece a los nuevos retos tecnológicos y de globalización, unidos a la necesidad de una regulación homogénea directamente aplicable que evite las divergencias en la ejecución y aplicación de la Directiva, aunque no será aplicable hasta el 25 de mayo de 2018. Renovación que, también en forma de Reglamento europeo de directa aplicación, se hace extensiva a los particulares riesgos que las comunicaciones electrónicas, y, sobre todo, Internet, representan para la información personal. A la vez que se hace más exigente desde esta perspectiva la lucha común contra la delincuencia organizada y el terrorismo, según evidencian la Directiva (UE) 2016/680 de policía y la Directiva (UE) 2016/681 de transferencia de datos PNR.

Cabo Verde

Following a long period of high growth, improved living standards and poverty reduction that lasted through the 2008 global financial crisis, Cabo Verde has been facing the challenge of low growth until recently and high public debt, also driven by key State-Owned Enterprises’ (SOEs) losses. To consolidate recent gains and address remaining challenges, the authorities are implementing an ambitious reform agenda under their Strategic Plan for Sustainable Development (PEDS). In this context, they are requesting IMF support through a program under the Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) for 18 months.

From hierarchies to networks

PurposeHistorically, the school effectiveness and improvement movement has focussed its attention on “within school” factors associated with effectiveness and improvement and on the individual school as the primary unit of analysis for improvement and scrutiny purposes. More recently, research has focussed on school-to-school collaboration and engagement with a broader range of services and providers has highlighted the need for more adaptive and nuanced forms of collaboration and partnership. The purpose of this paper is to explore this complex landscape from the perspective of educational reform of the middle tier in Scotland.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on perspectives associated with socio-cultural theory, its application to public service settings and insights gained from research and evaluation outcomes over a five-year period.FindingsThis paper focusses on the establishment of Regional Improvement Collaboratives in Scotland; an example of an attempt to generate system-wide change and a shift from the hierarchical cultures characterised by bureaucratic organisations to more egalitarian cultures characterised by mutualistic, laterally networked organisations. It highlights the importance of structure and cultural change, identity and agency, leadership capacity, outward perspectives, primacy of learning and teaching and variations and complexities in creating a more networked and collaborative education system. It offers cautions concerning potential unintended consequences in the quest to develop a “self-improving” or “learning system”.Practical implicationsThis paper highlights the importance of maintaining and building social cohesion between different stakeholders within educational systems in order to support the implementation of educational reform.Originality/valueThis is the first documentation and reflective analysis for an ambitious reform agenda for the middle tier in Scotland. Its value lies in the lessons and considerations it offers to other systems embarking on reforms that endeavour to build more cohesive and agile education systems, without opening them up to neo-liberal approaches to education.

“Enlightened System” or “Regulatory Nightmare”?: New York’s Adirondack Mountains and the Conflicted Politics of Environmental Land-Use Reform During the 1970s

Abstract:This exploration of the politics of land-use reform in New York’s vast Adirondack Mountains provides a revealing window onto the ambiguities, evolution, and importance of environmental liberalism during the 1970s. A distinctive set of circumstances, featuring forceful advocacy by Governor Nelson Rockefeller and propitious political timing, led to the creation in the early 1970s of one of the most ambitious state-level environmental reforms in modern American history. But implementation during the mid- and late 1970s proved challenging. Environmental management by a new regional agency that possessed powerful regulatory authority over all public and private lands in the region produced discontents, distrust, and organized opposition among both developers and property-rights advocates on the right and environmental advocates on the left. The result was an uneasy, enduring legacy: the new regulatory institution and key environmental planning ideas of the early 1970s and the later, wide-ranging discontents would coexist in similar forms for decades to come.

Smokescreen Politics? Ratcheting Up EU Emissions Trading in 2017

AbstractThe reform of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) adopted in November 2017 was surprisingly strong, given the previous opposition from central member‐states like Poland and key stakeholders like the energy‐intensive industries. The carbon price has also increased substantially since then. To explain why such major reform was possible, we present several findings with wider relevance. Importantly, all the actors pushing for a more ambitious reform benefitted from having a central, “second‐best” mechanism in place—the Market Stability Reserve (MSR)—which could be further tightened. By focusing cancelation on allowances in the MSR and taking place only after 2023, policy entrepreneurs managed to make the distribution of costs obscure and diffuse, whereas the benefits (a probable higher carbon price and related greater auctioning revenues for member‐states) were more specific and closer in time. That is what we call “smokescreen politics.”

Crystallization, Unification, or Differentiation? The Japanese Civil Code (Law of Obligations) Reform Commission and Basic Reform Policy

About one hundred ten years after enactment of the Japanese Civil Code, the debate over the reform of contract law has heated up. On November 2009, based on the consultation of the Minister of Justice, the Working Group on the Civil Code (Law of Obligations) was established. One distinctive feature of this reform process is that the academic contribution became a driving force. Shortly before the consultation, several reform proposals were propounded by different research groups. Notably, the Japanese Civil Code (Law of Obligations) Reform Commission proclaimed a sweeping and ambitious reform proposal: the Basic Reform Policy (Draft Proposals). However, not every lawyer felt the necessity of a comprehensive reform, and some bitterly criticized the reform movement. The fierce debate among academics and practitioners brings to light key characteristics of the Japanese Civil Code, several current streams of the Japanese legal scholarship, and the relationship between academe and practice in Japan. Focusing on the Basic Reform Policy (Draft Proposals), this article seeks to describe both legal scholarship advancing Civil Code reform and criticism of reform from practitioners.

Social health protection in Cambodia: Challenges of policy design and implementation

AbstractThe Government of Cambodia is implementing ambitious reform initiatives to improve the country's social health protection system. In January 2018, it was announced that the Health Equity Fund (HEF), which is fully subsidized by a joint government‐donor initiative for the reimbursement of user fees for the poor at public health facilities, is to be expanded to some segments of informal workers belonging to associations, as well as to commune and village chiefs. Since 2017, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has provided social health insurance for formal economy workers in enterprises with eight employees or more. In January 2018, it was expanded to civil servants and all employees regardless of the size of the enterprise. However, this article highlights that the new ambitious reforms are not accompanied by careful planning as regards funding, service delivery, human resources and institutional design. This article therefore aims to examine key policy issues and challenges for Cambodia's ambitious reform of its social health protection system in terms of resource generation, population coverage, strategic purchasing and governance.

The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana and the path to universal health coverage in India: Overcoming the challenges of stewardship and governance.

In an Essay, Blake Angell and colleagues discuss ambitious reforms planned to expand coverage of the health system in India.

Ideas, coalitions and compromise: reinterpreting EU-ETS lobbying through discursive institutionalism

ABSTRACT Collective political action among divergent interest groups is not always easy. It requires coordination, compromise and, often, the persuasive action of a policy entrepreneur. Coalition strategies are often shaped by participants’ skill in mobilising ideas. Business-environmental coalitions – often considered ‘strange bedfellows’ – have proved to be important in emissions trading policy-making. In 2013, chronically low emissions prices meant that the EU’s climate policy flagship, the EU-ETS, was holed beneath the waterline. But, within two years and against the odds, ambitious reforms were agreed to steady the ship. Crucial to the rescue were the actions of a pro-ETS business lobby, orchestrated by environmentalists. We draw on thirty-two in-depth interviews to construct a discursive institutionalist account of collective interest representation in relation to the reforms. We highlight the ability of policy entrepreneurs to fashion a ‘change-but-no-change’ pro-reform narrative attractive to businesses, despite the fact that such discursive strategies risked marginalising alternative and more disruptive ideas.

The reversal of the decentralization process in Colombia: The peace agreement with Farc as an opportunity to re-decentralize the country

Despite the ambitious reforms executed from the 80’s aimed at increasing the political, fiscal and administrative independence of Colombia’s sub-national entities (municipalities and departments), there has been a reversal in the decentralization process in the country that manifests itself most clearly in the fiscal area. In addition to redesign the fiscal structure in order to empower municipalities and departments, the country can address this decentralization crisis by considering two sets of policy actions. The first one is the implementation of the notion of “territorial peace” which is one of the key components of the peace agreement with Farc. This notion emphasizes bottom-up initiatives as well as citizen’s participation in the development of the reforms and policies proposed by the agreement itself. The second relates to the re-thinking of the territorial organization of Colombia, as it requires a differentiated approach according to the conditions and realities of the territorial entities.

Forecasting the future need and gaps in requirements for public health professionals in India up to 2026.

Current ambitious reforms in India mean that public health professionals (PHPs) will become an increasingly vital component of the health workforce. Despite a rapid growth in schools of public health in India, uptake of places by students without a medical background is low. This paper reports the results of an exercise to estimate the baseline supply of, and need for, PHPs in India in 2017 and to forecast possible supply-need scenarios up to 2026. Supply was estimated using the stock and flow approach and the service-target approach was used to estimate need. The additional need resulting from development of a new public health cadre, as stated in the National Health Policy 2017, was also included. Supply-need gaps were forecast according to three scenarios, which varied according to the future intensity of policy intervention to increase occupancy of training places for PHPs from a non-medical background: "best guess" (no intervention), "optimistic" (feasible intervention), and "aspirational" (significant intervention) scenarios. In the best guess scenario in 2017, i.e. with a low non-medical place occupancy of 60%, there is a supply-need gap of around 28 000 PHPs. In the absence of any intervention to increase place occupancy, this shortfall is forecast to increase to 45 000 PHPs by the year 2026. By contrast, in the aspirational scenario, i.e. with a high place occupancy of 75% for non-medical places, the baseline gap for 2017 of almost 26 000 PHPs reduces by 2026 to around 21 000 PHPs. By 2026, most new PHPs will be produced by public health training programmes offered by institutions other than medical colleges. Without significant interventions, India is likely to have a significant shortfall in PHPs in 2026. Policy-makers will have to carefully examine issues surrounding the current low uptake of non-medical public health seats and review the current framework regulating training of PHPs, in order to respond adequately to future requirements.

Zimbabwe: Technical Assistance Report-Report on Government Finance Statistics Technical Assistance Mission

This Technical Assistance Report discusses that the authorities are making some progress towards higher quality and more comprehensive Government Finance Statistics, however, sufficient information for meaningful monitoring and surveillance of the public sector in Zimbabwe should be considered a long-term goal with several remaining challenges. The government of Zimbabwe has recently embarked upon an ambitious reform program for public sector corporations, which is expected to lead to a dramatic reduction in government balance sheet risk via contingent liabilities and the direct fiscal impact arising from the high likelihood of those guarantees being called. The report also highlights that the Accountant General office should have the ability to set a standardized format and the required information for general government financial statements which are to be reported for all subsectors and ministries. The mission recommends that the authorities review compliance with Republic of Zimbabwe Public Finance Management Act of 2009 across general government subsectors, including, all local government units, Extrabudgetary Units funds and social security funds.

Selected Issues from the Dark Side of the General Data Protection Regulation

Abstract The Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of personal data (GDPR) was enacted in 2016 and applies from 25thMay 2018 in the entire EU. The GDPR is a product of an ambitious reform and represents a direct penetration of the EU law into the legal systems of the EU member states. The EU works on the enhancement of awareness about the GDPR and points out its bright side. However, the GDPR has its dark side as well, which will inevitably have a negative impact. Hence, the goal of this paper is twofold - (i) to scientifically identify, forecast, and analyze selected problematic aspects of the GDPR and its implementation, in particular for Czech municipalities, and (ii) to propose recommendations about how to reduce, or even avoid, their negative impacts. These theoretic analyses are projected to a Czech case study focusing on municipalities, which offers fresh primary data and allows a further refining of the proposed recommendations. An integral part of the performed analyses is also a theoretic forecast of expenses linked to the GDPR, which municipalities will have to include in their mandatory expenses and mid-term prognostic expectations regarding the impact on the budgets of these municipalities from Central Bohemia. The GDPR, like Charon, is at the crossing, the capacity and knowledge regarding its application is critical for operating in the EU in 2018. It is time both to admit that the GDPR has its dark side and to present real and practical recommendations about how to mitigate it.

Rakouské parlamentní volby 2017: Začátek éry Sebastiana Kurze

The article deals with the early parliamentary elections in Austria, which resulted from conflicts inside the government. The situation provides a negative example of a long rule of grand coalition. Most Austrians had lost the trust in abilities of the cabinet made up by social democrats (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) to deal with problems of the day. The public demanded an end to controversies and change of political style. In the stalemate situation it was ÖVP which initiated irregular elections into National Council. It succeeded in connecting the dynamic and perspective personality of the leader Sebastian Kurz with the image of a new and open movement. During the campaign, it emphasized themes which the Austrian public considered important (migration and asylum policy, better security, reduction of taxes) in combination with professional political marketing. After the elections, negotiations revealed programmatic overlap between ÖVP and Freedom Party of Austria, which placed third, in a number of important areas. The new government worked out an ambitious reform program, for which it secured enough majority support in the National Council; also the favourable economic conditions helped. The article provides analysis of electoral programs and the respective stages of the electoral campaign, making use of extensive electoral materials, including unarchived ones. Besides filling a major descriptive-analytic gap in the Czech scholarly reflection of Austrian politics, the article probes into actual trends of Austrian electoral marketing and electoral behaviour.

Piling On – How Provincial Taxation of Insurance Premiums Costs Consumers

Insurance premiums have been taxed by Canadian governments for so long – some provinces and municipalities collected small levies as early as the late 1800s – that they’ve become a fixture rarely discussed in the literature and the financial press. For many years, insurance premium taxes were collected from insurers as an alternative to taxing their profits. But this practice is now long gone since all Canadian governments tax the corporate income of insurance companies, in addition to premium taxes and other taxes and levies. Most insurance consumers do not know that a provincial insurance premium tax (IPT) ranging from 2 percent to 5 percent is levied on their premiums. In addition, five provinces charge a retail sales tax (RST) ranging from 6 to 15 percent on top of the premium taxes for certain types of insurance. In Quebec and Ontario, the RST rates of respectively 9 and 8 percent generally apply to group life and health insurance, and property and casualty insurance (although Ontario excludes auto insurance). Saskatchewan is the latest province to introduce an RST. Since insurance is a financial service, premiums are exempt from GST/HST. So why do provinces still tax insurance premiums? While IPTs and RSTs on premiums are largely invisible to customers on whom the burden ultimately falls, they generate more than $7 billion of stable and growing provincial government revenues – representing about 7 percent of all provincial taxes collected on goods and services. Premium-based taxes increase the price of insurance products and lower the demand for them. We find that an increase of one percentage point in the provincial IPT rate leads to a 10 percent decrease in the number of life insurance contracts sold. Reduced insurance coverage for natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, other catastrophes, relief to a deceased's family, or relief of the financial burden of illness and disability may lead to increased cost pressures on government budgets down the road. Canadian governments should revisit and reassess the taxes imposed on insurance products. At a minimum, IPT liabilities should be made creditable against corporate income tax liabilities, partly restoring their original role as a substitute for taxing profits. And provinces that impose an RST on IPTinclusive premiums should lead the way and eliminate this form of double taxation. A more ambitious reform would remodel the patchwork of transaction taxes for insurance services to a comprehensive and broad-based, value-added system, bringing down the insurance industry's high transaction tax burden and ensuring greater comparability with other industries.

The transposition of the 2014 Directives on public procurement into the Italian law: a challenge for a deep reform of the Italian public procurement system

The transposition of the 2014 Directives on public procurement into the Italian law represented a unique opportunity to introduce an ambitious reform of the Italian public procurement system. A strategic document, issued in 2015 by the Italian Government with the support of the European Commission, provided the main objectives, as pointed out in the EU Directives, and the guidelines of the reform which were first transposed by the Italian institutions into the new legislation on public procurement, the Code of public contracts, in 2016 and are currently being implemented by the different actors involved.

The 1930-s Unrealized Projects on Development of Gorky City (Nizhny Novgorod)

The article deals with little-known unrealized projects shaping the image of the socialist Gorky city, its river panoramas, squares and highways in accordance with the first Soviet master plan of 1935-1937, made by the creative collective of Leningrad Giprogor, under theleadership of N.A. Solofnenko. The development of the master plan of alarge city was based on the principles of reconstruction of the General plan of Moscow in 1935. The architecture of a post-avant-garde epoch allowed to clearly demonstrate the architectural searches of the period, identify their characteristics, their mistakes and achievements.
 A radical reconstruction of an ancient city assumed a demolition of historic buildings. Instead of the lost town­planning dominants - churches that adorned the river facades of the city for many centuries, architects offered new high-rise accents in the form of monumental public buildings. Projects with classical compositions of central squares contributed to the formation of a fundamentally new image of the city. The tendencies of monumentalism appeared under the influence of well-known projects of accomplishment and organization of urban spaces in the capital cities - Moscow and Leningrad. This was an important phase of the new appeal to historicism, namely the development of the classics, which began in the mid 1930-ies and ended in the mid-1950s Archival photographs of 1930-ies complement the history of Russian Soviet architecture and urban planning and disclose the concept of the planned ambitious reforms.

Cash or accruals for budgeting? Why some governments in Europe changed their budgeting mode and others not

This paper investigates why central governments in some countries (especially the UK and Austria) have moved from a cash budgeting system to accrual budgeting, while others (particularly Belgium and Portugal) continue to use cash budgeting, given that both groups of countries share that their financial reporting system have become accruals-based. Our research shows that the two countries opting for a complete change to accruals emphasise the importance of consistency of the entire accounting system and the imperative to inform also about resource consumption in the budget. In sharp contrast, the two countries deciding for a partial change and for staying with cash budgeting argue that a clear and unambiguous view at cash spending is authoritative for their budgeting concept and that political decision makers would not accept an accrualbased budget. The change process in all four countries was influenced by several contextual factors, such as cash-accounting legacies and previous NPM-reforms. We conclude that stakeholders in government show more reluctance when deciding on a budgeting concept than about a financial reporting change which is perceived as less essential. We also conclude that the less ambitious reform mode (cash-based budgeting with accrual financial reporting) takes more implementation time than the more ambitious reform mode (accruals for budgeting and reporting). JEL codes: H61, H83, M41 Keywords: cash budgeting, accrual budgeting, international comparison

Delivering universal health coverage for an aging population: An analysis of the Chinese rural health insurance program

There is now high level international commitment to the goal of universal health coverage. But how can countries make this a reality in the face of a limited budget and an aging population? Since 2008, China has been rolling out an ambitious reform program, which aims to achieve affordable health insurance coverage for all Chinese citizens. Under this reform program, Chinese living in rural areas are eligible to enroll in a subsidized scheme called the New Cooperative Medical System (NCMS). Using a three stage game model involving a government, a private fund manager and population, we explore the impact of population aging on NCMS. Our model highlights the role of government regulation and subsidy in ensuring operation efficiency of the system. We show that at optimality the government sets the operating framework for the fund manager to constrain the potential for monopoly profits. The Government subsidizes the scheme to prevent an adverse selection death spiral. However, the effectiveness of the subsidy in achieving this goal is moderated by the age structure of the population. Our model gives insights into the strengths of the NCMS framework and also can be used to support decisions about resource allocation and understand how scheme dynamics may unfold as the Chinese population ages further.