Search results

The free market reforms adopted by Mexico in the wake of the debt crisis of the 1980s and in connection with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have jeopardized the physical and cultural survival of Mexico's indigenous peoples, increased migration to the United States, threatened biological diversity in Mexico, and imposed additional stress on the environment in the United States. Despite these negative impacts, NAFTA continues to serve as a template for trade agreements in the Americas. Unless this template is fundamentally restructured, future trade agreements may replicate throughout the Western hemisphere many of the economic, ecological and social dislocations experienced under NAFTA. Using Mexico as a case study, the article examines the impact of trade liberalization on indigenous peoples and on the environment. Critiquing Mexico's neoliberal economic reforms through the framework of environmental justice, the article highlights some of the theoretical and practical limitations of the theory of comparative advantage, which serves as the justification for the free market economic policies promoted by international trade and financial institutions. The article urges policy-makers to integrate trade, human rights, and environmental policy instead of criminalizing immigrants or militarizing the U.S.-Mexican border. The article concludes by using the paradigm of environmental justice to outline the elements of a more equitable and sustainable approach to international trade law and policy that supports the livelihoods of indigenous and rural communities and protects the planet's finite natural resources.

This book explores the legal regime of non-product related process and production methods (NPR PPMs) in the context of trade-restrictive environmental measures, eco-labelling requirements and sanitary measures under the WTO. These issues serve as concrete, representative examples that raise broader questions about the legitimacy of the WTO dispute settlement system and help to explore the true position of WTO members in this complex legal regime. NPR PPMs are process and production methods that do not affect the product as such, meaning that there is no discernible difference in two products with different NPR PPMs. This work examines WTO states' attempts to regulate in this regard and create product distinctions on the basis of NPR PPMs. To do so, it scrutinizes historical, institutional, substantive and case-law issues related to NPR PPMs, environmental policy and the WTO. Further, the book addresses the issues of legitimacy, regulatory space and reform, contributing to the lively debate on the future of the WTO

We empirically assess how both between-country inequality and within-country inequality relate to climate policy ambition as defined by NDC pledges of the Paris Agreement (COP21). We exploit the difference between high and low ambition targets submitted by parties to construct a climate policy ambition index. We find that both inequalities shape countries' pledges: First, low income countries tend to be more ambitious in setting their pledges when external support is received. Second, within-country inequality is associated with (i) lower mitigation ambition in low and middle-low-income countries, and with (ii) higher mitigation ambition, although none statistically significant, for upper-high and high-income countries. Despite we cannot claim any causal mechanism, our results are discussed in terms of climate policy being a superior good in rich countries and elites benefiting from emitting economic activities in poorer countries

AbstractScholars have hotly debated the structure of group engagement in policymaking. Two aspects of this conversation are examined here. First, some claim that the "explosion" of organised interests brings with it increasing fragmentation but also policy "balkanisation". Others suggest increasing fragmentation, but with overlap between subsectors. A second area of this debate concerns the existence and number of "central" or "core" groups. Although existing studies show that, in aggregate, there is no more policy specialisation among United Kingdom organised interests, we do not know whether this means that there are fewer or more central groups. In this article, we utilise public policy consultations in Scotland over a continuous 25-year period, and the tools of network analysis, to examine the above propositions. We find that the expanding system of policy consultation is not associated with more balkanisation or with a decline of central policy actors that span policy communities.

AbstractThe 21st century has seen the emergence of two novel coronaviruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and COVID‐19 (coronavirus infectious disease of 2019). In the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Republicans and Democrats were united in their concerns regarding SARS and the potential threat of biological weapons. That united front was not to be seen during the 2016 debate over supplemental funding for Zika. The primary focus of this study is whether the perception of partisanship in the public health emergency preparedness (PHEP) area affects attitudes about policy options regarding PHEP. To investigate these issues, a Qualtrics online survey of members of hospital preparedness coalitions was conducted. The survey questions covered issues such as the level of governmental priority placed on fighting infectious disease, respondents' level of confidence that the essential functions of government are being managed, the role of partisanship in PHEP decision making, and support for proposals to reform the government's infectious disease response. A statistically significant association was found between respondents' reporting that partisanship in PHEP presents a risk of injury or death and support for all the proposed reforms, indicating a desire to decentralize PHEP activities and a need to reinvigorate PHEP bipartisanship.

This chapter complements a previous chapter, 'In the time of art with policy' from the same book. The three authors, Fremantle, Douglas and Pritchard, offer different disciplinary perspectives to this analysis of global environmental policy and the work of Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison. Timelines provide a useful way of opening up patterns of complexity with multiple points of interaction. The science of environmental monitoring is a significant shaper of policy. It has developed incrementally and in increasingly complex ways as new areas of research reveal themselves. The timeline clearly reveals that the work of the Harrisons begins around the same time as a change in the pace of the work of global environmental policy and related scientific research. It is worth noting that in the accompanying timeline the people have focused, as the Harrisons do, on 'projects', and the resulting exhibitions. Some of the items in the timeline extend beyond the present, both in terms of policy and in terms of projects that the Harrisons have initiated.

Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach - part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit - in regional science and highlight special features of regional data that make such an application difficult. In particular, our analysis of the effect of regional subsidies on labor-productivity growth in Germany indicates that such policies are effective, but only up to a certain maximum treatment intensity. Although the matching approach is very appealing due to its methodological rigor and didactical clarity, we faced difficulties in balancing the set of covariates for our regional data given that the regions differ strongly with respect to the underlying structural characteristics. Thus, results have to be interpreted with some caution. The matching approach nevertheless can be of great value for regional policy analysis and should be the subject of future research efforts in the field of empirical regional science. ; Neue Forschungsarbeiten im Bereich der angewandten Mikroökonometrie haben jüngst die Identifikation kausaler Effekte als eine zentrale Herausforderung für die quantitativ ausgerichtete Politikanalyse hervorgehoben. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, welche Rolle der sogenannte Matching-Ansatz als ein Instrument des mikroökonometrischen Methodensets für die regionalwissenschaftliche Forschung und Politikberatung spielen kann. Anhand eines empirischen Anwendungsbeispiels identifizieren wir dabei den kausalen Effekt der regionalen Wirtschaftsförderung im Rahmen der Gemeinschaftsaufgabe 'Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur' (GRW) auf die Wachstumsrate der Arbeitsproduktivität deutscher Regionen zwischen 1993 und 2008. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass eine derartige Regionalpolitik grundsätzlich effektiv - dies jedoch nur bis zu einer bestimmten 'maximalen' Förderhöhe - ist. Ein wesentlicher Vorteil des Matching-Ansatzes gegenüber der klassischen Regressionsanalyse ist, dass der empirische Zusammenhang methodisch konsistent und didaktisch stringent dargestellt werden kann. Allerdings zeigen unsere Ergebnisse auch, dass regionale Daten bestimmte Eigenheiten aufweisen können, die eine Anwendung des Matching-Ansatzes mitunter erschweren. Insgesamt erweist sich der Matching-Ansatz allerdings als eine vielversprechende Erweiterung des Portfolios quantitativer Methoden in den Regionalwissenschaften und sollte im Zentrum weiterer Forschungsanstrengungen stehen.