Supranational Organizations Research Articles

The ethics of border guarding: a first exploration and a research agenda for the future

Although the notion of universal human rights allows for the idea that states (and supranational organizations such as the European Union) can, or even should, control and impose restrictions on migration, both notions clearly do not sit well together. The ensuing tension manifests itself in our ambivalent attitude towards migration, but also affects the border guards who have to implement national and supranational policies on migration. Little has been written on the ethics that has to guide these border guards in their work. Juxtaposing the ethics of border guarding against the ethics of the somewhat related military profession, this article attempts to (a) describe border guarding as a comparatively rule-guided profession; (b) outline the aim and basis of the ethics education that prepares border guards for their work; and (c) propose a research agenda for the future that should further our understanding of (a) and (b), but also help us improve the moral education of border guards.

EUROPEAN LESSONS OF DECENTRALIZATION

The role of the state in the processes of European integration and decentralization is analyzed, the factors of threats for it are determined. The following common features of decentralization processes in the EU member states are highlighted as strengthening the role of the regional level, the need to choose between different models of separation of powers between different levels of government (exclusive or joint authority) and the search for ways to adequately finance transferred powers. Decentralization also actualizes the problem of territorial inequality and patronage for European countries. It is proved that the national state is a central actor in the process of decentralization, despite the fact that this process creates certain threats to the state itself. On the one hand, the EU as a supranational organization has already limited some aspects of the sovereignty of its member states, in particular, in the area of monetary policy. With the deepening of European integration, the powers of national states and in other areas are increasingly limited. On the other hand, the gradual increase in the share of powers conveyed by the state to decentralized and regional authorities further weakens its role. Moreover, the increasing influence of liberalism on state policy and the introduction of competition among the main providers of public services also limits the possibility of the state’s influence on its internal policies. Such a dynamics gives grounds for questioning the ability of states to effectively manage their territories. At the same time, it was noted that in most EU member states, the bodies of state power have long been the guarantor of national unity in both social and territorial terms. Such a “unity of opposites” (decentralization and centralization) is unlikely to change in the medium term.

EUROPEAN LESSONS OF DECENTRALIZATION

The role of the state in the processes of European integration and decentralization is analyzed, the factors of threats for it are determined. The fol- lowing common features of decentralization processes in the EU member states are highlighted as strengthening the role of the regional level, the need to choose between different models of separation of powers between different levels of go- vernment (exclusive or joint authority) and the search for ways to adequately fi- nance transferred powers. Decentralization also actualizes the problem of territo- rial inequality and patronage for European countries. It is proved that the national state is a central actor in the process of decentralization, despite the fact that this process creates certain threats to the state itself. On the one hand, the EU as a supranational organization has already limited some aspects of the sovereignty of its member states, in particular, in the area of monetary policy. With the deepening of European integration, the powers of national states and in other areas are in- creasingly limited. On the other hand, the gradual increase in the share of powers conveyed by the state to decentralized and regional authorities further weakens its role. Moreover, the increasing influence of liberalism on state policy and the introduction of competition among the main providers of public services also li- mits the possibility of the state’s influence on its internal policies. Such a dynamics gives grounds for questioning the ability of states to effectively manage their ter- ritories. At the same time, it was noted that in most EU member states, the bodies of state power have long been the guarantor of national unity in both social and territorial terms. Such a “unity of opposites” (decentralization and centralization) is unlikely to change in the medium term.

Key pharmacovigilance stakeholders' experiences of direct patient reporting of adverse drug reactions and their prospects of future development in the European Union

ObjectivesIn the European Union (EU), legislation allows patients to directly report adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to competent authorities. Five years after its implementation, patient reporting is not equal in all countries. This study aimed to explore key stakeholders' perceptions of patient reporting in four EU countries. Study designQualitative study design. MethodsTwelve representatives from national pharmacovigilance centres and/or authorities as well as national pharmaceutical industry bodies in four EU countries participated in the study. Supranational organizations were also included. Data collection was via face-semi-structured interviews. Inductive content analysis was performed thereafter, applying principles of risk management as a theoretical framework. ResultsFour themes (attitudes and beliefs, system maturation factors, regulatory improvements, and cultural shifts) emerged, conceptually interconnected. Participants from countries introducing patient reporting recently expressed a negative attitude. Participants highlighted the need for additional resources, both human and financial, to address patient reporting and associated advantages. ConclusionsThe findings identified perceived barriers and facilitators of patient reporting. The involvement of patients, use of information, and dissemination of patient reporting are far from optimal. A better integration of the work by EU regulatory authorities is recommended.

International Accreditations as Drivers of MBA Education Improvement

Business schools in China are now under great pressure to implement continuous improvement and quality assurance to remain competitive in a globalized higher education market. Drivers for quality improvement include external pressures such as supranational organizations, national government, marketization, and globalization. As a symbol of excellent quality of management education, MBA international accreditations play an important role in quality improvement of MBA education. A case study based on GWMBA (MBA of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies) is presented to demonstrate this impact. Future challenges include the risk of standardization and institutional isomorphism and the balance between globalization and localization.

Fairness: A Dire International Tax Standard with No Meaning?

In their discussions on corporate income tax systems the International Organizations (IOs) OECD, UN, IMF and World Bank, Supranational Organizations (SOs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), associations of practitioners and Governments often refer to the concept of fairness without proper definition of what in the context of their arguments is fairness and how the fairness can be achieved. The consequence is that fairness in taxation is a blurred concept. This article shows that fairness in taxation has an economical, juridical, philosophical and political perspective. Following the overview of these perspectives, this article calls for more research on global perceptions of fairness and for formulating an agenda for discussing this issue by IOs, SOs, NGOs and Governments.

Workplace health promotion programs for older workers in Italy.

Italy is the European country with the highest number of citizens over the age of sixty. In recent years, the unsustainability of the social security system has forced the Italian government to raise the retirement age and reduce the chances of early exit, thus sharply increasing the age of the workforce. Consequently, a significant proportion of older workers are currently obliged to do jobs that were designed for young people. Systematic health promotion intervention for older workers is therefore essential. The European Pro Health 65+ project aims at selecting and validating best practices for successful/active aging. In this context we set out to review workplace health promotion projects carried out in Italy. To ascertain examples of workplace health promotion for older workers (WHPOW), we carried out a review of the scientific and grey literature together with a survey of companies. We detected 102 WHPOW research studies conducted in conjunction with supranational organizations, public institutions, companies, social partners, NGOs and educational institutions. The main objectives of the WHPOW were to improve the work environment, the qualifications of older workers and attitudes towards the elderly, and, in many cases, also to improve work organization. The best way to promote effective WHPOW interventions is by disseminating awareness of best practices and correct methods of analysis. Our study suggests ways of enhancing WHPOW at both a national and European level.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy quite literally translates into rule by public office (‘bureau’). The anthropology of bureaucracy can be seen as falling under two broad approaches. Firstly, there is an expanding corpus of work that concentrates its attention on explaining how different bureaucracies – from different arms of the state to NGOs to supranational organizations – actually function; what their ‘inner worlds’ are like; and why and how they produce the results they do. The second approach can be described as one that looks at how bureaucracies monitor or audit themselves as well as how they are pushing for self-reform. From a time when bureaucracies were almost entirely neglected by anthropologists due to a (mis)perception of them as disenchanted Weberian iron cages of modernity, there is now a far keener awareness of the operations of bureaucratic structures and demands. Nowhere is this more evident than in the critical awareness of bureaucratic demands and constrictions within Euro-American Universities. 8.5.2

International Federation of Free Journalists: Opposing Communist Propaganda During the Cold War

The topic of supranational organizations of East-European émigrés during the Cold War still remains a lesser-known topic. There were a number of anti-Communist organizations between 1948–1989, consisting of former politicians, diplomats, soldiers, lawyers or academics from behind the Iron Curtain. The community of exiled journalists was represented by the International Federation of Free Journalists, officially founded in November 1948 in Paris by delegates from twelve nations. Its membership base soon grew to 1,400 people. The Federation warned the Western public against the injustices, false propaganda and the red terror in Eastern Europe for four decades.

Habermas, lifeworld and rationality: towards a comprehensive model of lifelong learning

Major supranational organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union, and the World Bank have used lifelong learning as a strategy to boost economic competitiveness both at individual and national levels. In the literature related to lifelong learning this is characterised as the economistic model of lifelong learning. The humanistic model of lifelong learning, which appears as an alternative of the economistic model, takes education and learning as a fundamental human right for all individuals irrespective of their age, gender and class. However, this model is criticised as a vague, rhetorical and utopian ideal with little potential for informing educational policy decisions at national level. Using some key Habermasian conceptualisations, mainly the colonisation of the lifeworld and communicative rationality, this paper argues that three major dimensions of human learning informed by Habermas – transformative, citizenship and intersubjective – can contribute towards the development of a more comprehensive model of lifelong learning.

Efficiency and Sustainability of CSR Projects

The progressive expansion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been accompanied by an increasing interest from regulators and market analysts. Governments and supra-national organisations have issued guidance rules on CSR, while market analysts have created a set of gatekeepers focused on its evaluation, publishing rankings and comparative reports. The UN Global Compact and the sustainability indexes are two relevant examples. The complexity and some of the functions of this CSR infrastructure have common features with the financial system. Information is at the core of both. The distinction between information and noise is central for building up efficient financial markets. The aim of this paper is to analyse how information can be separated from noise in CSR. To this end, we develop a qualitative model that centres on the following variables: the CSR features of the project under consideration, its financial features, its relationship with corporate strategy, the performance metrics for its analysis, the different kinds of risk it involves, and its impact on value creation. This model relies on two common functions that we identify in the CSR infrastructure and the financial system: the defining function and the performance information function. The model is applied to Adidas’ CSR policy.

Aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida. Concepto y componentes

El aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida es considerado uno de los principales objetivos de los organismos supranacionales y de las diversas administraciones educativas nacionales desde hace varias décadas. Este paradigma no es sólo clave para afrontar los problemas mundiales de la educación sino que sus beneficios van más allá, abarcando desde el ámbito laboral al propio desarrollo personal. Sin embargo, y a pesar de la abundante literatura generada al respecto, todavía hoy se hace necesario una visión integradora que aborde los elementos sustanciales de este concepto. Para ello, este artículo parte de las aportaciones generadas por los organismos de la Unión Europea. A continuación, se analiza su desarrollo en España. Se finaliza con la propuesta de una definición del aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida y sus características principales.
 Palabras clave: Aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida; concepto; Unión Europea; España.

Mapping the Nation: Landscapes of Survey and the Material Cultures of the Early Ordnance Survey in Britain and Ireland

ABSTRACTStarting its work in 1791, the Ordnance Survey (OS) was a supranational organisation responsible for creating high quality and accurate topographic maps of the nations of Great Britain and Ireland. The detailed and rigorous field observations and geodetic operations of OS field-surveyors have left many traces in the landscape, but despite much careful and critical historical study of OS maps, and their wide use as sources in local studies and fieldwork, the material impacts and influences the OS had on British and Irish landscapes has been generally overlooked. This paper redresses this by exploring the ‘landscapes of survey’ created through the OS's trigonometrical and levelling operations for the first half of the nineteenth century. The paper first sets out how ‘excavating’ large-scale historic OS maps in digital mapping platforms provides a basis for identifying survey sites in the landscape, and how the positioning of these sites by the OS, both on the map and in the landscape, can uncover past survey practices and ‘ethnographies of cartography’ in the field. The second part of the paper focuses on the monuments used and created by surveyors to ensure a sound geodetic basis, examining OS survey sites as ‘material cultures’. Together, both parts of the paper make a case for greater recognition of the landscape legacies of the OS, a ‘survey heritage’ which has international significance in reflecting the OS's lasting contributions to scientific survey and geodesy, as well as for its role in shaping Britain and Ireland through mapping the nation.

The United States Foreign Policy and the UN: Engaging the Benefits of Supranational Framework

This paper examines United States role in international politics and law and confronts the theoretical deflections in the US dominance theory. This work explored the parallel between dominance and a foreign policy well aware of the constraints which international laws place on states behaviour. This work engages the benefits which the US foreign policy derives from existing supranational institutions as effective tool of her foreign policy. Although dominance in international relation is a reflection of state’s power, the US interventionist policies around the world suggest service for the UN goals.This paper strongly advances that any supra-national entity both states or organizations will constantly clash with states’ appetite for sovereignty and that is where lies the antagonism for state foreign policy with taste for universal application.

The Evolution of Comparative Administrative Law Studies

The nature and scope of comparative studies is traditionally determined by the unique character of administrative law with its high rate of inward looking elements accounting for the characteristics of different states. Comparative studies are also flexible (variable) and fragmentised by nature. These two qualities appear to remain valid but the insular characteristics have been largely reduced as a result of loosening the ties of the administration with the state. This consequently influences comparative studies as we may draw a clear dividing line between the research on independent legal orders in the phase of no connections among the states and the phase of a high degree of interdependence and interaction among the legal orders in the membership framework of supranational organisations such as European Union. The aim of this paper is to show the complex premises applied in comparative studies of administrative law and discuss the needs specific to academic research and practical applications – the legislature, the judiciary and the executive. I will demonstrate that the research on comparative law has significantly changing its functions over the years, but it has made a permanent contribution to a deeper reflection on applicable law. Keywords: comparative studies, administrative law

A Jigsaw Puzzle or a Map? The Role of Treaties under the Constitution of Kenya

The 2010 Constitution of Kenya marks the first time that treaty law is constitutionally declared part of domestic law. However, the laconic drafting of the relevant provision means that there are unanswered questions about treaties’ role. This article seeks to answer some of these questions: it addresses conflicts with other laws and concludes that treaties can be directly enforceable in domestic law unless expressly non-self-executing. Furthermore, domestic courts must apply treaties in conformity with the Constitution; but the article also addresses the problems that this causes with treaties that create supra-national organisations such as the East African Community. The article concludes by recommending that treaties that are directly applied domestically should be considered at par with statutes enacted by the national Parliament and prevail over county laws. Human rights treaties should have greater weight in Kenyan law than inconsistent statutes. Where a treaty is translated through domestic implementing legislation, the ‘parent’ treaty ought to prevail over the implementing legislation where there is conflict.

Common Problems Affecting Supranational Attempts in Africa: An Analytical Overview

Ever since the colonial era, attempts have been made throughout the various regions of Africa at building supranational units chiefly for administrative and legal convenience. Examples of such attempts include the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the East African High Commission and the federations in former French West and Equatorial Africa, all of which were attempts at forging a supranational nation state. These experiments laid the foundation for further supranational initiatives in post-colonial Africa. In this respect, every region in Africa has either experimented with or is currently experimenting with the idea of supranational regional organisations. This article aims at investigating selected attempts at supranationalism on the continent, the successes and failures of such experiments, and the lessons to be learnt from them. As Africa embarks on the journey of solidifying its unity through the establishment of leviathan continental institutions, efforts should be geared towards building on the experiences of past and present experiments at the sub-regional level. Such experiments offer instructive lessons as they are rooted in similar historical and social contexts.

To climb or not to climb? Balancing stakeholder priorities at an iconic national park

ABSTRACTIn the management of protected areas, stakeholders range from supra-national organisations, through to national and local-level decision-makers. Although there has been substantive research on stakeholders, there is limited inquiry on involving them in the development of nature-based tourism experiences in heavily visited protected areas. Drawing on stakeholder theory, this paper explores stakeholders’ perspectives of developing alternative visitor experiences at an iconic mountain, namely the World Heritage listed Wollumbin-Mount Warning National Park in eastern Australia. Due to the popularity of climbing Wollumbin mountain, a number of issues have emerged related to sustainable visitor management, including overcrowding, environmental impacts and Indigenous sensitivities around the climb. Guided by an interpretive methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 key ‘Wollumbin’ stakeholders. Analysis of these interviews revealed that when developing alternative experiences in protected areas, it is important to balance natural and cultural priorities, develop appropriate summit alternatives and overcome tourism resource challenges.

Tourism in sub-global assessments of ecosystem services

ABSTRACTPublished in 2005, the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) stressed that influencing governments, businesses and communities to address the supra-national challenge of limiting biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation requires a fuller understanding of the range of values and benefits people derive from ecosystems, including tourism. The MA was informed by, and has shaped, several conceptually and methodologically distinctive sub-global assessments (SGAs) of ecosystem services. Through content analysis, this paper is the first detailed examination of how tourism features in 14 extant SGAs identified in a database held by a major supra-national environmental organization. Although the SGAs should have incorporated the widest range of specialist subject expertise, tourism scholars played only peripheral roles in producing them even for territories where tourism is a significant land use. The SGAs examined did not benefit from the extensive body of knowledge relating to sustainable tourism. Limited portrayals of tourism restrict the capacity of SGAs in their current format as management solutions. It is also contradictory to the ethos, principles and purpose of ecosystem assessments. With the ecosystem services perspective set to become more important to policy and decision making, the paper argues for greater incorporation of recent progress in sustainable tourism in ecosystem assessment.

Digital Pathways to Sex Education

For most young people in the world, sex and relationships have a big impact on their lives. However, various gatekeepers restrict reliable information on sexual health that has a positive take on pleasure and relationships. Therefore, online sex education is of vital importance for young people. Using online traffic data and information on operational realities from Love Matters – an online provider of sex education on web, mobile and social media platforms in China, Egypt, Kenya, Mexico and India – this article attempts to contribute to an understanding of how online information about sexual health education in different national contexts is accessed by users and restricted by gatekeepers. Our findings show the importance of understanding audiences, visible traditional and invisible online gatekeepers, and working with local and supranational commercial organisations for effective outreach and provision of sex education.