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Considers the impacts on customs & border authorities of the 2004 UN Security Council's Resolution 1540 (UNSCR 1540), which obliges all member states to take steps to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), particularly by nonstate actors. The resolution effectively places customs at the "center of the international debate" over how to prevent the proliferation -- particularly via illegal trafficking -- of nuclear, chemical, & biological materials & weapons. Steps state governments can take & international instruments they can use to empower & support their customs services in complying with UNSCR 1540 are outlined, noting the challenges posed by the fact that the 169 member countries of the World Customs Organization (WCO) are in different stages of development. K. Hyatt Stewart

"Civil society participation has become the new mantra in foreign development assistance. The international finance institutions claim that civil society participation in economic policy-making helps to formulate pro-poor policies - by giving 'voice to the poor' - in order to achieve equitable growth. Also, civil society support has become an important instrument in the good governance 'tool box' of most bilateral cooperation programmes, based on the assumption that civil society forms a critical counterweight to an elitist government. In short, civil society participation is seen as the panacea against poverty and authoritarianism in development cooperation. As a consequence of this global trend, aid recipient countries in the developing world have witnessed a transformation of aid flows and conditionalities. This article discusses the promises and pitfalls of this development, with particular attention given to the case of Bolivia. It uses the example of this 'donor darling' to inquire in what way civil society is shaped by international development cooperation and its requirements at the national level. The Bolivian case is particularly apt to illustrate the dialectic relationship between foreign aid donors and local civil society. The Bolivian government organised a countrywide National Dialogue to consult with civil society on the issue of the PRSP formulation. It has gone further than most in responding to the global trend by implementing civil society participation at a national level. Even so, the historical divide between Bolivia's governing elite and society has only deepened. The schism culminated in the dismissal of two presidents by the people, while economic growth has yet to set in and poverty continues. The article discusses how international donors' participation programmes can raise societal expectations in a way that can only be diasppointed by the recipient government. By doing so, civil society participation programmes can de-legitimize a nascent representative democracy, without offering a functioning participatory democracy as an alternative." (author's abstract)

"In section 2 we take an empirical look at the pattern of highly qualified migration, i.e. the migration of highly qualified persons. In section 3 we discuss some theoretical issues in order to decide under which conditions highly qualified migration exerts harm on the sending country. In section 4 we discuss whether Germany is likely to lose from a brain drain. The final section summarizes the findings and draws some conclusions." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

"The envisaged strategic partnership builds upon inter-regional cooperation. This article analyzes how this is used for external democratization. The development of open regionalism and democratization in Latin America (LA) had provided a resonance structure that matched with the EU's search for a global role and its norm-based, multilateral approach to international relations in the 1990s. The outcome for external democracy promotion in the inter-regional cooperation is ambivalent. The change from open regionalism toward a self-asserted and closed regionalism in LA fundamentally transforms the resonance structure for EU's policies. The new Latin American socio-political approach to development, the economic crises and the shifting geometry of regional integration challenge the EU's approach of socialization and norm-based inter-regional cooperation. The EU has no concept how to react and lacks an internal consensus at a moment when the representative democracy in LA is at stake." (author's abstract)