Strong Enforcement Mechanisms Research Articles

Sugar‐Sweetened Beverages Taxation Plan in Indonesia: Call for Political Commitment

ABSTRACTIndonesia is grappling with a rise in obesity and diabetes, partially driven by a high consumption of sugar‐sweetened beverages. The prevalence of obesity among adults more than doubled from 2007 to 2018, and diabetes rates have also increased. In response, the Indonesian government has proposed an excise tax on sugar‐sweetened beverages to reduce consumption. However, the implementation of this policy has repeatedly been delayed, with the latest postponement to 2024. Sugar‐sweetened beverages contribute significantly to chronic diseases, increasing the healthcare burden and reducing economic productivity. Taxation, a widely used public health strategy in the form of fiscal measures, can decrease consumption by raising prices, raising public awareness, encouraging product reformulation, and generating revenue. Despite its potential benefits, the proposed tax in Indonesia faces substantial political and commercial challenges. The president‐elect Prabowo Subanto has not explicitly supported the tax in his political manifesto, raising concerns about further delays due to industry lobbying. Successful implementation of the tax requires robust political will, public and civil society pressure, and effective cross‐sector cooperation. The government must ensure clear policy goals, equal application to domestic and foreign products, and supportive measures such as providing free drinking water alternatives. Transparent stakeholder consultations can build broad‐based support, whereas effective monitoring and evaluation frameworks are essential for compliance. To gain public support, allocating tax revenues to public health and social programs is crucial. Although initial resistance is expected, strong enforcement mechanisms can ensure adherence. With determined political commitment and public advocacy, the sugar‐sweetened beverage tax can significantly reduce obesity and diabetes rates, improving public health outcomes and economic productivity in Indonesia. This commentary provides an overview of the proposed tax, explores its challenges, and offers recommendations for successful implementation.

The Ecosystem Approach to Guaranteeing the Constitutional Human Right to a Safe Environment

The article aims to analyse the ecosystem approach, which should ensure the constitutional human right to a safe environment. The research methodology was based on the use of econometric, comparison, and graphical methods. Analysing the legal instruments, the study identified ways of harmonising the ecosystem approach with the existing legal framework and policy to improve environmental protection. The need for joint efforts between the state, industry, and local communities to find common positions and the importance of strong institutional capacity, public administration, and law enforcement mechanisms was demonstrated based on data from 37 European countries and Ukraine. It is emphasised that it is possible to achieve a balanced prospect between economic development and environmental protection. The academic novelty of this research is an interdisciplinary approach, a new application of the ecosystem approach to human rights, a detailed analysis of challenges and solutions, and global and local prospects. Prospects for further research are the expansion of the analysis database to the level of world regions to obtain generalised results regarding the provision of the constitutional human right to a safe environment.

The role of fundamental rights in the environmental case law of the CJEU

AbstractThere has been a turn to fundamental rights in environmental and climate cases before national and international courts in recent years. We know very little whether there has been such a turn in relation to European Union (EU) law before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The CJEU occupies an increasingly relevant position in this nexus between environmental law and human rights because of strong and effective EU enforcement mechanisms, the abundance of specific EU secondary environmental law, the growing role of fundamental rights since 2009 and the self-standing provision on the environment in Article 37 of the Charter. An analysis of the case law, nonetheless, shows that Charter rights that can be used as ‘swords’ in the interest of environmental protection have so far played only a limited role. After explaining the absence of a rights turn, we argue that such a turn is warranted before the CJEU as well, also from a legal perspective. This article examines two potential avenues. The CJEU can derive positive obligations from relevant Charter provisions, including Articles 2 (right to life) and 7 (right to respect for private life and the home) of the Charter, or it can rely more extensively on Article 37 as a tool for interpreting primary and secondary EU law in an environmentally friendly way.

The Idealization of Infant Formula: A Longitudinal Analysis of Labels in Uruguay.

Labels are a key element of the marketing strategies of infant formula companies, and often include text or images that idealize their use, undermining efforts to promote breastfeeding. To evaluate the prevalence of marketing cues that idealize infant formula on labels of products commercialized in Uruguay and to assess changes after a periodic monitoring of compliance with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes (IC). This study is a descriptive, observational, and longitudinal assessment of the information included on infant formula labels. The first data collection was in 2019, as part of a periodic assessment to monitor the marketing of human-milk substitutes. In 2021, the same products were purchased to evaluate changes in their labels. Thirty-eight products were identified in 2019, of which 33 were still available in 2021. All information available on the labels was analyzed through content analysis. Most products included at least one textual or visual marketing cue idealizing infant formula in both 2019 (n = 30, 91%) and 2021 (n = 29, 88%). This represents a violation of both the IC and national regulations. References to nutritional composition were the most frequent marketing cue, followed by references to child growth and development. No relevant changes were observed after the periodic assessment conducted by the Uruguayan government. Monitoring compliance with the IC per se cannot be expected to trigger changes in the marketing strategies of infant formula companies. More explicit regulations and strong enforcement mechanisms are needed to end the inappropriate marketing practices on infant formula labels.

Challenges of Protecting Music Intellectual Property in the Digital New Age in Nigeria

This article examines the challenges the Music Industry faces in the area of protection of its intellectual property. The protection of a country’s intellectual property should be the priority of all responsible governments. In Nigeria, the Copyright Act 2004 (Cap C28 Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (LFN) used to be the principal legislation for the protection of innovative works. However, on March 17, 2023, the Nigerian President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) signed the Copyright Bill into law. The House of Assembly passed the Bill for an Act to Repeal the Copyright Act 2004 and enact a new Copyright Act in July 2022. The purpose of this paper is to identify the ways the new Act can better protect the rights of musicians and ensure just rewards and recognition for their intellectual efforts. The paper found out that the new Act intends to, among others, expand the rights of authors, raise the sanctions of criminal infringements and address the challenges posed by digital and online use of copyright works. The paper recommends, among others, the creation of strong enforcement mechanisms so that the new Copyright Act 2023 can achieve the purpose for which it was enacted which are to guard intellectual creations against all forms of infringements and to boost the nation’s creative economy in order to make it more globally competitive in the digital new age

Human rights in a sea of market-based approaches: Evaluation of market-based tools integrating social responsibility in the Sustainable Seafood Movement

Social responsibility in the Sustainable Seafood Movement has accelerated in the past several years, as human rights and labor issues are increasingly being integrated into market-based approaches such as certifications, fishery improvement projects (FIPs), and buyer sourcing commitments. There is skepticism around the ability to adequately address human rights within the context of market-based approaches originally designed for environmental sustainability. Experts have raised concerns about the voluntary nature, reliance on social audits, poor enforcement mechanisms, and limited worker representation of these interventions. Using desk-based research and key informant interviews, this study presents a critical evaluation of the market-based interventions integrating elements of human and labor rights. The overarching purpose of this study is to characterize how various initiatives in the Sustainable Seafood Movement are embedding human rights and social issues, in addition to challenges in doing so, and specific areas for improvement. Results suggest that while certifications can be a useful intervention in establishing a minimum level of compliance for the sector, they require improved accountability systems and continuous, internal monitoring led by workers. The FIP model, requiring continuous reporting of progress over time, could potentially be an alternative to the certification model contingent on the adoption of strong enforcement mechanisms. Finally, buyer sourcing commitments have the potential to hold businesses accountable, but voluntary commitments often lack tangible action, like embedding comprehensive processes of human rights due diligence, to protect fishers and workers. It is critical to address the current limitations of voluntary, market-based approaches and move towards mandatory human rights due diligence, better practices for worker engagement, and stricter mechanisms to ensure accountability.

Community enforcement and tenure security: A fuzzy-set qualitative Comparative analysis of twelve community forest management initiatives in the Peruvian Amazon

The interest of policymakers in community management of tropical forests is ever growing. Yet, a large research body shows varied levels of success of community conservation initiatives. While policymakers often prioritize legal forest ownership, mostly land titles, consensus exists that success rather depends on a broader set of local institutional arrangements and their fit with the forest context. In this paper, we contribute to building theory on these institutional arrangements and their interaction. We apply a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to case study data on 12 voluntary community conservation initiatives in northern Peru to explore the relationship between local enforcement, legal and alternative property rights, and conservation effectiveness. As recommended for QCA our case selection was intentional and the cases exhibit diverse conservation successes, geographic characteristics, legal and customary property rights, and enforcement mechanisms. We conclude that strong community enforcement mechanisms are indispensable for effective conservation in voluntary initiatives. Furthermore, we find for cases with strong enforcement mechanisms, that some government back-up, i.e., local government support for enforcement and/or legal rights to conserve the forest, significantly increases conservation effectiveness. Strong conservation enforcement tends to be present in communities with strong forest rules, leaders, and pre-existing community institutions. Our findings suggest the importance of paying close attention to community characteristics during project design and refraining from one-size-fits-all-solutions, such as focusing mainly on the presence of legal ownership rights over the forest. Instead, more focus needs to be placed on understanding existing community institutions and supporting communities to strengthen and adapt these for conservation enforcement, rather than imposing new arrangements. Finally, policymakers can help community enforcement institutions become even more effective, by providing them with legal rights to conserve the forest and by strengthening their relationship with local governments so that they receive support in situations they struggle to handle alone.

Towards an Ecosystem Approach to Management in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: REMPs for Deep Seabed Mining and the Proposed BBNJ Instrument

The ocean plays a key role in sustaining life on our planet and is inextricably linked to biodiversity, climate, human well-being, and health. However, the governance of the ocean is primarily pursued through sectoral-based legal and institutional frameworks that falls short in ensuring the long-term protection of the marine environment and the sustainability of marine resources. This is especially concerning in areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (ABNJ) where human activities continue to expand. The existence of two distinct regimes in ABNJ, namely the High Seas (applicable to the water column, which is a global common) and the Area (applicable to the international seabed and its mineral resources, which are the common heritage of mankind), that have been largely regulated separately, impede the development and implementation of integrated marine environmental governance and biodiversity conservation in ABNJ. On the one hand, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which is mandated to administer the mineral resources of the Area, is currently discussing a set of regulations to enable future exploitation activities. On the other hand, multilateral negotiations are taking place for the development of an internationally legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (referred to as the proposed ‘BBNJ’ Instrument). Both processes offer a unique opportunity to foster an ecosystem approach to management (EAM) in ABNJ. In this article, we elaborate on options for stronger governance integration and the development of a coherent and collaborative interplay between these two processes. To this end, we explore the potential of Regional Environmental Management Plans (REMPs) established by the ISA as a case study to contribute to global biodiversity conservation, and the opportunity for the proposed BBNJ Instrument to promote overarching coherence to biodiversity conservation in ABNJ, premised on EAM. We conclude that the proposed BBNJ Instrument could have a pivotal role to streamline multilateral action for the conservation of biodiversity in ABNJ by adopting an ambitious, overarching environmental vision and strategic goals, accompanied by strong implementation and enforcement mechanisms.

Collective Damages for GDPR Breaches: A Feasible solution for the GDPR Enforcement Deficit?

The GDPR should have strong and effective enforcement mechanisms. However, in practice, these mechanisms are lacking, as Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) are underfunded and undermanned. Collective claims could be a solution. By pooling resources, individually insignificant damages (scattered damages) can be claimed in an economically sensible way. To facilitate collective claims, in December 2020 the European Union (EU) adopted a new directive containing a union-wide framework for collective claims. This paper explores whether collective claims are a feasible enforcement mechanism for data protection violations given the concept of damages under article 82 GDPR. So, it will be explained what types of damages can be claimed collectively. The current concept of damages under article 82 GDPR is analysed at the EU level, taking into account the principle of autonomy, case law, and literature. This will show the boundaries within which Member States must operate when awarding damages under the GDPR. The paper explores the Dutch jurisdiction, to illustrate the interchange between EU law and Member state law. The Dutch jurisdiction is of special interest here, first, because Dutch courts have recently been applying the GDPR to award damages of up to € 2,500 per case. Second, because the Dutch framework for collective damages was renewed in 2020, which contains many similarities with the Collective Claim Directive. Currently, several collective GDPR claims have been filed in the Netherlands under the new framework, with a collective worth of several billion euros. A 'perfect storm' is forming due to the combination of stronger collective claims frameworks and a tentative trend to award non-pecuniary GDPR damages on an individual level. GDPR non-compliance can thus lead to multi-billion claims that scale with the number of victims. Such claims can dwarf even the heftiest GDPR fines DPAs can impose. Collective GDPR claims have the potential to become a bright scenario for data subjects and daring legal entrepreneurs, and to result in a daunting future for data controllers and processors, who face scalable liability in a world of scalable business models. However, all hinges on the concept of damages. Keywords: GDPR | Enforcement Deficit | The Netherlands | Collective Claim Directive

Understanding dynamics of private tuberculosis pharmacy market: a qualitative inquiry from a South Indian district

ObjectivesIn India, retail private pharmacists (RPPs) are often patients’ first point of contact for diseases, including tuberculosis (TB). We assessed the factors influencing RPPs’ referral of patients with chest symptoms...

Labor clauses in trade agreements: Hidden protectionism?

We explore the impact of the introduction and design of labor clauses (LCs) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade flows over the period 1990–2014. While it is not a priori clear if the inclusion of LCs in PTAs will decrease or increase bilateral trade, we expect the direction of trade to matter, that is, we expect to observe the (negative or positive) impact of LCs in the South-North trade configuration. We also expect, in that configuration, stronger LCs to yield stronger (negative or positive) effects on bilateral trade flows. Using a novel dataset on the content of labor provisions in PTAs, we find in line with our first expectation that while the introduction of LCs has on average no impact on bilateral trade flows, it increases exports of low and middle-income countries with weaker labor standards in North–South trade agreements. Consistent with our second expectation, this positive impact is mostly driven by LCs with institutionalized cooperation provisions. In contrast, LCs with strong enforcement mechanisms do not have a statistically significant impact on exports of developing countries in North–South PTAs. The results are inconsistent with the ideas that LCs are set for protectionist reasons or have protectionist effects, casting doubt on the logic for the reluctance of many developing countries to include LCs in their trade agreements.

Unfree Labour and the Capitalist State: An Open Marxist Analysis of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act

The Modern Slavery Act was passed in 2015, ostensibly to tackle exploitation. Despite being promoted for its ‘world-leading’ qualities, the legislation’s weaknesses have, even at this relatively early stage of its implementation, been well documented. This is unsurprising; legislators were aware they were passing a bill that could have had stronger enforcement mechanisms, opting instead for a weaker alternative. This article takes these shortcomings as its starting point to ask who, or what, benefits from the Modern Slavery Act, if not those it is purportedly aimed to help. The response is that the main beneficiaries of the Modern Slavery Act are capitalism, and the Conservative government that created the bill. The Modern Slavery Act operates through the modern slavery discourse that positions unfree forms of labour as aberrations that operate outside of capitalism, and once unfree labour practices have been framed in this way, the capitalist free market is identified not as a causal factor but as the solution. In addition, the Conservative government used the Modern Slavery Act domestically as a counterpoint to its hostile environment policy to soften their image for part of the electorate. When viewed as an artefact of capitalist thinking and state management, it becomes clear that the Modern Slavery Act makes a not insignificant contribution to the legitimacy of both capitalism and the government by conferring upon them a degree of legitimacy as the routes through which the unfree will be liberated.

The effect of central government grants on local educational policy

The use of intergovernmental grants in educational policies may give rise to a conflict between gains attributable to local flexibility and the central government’s intention to narrow gaps in school spending and resource use across local jurisdictions. This paper estimates the impact on school resources of a Norwegian central government grant intended to decrease the student-teacher ratio in primary school (grades 1–4). The grant was given to the 100 municipalities with the highest student-teacher ratios out of more than 400 municipalities. Using a difference-in-differences approach, our results show that Norwegian municipalities did not increase teacher density in primary schools, despite receiving extra grants for this purpose. Though we cannot rule out that there was some take-up of our grant, we can exclude full take up. Our results suggest that strong enforcement mechanisms may be necessary for earmarked grants to affect local allocation of resources as intended by central governments, although this might come at the cost of reducing local flexibility.

Public-Private Governance Initiatives and Corporate Responses to Stakeholder Complaints

AbstractMultinational firms operate in multiple national jurisdictions, making them difficult for any one government to regulate. For this reason the firms themselves are often in charge of their own regulation, increasingly in conjunction with international organizations by way of public-private governance initiatives. Prior research has claimed that such initiatives are too weak to meaningfully change firms’ behavior. Can public-private governance initiatives help firms self-regulate, even if they lack strong monitoring or enforcement mechanisms? I take two steps toward answering this question. First, I introduce a new measure of firms’ performance on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) issues: the extent to which the firms issue public responses to claims of misconduct from civil society actors. Second, I argue that public-private governance initiatives allow firms to benefit from the legitimacy of their public partners, lowering the reputational cost of transparent response. Employing novel data on firm responses to human rights allegations from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, I find that membership in the largest and most prominent initiative, the United Nations Global Compact, significantly increases firms’ propensity to respond transparently to stakeholder allegations. These results suggest a limited but important role for public-private initiatives in global governance.

Leaving home ain’t easy: Citizen compliance with local government hurricane evacuation orders

Although local officials often issue policy directives and urge residents to comply, many policy directives lack monitoring or enforcement mechanisms. Without strong enforcement mechanisms, how can public officials increase citizen cooperation? We examine this question in the context of hurricane evacuation orders. Do different communication frames impact public compliance with evacuation orders? Analyzing data on Florida residents, the results of a survey experiment show that respondents exposed to a statement lacking certainty were significantly less willing to evacuate than the control group, and other communication strategies-including describing incentives and potential enforcement mechanisms-had no impact on willingness to cooperate with an evacuation order. The results suggest that uncertain government messaging may decrease policy compliance in cases lacking strong enforcement mechanisms.

A matter of life or death: How racial representation shapes compliance with city disaster preparedness orders

ABSTRACT To effectively govern, elected and appointed municipal officials rely on the cooperation and compliance of individuals and private actors. Particularly when policy directives lack strong enforcement mechanisms, many citizens choose not to comply. We investigate the extent to which shared ethnic/racial identity between residents and municipal political leaders increases residents’ willingness to comply with government issued evacuation orders in the context of an impending natural disaster. Drawing on a large-scale embedded survey experiment of Florida residents who lived through Hurricane Irma in 2017, we provide evidence that descriptive representation increases the likelihood of individual compliance with local government evacuation orders. Additionally, we find that if non-governmental partners encourage evacuation, then resident compliance increases, particularly among people of color who do not share the race of their city official. The results speak to the importance of descriptive representation at the local level, especially in settings that can mean the difference between life and death.

English

There is a dearth of phenomenological interpretive studies in public-private partnership (PPP) policy in education service delivery. The limited extant literature on PPPs in education hardly explores insights into how stakeholders understand them, and what they perceive as critical success factors (CSFs) for their implementation in the context of developing countries. The overarching purpose of this study is to explore the stakeholders’ perceptions of PPP policy in universal secondary education (USE) and its CSFs in Uganda. It employed the interpretive paradigm and the participants were purposively selected from government bodies, partnership private schools and local communities. Document review and interviews were used as the data collection methods while the resultant data were analyzed using content and thematic techniques. The findings reveal that most stakeholders’ understandings of the PPP in USE were diverse and context-specific; and that most school-based stakeholders implemented this policy without clearly understanding its origin, goals and guidelines. While most government-based stakeholders perceived the policy as successful, the majority of school-based stakeholders deemed it unsuccessful. The majority of stakeholders perceived regular policy reviews, commitment to partnership roles, sufficient funding, the selection of partners with adequate capacity, effective policy communication, regular policy monitoring and strong enforcement mechanisms as its CSFs. In view of the findings, it can be inferred that unless appropriate policy reforms and best practices informed by these findings are undertaken, the success and sustainability of PPP policy in USE would remain uncertain.   Key words: Public-private partnership, policy, education, reforms, critical success factors. &nbsp

Adverse Effects: Can the Fair Work Act Address Workplace Discrimination for Employees with a Disability?

The enactment of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (‘FWA’) gave employees a new mechanism for addressing workplace discrimination in addition to traditional anti-discrimination law. Section 351 of the FWA prohibits employers from taking adverse action against employees on a range of grounds including disability. This article evaluates whether section 351 can effectively address disability discrimination in the workplace. It argues that section 351 offers limited protection to employees with a disability because the FWA does not define ‘disability’, and the courts have interpreted ‘discrimination’ too narrowly to encompass the complexities of workplace discrimination. However, the FWA contains stronger enforcement mechanisms than anti-discrimination law so, with some refinements, it could offer employees with a disability a much more effective avenue for addressing discrimination than traditional anti-discrimination laws.

Influence of Professional Ethics and Standards in Less Developed Countries: An Assessment of Professional Accountants in Nigeria

Recently, there has been growing concern about ethical and integrity issues in the accounting and auditing profession in public and private sectors of the economy, based on questionable acts committed by professionals whose certification decision makers rely upon. This study adopted the stewardship theory as a theoretical background to develop an empirical framework for examining the influence of ethical professional standards on financial reporting practices in less developed countries. The result of this study however, shows that there is a low degree of adoption. The most prevalent of these factors are greediness and self-interest of the accountant while the least factor is lack of will to sanction violations of clearly defined ethical codes of conduct. The paper recommends that strong enforcement mechanism including the establishment of peer review procedures and institutional monitoring to regulate the activities of professional accountants and ensure strict enforcement of codes of professional practice.

Behavioral Analysis of International Law: On Lawmaking and Nudging

This article examines the application of insights from behavioral economics to the area of international law. It reviews the unique challenges facing such application and demonstrates the contribution of behavioral findings to the understanding of lawmaking, the use of nudges, and states’ practices in the international arena. In the sphere of lawmaking, the article first highlights the contribution of experimental game theory to understanding international customary law. It then analyzes the psychological mechanisms underpinning the advancement of treaty law through the use of deadlines, grandfather provisions, deferred implementation, and temporary arrangements. More generally, it provides insight into the processes through which international soft law evolves into hard law. The article then argues that in the absence of a central legislative body or strong enforcement mechanisms, nudges (that is, low-cost, choice-preserving, behaviorally-informed regulatory tools) can play a particularly important role in influencing the behavior of states and other entities. The article describes the current use of nudges, such as opt-in and opt-out arrangements in multilateral treaties, goal settings, and international rankings—and calls for further employment of such means. Finally, the article suggests that the extent to which states comply with international norms may be explained by phenomena such as loss aversion and the identifiability effect, and that further insight into states’ (non)compliance may be gained from the emerging research in behavioral ethics.