Suchergebnisse

[EN] : Innovation is a process that faces several market failure situations. For this reason and for being considered one of the main drivers of economic growth, a large number of governmental and supranational policies are designed to foster technological progress. Along with these policies, there is an increasing concern with their continuous evaluation aiming at providing valuable feedback for these program's adaptation and adequacy to the firm's needs. The paper develops an evaluation of the influence of innovation-focused programs in firm´s innovation and economic performance by means of a comparative analysis of the results obtained by Spanish firms that have participated in R&D national programmes and those achieved by Spanish firms participating in EUREKA international program. Findings show that the programmes were effective in achieving their objective of promoting technological innovation but, as regards the economic effects, the results were less conclusive since some differences were observed depending on the programme. The EUREKA companies displayed better behaviour, with positive differences in their returns on assets and labour productivity. The results also confirm the importance of designing more detailed and rigorous evaluation processes, taking into account the risk variable, in order to draw a more realistic picture of the impact of national and international programmes ; [ES] El objetivo de este artículo es contribuir al conocimiento del impacto que tiene en las empresas su participación en programas públicos de apoyo a la innovación tecnológica, introduciendo como importante novedad el análisis comparado de los resultados obtenidos por las empresas españolas que han participado en programas de I+D de ámbito nacional (proyectos empresariales de I+D gestionados por el CDTI) frente a las que lo han hecho en programas internacionales (programa EUREKA). Los resultados muestran que ambos programas son eficaces en el logro de su objetivo de promover la innovación tecnológica, pero, en cuanto ...

My paper is about a project that will examine Switzerland's participation, during five decades, in the institutional and intellectual emancipation of the map-based sciences. I intend to provide a thematic and dispassionate account of the achievements of Swiss cartography and cartographers, and document the crucial initiatives a Swiss academic took to develop cartography worldwide. In the course of my analysis of Professor Eduard Imhof's interactions with his foreign colleagues, I will add cultural as well as technical perspectives to the interpretation of contemporary progress in the mapping sciences. For the Swiss school of cartography, the Imhof era (1920-1970) was more formative than the bet-ter-studied Dufour and Siegfried Maps period (1845-1926). Despite the contentious political environment of his time, E. Imhof (1895-1986) used his personal charisma to systematically encourage cooperation worldwide. Through the seminars he led and the International Cartographic Association he created and chaired, E. Imhof federated the cartographers from across the world. I will explain how by 1970, on the eve of the digital revolution, he had forged a common professional identity and improved modes and venues to communicate across the discipline. Eduard Imhof will thus allow us to touch on two important themes in science and society: the geography of knowledge and the adoption of new theories, standards and methods by the international scientific community.

This article examines how military organizations that are generally committed to following the laws and customs of war exploit what the author terms 'the collateral damage exemption', by employing legally-sanctioned war-fighting strategies that result in significant numbers of civilian casualties. This exemption shields combatants from legal liability for 'incidental' or 'inadvertent' civilian losses and the destruction of civilian objects that may occur during lawful actions. The author argues that military strategies which promote the use of overwhelming force under conditions that are likely to adversely affect the civilian population on a significant scale push the boundaries of legal behavior. Under these conditions, collateral damage is not inadvertent, but the calculated results of policy decisions. Most academics, journalists, and political leaders focus on blatant violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), for example, deliberate attacks on civilian populations. However, these actions are in many ways the least interesting from both a policy and scholarly perspective. This is because such violations are usually unambiguous, easily detected, and difficult to defend. More insidious are practices that deliberately straddle the line between legitimate action and violation by exploiting the collateral damage exception to IHL. This article demonstrates that high rates of civilian casualties that occur under the shroud of legality threaten the integrity of the laws and customs of armed conflict.

AbstractMost wars now take place within states instead of between them. In many cases, this requires humanitarians to contend with non-state armed groups in order to access civilians. While armed groups are widely perceived as a threat to the delivery of humanitarian aid, they vary in the extent to which they allow or hinder humanitarian access. Current understandings of this variation revolve around armed groups' motivations to comply with international humanitarian law (IHL). However, most humanitarians acknowledge that using IHL in negotiations for humanitarian access with armed groups is not a viable strategy. I argue that scholars should broaden their study of humanitarian access by investigating the viability of other strategies and, in particular, the strategy of community acceptance. Drawing upon interviews with humanitarian practitioners, this article discusses the shortcomings of IHL in access negotiations with armed groups, the promises of community acceptance, and the implications of these arguments.

Children and youth belong to one of the most vulnerable groups in societies. This was the case even before the current humanitarian crises around the world which led millions of people and families to flee from wars, terror, poverty and exploitation. Minors have been denied human rights such as access to education, food and health services. They have been kidnapped, sold, manipulated, mutilated, killed, and injured. This has been and continues to be the case in both developed and developing countries, and it does not look as if the situation will improve in the near future. Rather, current geopolitical developments, political and economic uncertainties and instabilities seem to be increasing the vulnerability of minors, especially in the wars and armed conflicts currently being waged not only in Europe, but on almost every continent. How can risks children and youth are exposed to in times of transition be reduced? Which role do state agencies, non-governmental organisations, as well as children's coping strategies play in mitigating the vulnerabilities of minors?This volume addresses risks to which children and young people are exposed, especially in times of transition. The focus is on different groups of children in the European wartime and post-war societies of the Second World War, 'occupation children' in Germany, teenage National Socialist collaborators in Norway, and more recent cases such as child soldiers, refugee children, and children of European "Islamic State" fighters. The contributions come from international scholars and different academic disciplines (educational and social sciences, humanities, law, and international peace and conflict studies) and are based on historical, quantitative, and/or qualitative analyses

Two ideas generally current in the Red Cross on the question of implementation, by the National Societies, of the resolutions adopted during the International Red Cross Conferences are:1. the resolutions are not binding;2. the National Societies apply the resolutions voluntarily and in a satisfactory way.Our purpose here is to examine the exactitude of these two opinions.

The World Court's recent decision in the North Sea Continental Shelf Cases is a major contribution to that branch of the theory of customary international law dealing with norm-creation by means of a treaty. The Court articulated a new methodology for determining which provisions in treaties can form the basis of universally binding customary law. As the spreading network of international conventions becomes more fine-meshed, the substantive rules of international customary law may be expected to conform more and more closely to the provisions in these conventions. The World Court has implicitly recognized this process in many prior opinions, but it was not until the Continental Shelf decision that the link between treaty and custom was focused upon with precision. I shall argue in this essay that the Court used a method which might be called the rule of manifest intent, that this method differs from a more traditional approach found in the writings of publicists, and that this new method accords well with the growing need to objectify and place upon a scientific basis the methodology by which one may determine what in fact are the rules of customary law.