Equitable Regulation Research Articles

Competing narratives inhibit a circular economy for bio‐based plastic packaging: Insights from a social innovation lab study in Brazil, Canada, Poland and the UK

AbstractBusinesses are turning to bio‐based, compostable plastic packaging as a circular economy solution to global plastic pollution. However, there is a lack of proper waste management systems for collection and processing. Through an international research initiative, a social innovation lab was undertaken in Brazil, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom to understand and address key barriers in closing the bio‐based plastic packaging loop. Based upon a qualitative data set of 100 stakeholder interviews and three phases of workshop activities in each country, a grounded model was generated to illustrate how competing views and actions are inhibiting a circular system for bio‐based plastic packaging. Key issues were the lack of end‐of‐life processing infrastructure, contamination in processing facilities and absent or ineffective regulation. A systemic approach that includes shared responsibility for infrastructure, simplified packaging design and materials and equitable regulation to reduce susceptibility to greenwashing can improve collaboration to meet circular goals.

Fair Legal Protection for Geothermal Development Companies that Already Have Business Licenses

The objectives of this study are; 1) to know and analyze geothermal business licensing arrangements that have provided fair legal protection for geothermal development companies. 2) Knowing and analyzing the implementation of geothermal exploitation policies has provided fair legal certainty in protecting geothermal development companies. 3) To analyze and review the direction of equitable regulation to provide legal protection for geothermal development companies. This research is a mixed research method, namely normative juridical and empirical juridical. The type of research used in this study is qualitative research, which is research that can be interpreted as research that does not carry out calculations. Result of this research stated that Geothermal business licensing arrangements have provided fair legal protection for geothermal development companies. Regarding licensing, the legal basis or regulations related to licensing in the geothermal sector as stated in the interview results that the regulations consist of Law Number 21 of 2014 concerning Geothermal and Law Number 11 of 2020 concerning Job Creation, then there are PP No. 7 of 2017, PP No. 28 of 2016, PP No. 5 of 2021, and PP No. 26 of 2022.

Accountability of Village Fund Allocation Management in The Administrative State of Wailola Village, Bula District, East Seram Regency

Regional autonomy mandates equitable regulation, distribution, and utilization of national resources, as well as central and regional financial balance within the framework of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. The implementation of decentralization is in line with the democratic agenda and the goal of realizing prosperity. With decentralization, democratic public decisions can be guaranteed, as well as better public services. The ongoing decentralization process has provided awareness about the importance of regional independence which relies on empowering local potential. Village autonomy also aims to generate local potential and initiatives, create equity and justice and empower people's power at the grass root level. This stage is considered very crucial because it is believed to be able to bring development achievements, namely welfare, closer to the bottom people. Rural communities can feel the impact of development directly and can enjoy good public services from the government, including through Village Fund Allocation Management. This study uses descriptive research with data sources in this study are primary data and secondary data with data collection techniques in the form of observation, interviews, data analysis techniques used to decrypt research data in accordance with the variables to be studied and do not test hypotheses but explain and analyze the phenomenon under study

Private equity and the regulation of financialised infrastructure: the case of Macquarie in Britain's water and energy networks

ABSTRACT This paper explores the ways that private equity practices of financialised value extraction have migrated to the water sector in England. In line with the financialisation literature more broadly, we show how private equity investors have found innovative financial mechanisms for increasing investor returns that are unrelated to productive activity. The resulting financialised, highly-indebted corporate structures create costs and risks for utilities which raise concerns for social equity. The regulatory response to these financial innovations has been slow and had limited effect. The regulatory toolbox, governed by a narrative of competition, has consistently been biased towards investors and misses much of the scope of financialised corporate extraction. A review of the activities of a major private equity investor, Macquarie, active across numerous infrastructure sectors in the UK, illustrates the dynamic way in which infrastructure funds are moved across investments and sectors in ways that can escape regulatory processes and increase investor returns. The paper shows how the regulator is caught in an impossible bind in meeting the contradictory and contested interests of investors, end users and the state such that we question whether the socially equitable regulation of financialised infrastructure can ever be possible.

Assessment of Certain Justice towards Tax Omnibus Law in Indonesia

The assessment of justice and legal certainty of the tax omnibus law that has been decided by the Government to be compiled in one law that aims to increase investment, guarantee business continuity, and create business climate justice. The tax text in the tax omnibus law which is emphasised on increasing investment and equitable regulation draw concern from various groups in community. This means that the tax text is so flexible embodied in a form of tax omnibus law. This goal is in line with the meaning of the self-assessment system that has been in effect since 1983 which requires taxpayers to fulfill their own tax obligations. The affirmation of the system in the law is a legal step aimed at three philosophical meanings, which are legal justice, social justice and moral justice. However, the legal meaning is often faced with a separate meaning of one another so that it becomes a confusion of thinking according to the law.

Formalising urban informality: micro-enterprise and the regulation of liquor in Cape Town

ABSTRACTIn early 2012, South Africa's Western Cape Province enacted new alcohol control legislation amid mounting concern with the costs of alcohol-related harms. This has focused on urban shebeen closure to control the informal, unlicensed trade and the harms it generates through crime, violence and injury. In contrast to policy discourse, this paper contends that rather than existingoutside regulation, the city's shebeeners embrace multiple (self and collective) regulatory strategies to manage the inherent risks of their own informality. Drawing on novel empirical data including a ‘business census’ and interviews with the police and liquor traders across four Cape Town case study sites, the paper adds new depth to contemporary engagements with the appropriate and equitable regulation of the South African informal liquor trade.

La natura dell'impresa capace di competere: le cinque dimensioni dell'Italian Way of Doing Industry

Starting from the contradictions of the Italian economy, two key questions are proposed. A. Everyone agrees on the fact that the strength of the Italian system is due largely to those excellent organizations that produce economic and social value in industrial concerns, services, Public Administration. Therefore, what are the distinctive characteristics of these organizations and how can we develop them? B. Inadequate public goods and services for competitiveness - i.e. facilities, services, attractiveness of the territories, support for productive activities, equitable regulation and legality - heavily influence the Italian system. Therefore, what are the specific characteristics of public goods and services suited to the Italian Way of Doing Industry, and how can we develop them? According to the model here expounded, whether in an individual company or in an enterprise system, competitiveness depends on the optimal combination of five factors: market positioning, strategies, organizational and working models, the soul behind the enterprise and the quality of the entrepreneur. The emerging model is defined as whole company, that is to say a company pursuing economic and social performance in an integrated way, acting to protect and to develop the integrity of the stakeholders and the physical, economic and social environment, and having a moral line of conduct.

Equitable regulation of private forests

The sustainability of forested ecosystems often requires cross-boundary management at large spatial scales. This can be challenging, however, in landscapes where forests are primarily under small-scale, private ownership. Consequently, in many areas of the world private forest practices are governmentally regulated to promote more consistent cross-boundary outcomes and better protection of large-scale ecological integrity. In this qualitative, ‘grounded theory’ study, 109 stakeholders throughout the State of Washington, USA were interviewed to learn their perspectives about processes and effects of private forest regulation. The State of Washington is widely recognized for its long-established and comprehensive forest regulatory policies and thus provides an excellent study area for this topic. Interviewees included private forest owners, forest policy advisors, regulatory agency employees, and representatives from forest ownership organizations, forest industry trade groups, and environmental organizations. The study revealed an important and often poorly recognized outcome of private forest regulatory policy: regulation rarely affects all private forest owners similarly. Instead, the burdens and advantages of regulation tend to be unevenly distributed within this key stakeholder group. The study identified three phenomena producing these inequitable outcomes: natural landscape variability, oversights in policy design, and disparate interests and goals among forest owners. This paper analyzes these causes, identifies solution pathways, and discusses implications for policy-makers.

Scientific governance and the process for exposure scenario development in REACH

The primary process established by the European Commission to address the science needed to define key REACH concepts and to help rationally implement REACH's ambitions is enshrined in a series of activities known as the REACH Implementation Projects (RIPs). These are projects that aim to define the methodology that could be used, and present the basis for guidance on the actual principles and procedures that may be (are proposed to be) followed in the development of the required documentation that ensures the safe use of chemicals. In order to develop soundly based and equitable regulation, it is necessary that science governance using established and accepted scientific principles must take a leading role. The extent to which such governance is embraced will be determined by many factors, but notably the process adopted to enable scientific discussion to take place. This article addresses the issues of science as they have impacted on the exemplification of the Exposure Scenario concept under REACH. The current RIP activities have created a non-adversarial process in which the key stakeholders are able to discuss the key REACH challenges. But the RIP activities will be finalised before REACH comes into force. A suitable mechanism should perhaps now be identified to ensure that this positive spirit of scientific discussion and collaboration can continue to benefit REACH and those that it serves well into the future.

REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE U.S. COURTS

This article analyzes U.S. court cases involving reproductive technologies in terms of their implications for reproductive choice, mothers' versus fathers' rights, definitions and evaluations of parenting, and the nuclear family structure. The analysis reveals that the courts have tended (a) not to recognize how social conditions shape women's reproductive choices, (b) to promote fathers' rights more than mothers' rights, (c) to ignore the social relationships that constitute childbearing and child rearing and value men's over women's biological contribution to these processes, (d) to reflect certain assumptions about the proper roles of mothers and fathers, and (e) to privilege the nuclear family. The implications of developing reproductive technology policy for an understanding of the relationships among gender, reproductive technologies, and the state are considered, and recommendations for the equitable regulation of these technologies are offered.

For Good or Ill, Users Influence Transportation

A few decades ago, common-carrier enterprises dominated the American transportation scene; today, though vital and indispensable, they are losing their position of relative importance. Transportation has become a buyer's market ; users dominate and influence transportation, for good or ill, whether they choose their transportation randomly or on the basis of comparative cost. There currently exists an ill-defined boundary between legitimate use and unauthorized use of privately owned, not for-hire means of transportation. A developing concept of business logistics influences shippers in their analysis and choice of transportation in relation to other aspects of making a product and getting it to the market. Logistical thinking, in the past, has generally fostered the use of company-operated private carriage, but there is no inherent reason why common carriers cannot offer comparable or even greater logistical advantages to users. From mergers, as they are necessary, common carriers can gain increased ability to compete with private carriage. Also, common carriers can and should adjust their services to the needs of available freight, not vice versa. In transportation, common carriers are everybody's stand-by service. Adjustments by common carriers to meet user requirements and over-all equitable regulation among the various modes and types of transportation are indicated for the benefit of users and carriers alike.

REMARKS UPON MEDICAL EXPERT TESTIMONY AND PROPOSED RELATIVE LEGISLATION.

The amount of earnestly thoughtful consideration which has in recent years been given to the subject of medical expert testimony, both by the legal and medical professions, may be said to be enormous, and yet the great desideratum—its just and equitable regulation—is far from being accomplished. The remarkable divergence of individual opinion as to the feasibility of the various plans proposed; the complexity of interests involved; the multiplicity of phases in which the subject in general may be made to appear in practical application, together with the necessary constant observance of certain sovereign and inalienable rights which are, under our governmental system, guaranteed to the meanest and the highest in like degree, all combine to make of this veritablequaestio vexataa problem so difficult of solution as almost to suggest an utter impossibility as to its final and satisfactory adjustment. It seems indisputable that so long as testimony as