Suchergebnisse

Core-based transnational corporations ship hazardous products, production processes, and wastes to the peripheral zones of the world-system. The peripheral countries are put at substantial health and environmental risk because they seldom have the risk assessment and management capabilities for dealing adequately with such hazards. The case of cigarette trafficking in the world-system is examined in this paper. The nature and scope of the cigarette trafficking problem is first examined, followed by a discussion of political and economic drivers, adverse consequences, economic costs and benefits, and solutions for dealing with the problem.

Globalization and sustainability are contradictory tendencies in the current world-system. Consider the fact that transnational corporations transfer some of the core's wastes to the peripheral zones of the world-system. Such exports reduce sustainability and put humans and the environment in recipient countries at substantial risk. The specific case of e-waste exports to Guiyu, China is discussed. The discussion proceeds in several steps. The nature of the e-waste trade is first examined. Political-economic forces that have increased e-waste trafficking to China are outlined. The extent to which this trade has negative health, environmental, and social consequences is outlined and the neo-liberal contention that such exports are economically beneficial to the core and periphery is critically examined. Policies proposed as solutions to the problem are critically reviewed.

Die Globalisierung und der internationale Standortwettbewerb haben in den letzten Jahren auch in der Schweiz eine eigentliche Liberalisierungs-, Privatisierungs- und Deregulierungswelle ausgelöst. Dadurch wurden in den davon betroffenen Infrastrukturbereichen (Eisenbahn, Post, Telekommunikation, Elektrizitätswirtschaft) beachtliche Innovationsschübe ausgelöst. Eine zunächst kaum beachtete Nebenwirkung besteht darin, dass der Staat Instrumente verloren hat, um raumordnungspolitische Ziele zu verwirklichen. Wenn über den Bau und Betrieb von Infrastruktureinrichtungen Standortpolitik oder Regionalpolitik betrieben werden soll, so bedingt dies in Zukunft den Abschluss entsprechender Verträge mit den Infrastrukturunternehmungen und die Vergütung der Mehrkosten durch den Staat. Der regionale Ausgleich wird vor allem über den freien Finanzausgleich erfolgen müssen.

Centrality in the world-system allows countries to externalize their hazards or environmental harms on others. Core countries, for instance, dump heavy metals and greenhouse gases into the global sinks, and some of the core's hazardous products, production processes and wastes are displaced to the (semi) peripheral zones of the world-system. Since few (semi) peripheral countries have the ability to assess and manage the risks associated with such hazards, the transfer of core hazards to the (semi) periphery has adverse environmental and socio-economic consequences for many of these countries and it has spawned conflict and resistance, as well as a variety of other responses. Most discussions of this risk globalization problem have failed to situate it firmly in the world-system frame emphasizing the process of ecological unequal exchange. Using secondary sources, I begin such a discussion by examining the specific problem of ship breaking (recycling core-based ocean going vessels for steel and other materials) at the yards in Alang-Sosiya, India and Chittagong, Bangladesh. Attention centers on the nature and scope of ship breaking in these two locations, major drivers operating in the world-system, adverse consequences, the unequal mix of costs and benefits, and the failure of existing political responses at the domestic and international levels to reduce adequately the adverse consequences of ship breaking.

AbstractInEthics and the Limits of Philosophy, Bernard Williams is rather severe on what he thinks of as an ethics of obligation. He has in mind by this Kant and W. D. Ross. For many, obligation seems the very core of ethics and the moral realm, and lives more generally are seen through the prism of this notion. This, according to Williams, flattens out our lives and moral experience and fails to take into account things which are obviously important to our lives. Once we take these things into account, what do we do if they come into conflict with some of our moral obligations, as Williams, in his earlier writings on moral luck, thought to be the case. I want here to explore some of these ideas, in a way that I think harmonious with Williams's general bent though not one that I intend as in any way detailed exegesis of Williams's work.

Transnational corporations appropriate 'carrying capacity" for the core by transferring the core's hazardous products, production processes, and wastes to the peripheral countries of the world-system. An increasingly important form of this reproduction process is the transfer of core-based hazardous industries to export processing zones (EPZs) locatedin a number of peripheral countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. A specific case is examined in this paper: the transfer of hazardous industries to the maquiladora centers located on the Mexican side of the Mexico-U.S. border. Maquiladoras provide an excellent case for examining what is known about the causes, adverse consequences, and political responses associated with the transfer of core-based hazardous production processes to the EPZs of the periphery.

Die Globalisierung und der internationale Standortwettbewerb haben in den letzten Jahren auch in der Schweiz eine eigentliche Liberalisierungs-, Privatisierungs- und Deregulierungswelle ausgelöst. Dadurch wurden in den davon betroffenen Infrastrukturbereichen (Eisenbahn, Post, Telekommunikation, Elektrizitätswirtschaft) beachtliche Innovationsschübe ausgelöst. Eine zunächst kaum beachtete Nebenwirkung besteht darin, dass der Staat Instrumente verloren hat, um raumordnungspolitische Ziele zu verwirklichen. Wenn über den Bau und Betrieb von Infrastruktureinrichtungen Standortpolitik oder Regionalpolitik betrieben werden soll, so bedingt dies in Zukunft den Abschluss entsprechender Verträge mit den Infrastrukturunternehmungen und die Vergütung der Mehrkosten durch den Staat. Der regionale Ausgleich wird vor allem über den freien Finanzausgleich erfolgen müssen.

An alleged moral right to informational privacy assumes that we should have control over information about ourselves. What is the philosophical justification for this control? I think that one prevalent answer to this question—an answer that has to do with the justification of negative rights generally—will not do.