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"Although two decades have passed since the nearly universal ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the realization of children's rights throughout much of the developing world continues to be a significant challenge. This collection of "essays from the field" combines accounts of the experiences and perspectives of marginalized children in ten developing countries with critical assessments of current child rights policies and strategies of intervention. In considering children living in arduous circumstances such as violent conflict, exploitative labor, incarceration, and institutional care, the collection also highlights the possibilities of enhancing the fundamental resiliency of children"--

This research asks why the European Union (EU) 'uploads' financial regulation to international regulatory fora in some (few) cases, 'downloads' it in (many) other cases or neither. It uses the concept of 'regulatory capacity' with reference to the EU and the USA. It argues that the presence (or absence) of robust domestic regulatory templates strengthen (or weaken) the ability of these jurisdictions to shape international standards produced by regulatory fora. Timing is also important in that whichever of the two manages to be out in front and shape international standards in a given sector wins first-mover advantages. The paper considers variations across the main financial services (banking, securities and insurance) as well as over time. Adapted from the source document.

Why do governments fail to implement policy commitments in contractual agreements with international organizations? While scholars have scrutinized domestic factors as obstacles to compliance, we argue that reform programs may be unimplementable by design. We study this hypothesis in the context of International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs, in which borrowing countries must commit to far‐reaching economic policy reforms for access to credit. We collect detailed compliance data on individual policy conditions to assess the determinants of compliance failures of IMF programs from 1980 to 2009. Controlling for a host of borrower‐specific variables, features of the loan, unexpected shocks during implementation, donor influence, and bureaucratic interest, we find that the number of conditions is a robust predictor of implementation failure. Our theoretical explanation for these findings is that over‐ambitious program designs are the result of intra‐organizational bargaining within the IMF bureaucracy. While an area department within the IMF drafts the initial reform program, functional departments use their amendment power to include policy conditions that they care about, without due consideration of local circumstances, which leads to over‐ambitious programs. These findings have important implications for theories of compliance as well as for policymaking in international organizations.

Torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners was the iconic human rights issue of the 1970s. Scholars credit Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations for the growing public outcry and for the international diplomacy that led to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984). Little is known about the dynamics between civil society and governments in this process. This article examines Sweden's anti-torture efforts and its entanglement with Amnesty International, its Scandinavian neighbors, and the Netherlands. With varying levels of commitment, these governments issued inter-state complaints against Greece at the Council of Europe in 1967, drafted and secured the adoption of a UN declaration against torture in 1975, and initiated the decision to make a convention in 1977. On several occasions, Sweden took charge, reflecting its new ambitions in human rights as part of its emerging 'active foreign policy'. Tracking specific initiatives, the article brings into focus an often-forgotten group of states, uncovers the dynamics between these and NGOs anti-torture efforts, and reveals the central roles of the legal entrepreneurs who designed and timed initiatives from within their government's foreign ministries.

This study had two objectives. The first objective was to investigate whether or not local and international school students in Hong Kong have different thinking styles. The second objective was to examine the predictive power of socialization variables for thinking styles among students in secondary schools. Three hundred and two students from three schools in Hong Kong responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory – Revised II based on Sternberg's theory of mental style government, and a survey on two groups of socialization variables: student characteristic and school environment. The student characteristic variables included personological and situational variables, while the school environmental variables included in-class experience and assessment-related variables. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in thinking styles between local and international school students in Hong Kong. Results also indicated that the subgroup of in-class experience was the most powerful in predicting thinking styles at the international school, the subgroup of assessment-related variables was the most powerful in predicting thinking styles at the traditional local school, and the subgroup of personological characteristics was the most powerful in predicting thinking styles at the direct subsidy scheme local school. Implications of the findings are discussed for parents, teachers, school administrators and policy makers. ; published_or_final_version ; Education ; Master ; Master of Education