Though there is no international government, there are many international regimes that enact binding regulations on particular matters. They include the Basel II regime in banking, IFRS in accountancy, the FIRST computer incident response system, the WHO’s system for containing global epidemics and many others. They form in effect a very powerful international public sector based on technical expertise. Unlike the public services of nation states, they are almost free of accountability to any democratically elected body or to any (...) legal system. Although by and large they have acted for good, the dangers of long-term unaccountability are illustrated by the travesties of justice perpetrated by the International Labour Organisation Administrative Tribunal. (shrink)

Powerful, technically complex international compliance regimes have developed recently in certain professions that deal with risk: banking (the Basel II regime), accountancy (IFRS) and the actuarial profession. The need to deal with major risks has acted as a strong driver of international co-operation to create enforceable international semilegal systems, as happened earlier in such fields as international health regulations. This regulation in technical fields contrasts with the failure of an international general-purpose political and legal regime to develop. We (...) survey the new global regulatory systems in the actuarial, banking and accounting fields, with a view to showing how the need to deal reasonably with risk has resulted in an international de facto law solidly based on correct abstract principles of probability. (shrink)

Abstract: The dynamic viscoelastic properties of Polyvinylacetate with molecular weight 83000g/mol (PVA 83K ) were determined by using a Rheometer operated in the dynamic mode and 8 mm parallel plate over a wide range of temperature as a function of frequency. The measurements were performed successively in the parallel plate geometry using 8 mm plate instead of 25 mm. The glass plateau regime is clearly observed because we could measure PVA 83K sample successively under its glass temperature. The rheological properties (...) of polydisperse PVA 83K were completely studied. The storage and loss compliance and the relaxation spectrum are evaluated. (shrink)

methods that have shown promise for improving extreme risk analysis, particularly for assessing the risks of invasive pests and pathogens associated with international trade. We describe the legally inspired regulatory regime for banks, where these methods have been brought to bear on extreme ‘operational risks’. We argue that an ‘advocacy model’ similar to that used in the Basel II compliance regime for bank operational risks and to a lesser extent in biosecurity import risk analyses is ideal for permitting the (...) diversity of relevant evidence about invasive species to be presented and soundly evaluated. We recommend that the process be enhanced in ways that enable invasion ecology to make more explicit use of the methods found successful.. (shrink)

In the last seven years, close to twenty thousand people have died trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Rescue missions by private actors and NGOs have increased because both national measures and measures by the EU’s border control agency, Frontex, are often deemed insufficient. However, such independent rescue missions face increasing persecution from national governments, Italy being one example. This raises the question of how potential migrants and dissenting citizens should act towards the EU border regime. In (...) contrast to the literature, which mainly addresses migration on the basis of justice requirements, this article focuses on the legitimate authority of the EU’s border regime. Focusing on the legitimacy criteria for states’ claims to regulate migration opens a fruitful normative perspective, given the pervasive disagreement over the content of justice in migration. What reasons for compliance and non-interference does legitimacy supply for potential immigrants and dissenting citizens? And what legitimacy standard may be appropriate for the power that individual states claim over potential immigrants? We argue that, even assuming a minimal legitimacy standard for the state-migrant relationship, the structure of the EU’s border regime exhibits unique features, which cause it to stand in tension with such a standard. By coordinating its Member States’ border regimes, especially through Frontex, the EU claims and exercises power over potential immigrants. However, the asymmetrical delegation of state powers to the EU means that the power involved in regulating European borders is, in core respects, unaccountable. This unaccountability, we argue, is significant for the legitimacy of the EU’s border regime. This article sheds new light on the morality of unauthorised rescue missions by assessing the permissibility of resistance to the EU’s border regime. (shrink)

According to the Market Failures Approach to business ethics, beyond-compliance duties can be derived by employing the same rationale and arguments that justify state regulation of economic conduct. Very roughly the idea is that managers have a duty to behave as if they were complying with an ideal regulatory regime ensuring Pareto-optimal market outcomes. Proponents of the approach argue that managers have a professional duty not to undermine the institutional setting that defines their role, namely the competitive market. This (...) answer is inadequate, however, for it is the hierarchical firm, rather than the competitive market, that defines the role of corporate managers and shapes their professional obligations. Thus, if the obligations that the market failures approach generates are to apply to managers, they must do so in an indirect way. I suggest that the obligations the market failures approach generates directly apply to shareholders. Managers, in turn, inherit these obligations as part of their duties as loyal agents. (shrink)

The teaching of Confucius, one of the doctrines built Chinese philosophy, is the movement of thought that has penetrated politics, education, manners and customs in East Asia for centuries. Reading the principles that advise wisdom and virtue through classical texts, we can find out normative moral knowledge. This teaching, in which ethical standards guiding human relations are regulative, promotes hierarchy as required by patriarchal and patrimonial regime. Social structure is grounded on discrimination between nobles and commons. Since the rights and (...) privileges granted to the aristocracy and bureaucracy humiliate citizens and force compliance, social inequality becomes obvious. Just as Confucius cites the idea of spiritual supremacy of rulers, he also bestows a privilege upon the noble class due to their eligibility. It is the people who are actively industrious in serve, deference and obedience. The problem of nepotism, which favors the closer and excludes the farther in relational words and actions, extends all areas from familial to managerial. Consequently, justice, the main canon of virtue, has been disregarded. In this paper, it firstly will be argued that Confucius practices hypocrisy by his paradoxical statements about behavioral norms. Secondly, positional duties, which subjugate people for the interests of the dynasty, does not correspond to liberal humanism, will be confirmed. (shrink)

Following John Rawls, nonideal theory is typically divided into: (1) “partial-compliance theory” and (2) “transitional theory." The former is concerned with those circumstances in which individuals and political regimes do not fully comply with the requirements of justice, such as when people break the law or some individuals do not do their fair share within a distributive scheme. The latter is concerned with circumstances in which background institutions may be unjust or may not exist at all. This paper (...) focuses on issues arising in transitional theory. In particular, I am concerned with what Rawls’ has called “burdened societies," that is, those societies that find themselves in unfavorable conditions, such that their historical, social or economic circumstances make it difficult to establish just institutions. The paper investigates exactly how such burdened societies should proceed towards a more just condition in an acceptable fashion. Rawls himself tells us very little, except to suggest that societies in this condition should look for policies and courses of action that are morally permissible, politically possible and likely to be effective. In this paper I first try to anticipate what a Rawlsian might say about the best way for burdened societies to handle transitional problems and so move towards the ideal of justice. Next, I construct a model of transitional justice for burdened societies. Ultimately, I argue for a model of transitional justice that makes use of a nonideal version of Rawls’ notion of the worst-off representative person. (shrink)

The philosophical significance of rhythm in the United States has been undermined from both sides of what Adorno and Horkheimer called the ‘dialectic of enlightenment’. When rhythm has not been falsely exalted, promising a fetishised, racialised ‘return’ to the body, it has been devalued through the tainted associations of rhythmic synchronisation with fascist regimes and the demand for compliance. In this article, I engage these issues as they inflect the politics of musical form. Adorno’s notorious critique of jazz (...) – developed across a wide range of essays spanning three decades (1933-1962) – has been rightly disparaged, but his concept of the politics of metric regularity has not been repudiated. In what follows, I provide an analysis of how metric regularity works for Adorno as a concept – its limitations and presuppositions. Adorno opens up new critical thought about rhythm by taking seriously the problem of the bass drum in jazz and its historical and structural relation to the military march. However, he gets seriously wrong the different implications of marching rhythm for African-American (and therefore American) history, failing to understand its radical difference from the dangers of European fascism for its victims. -/- Transnational rhythmic forms in the black diaspora (including the United States) and the interracial experiences that these forms enable, at least as in-principle possibilities, continually contest the ‘the divisions between life and thought’ that have been taken for granted by majoritarian philosophy in the West. From this perspective, the segregation of intellect from feel (a technical term among musicians to indicate those normatively right aesthetic choices that nevertheless emerge in excess of predetermined rules is not tenable given the polyrhythmic background that must be presupposed in order for any piece of diasporic music, including and especially in the United States, to be intelligible. (shrink)

Please contact me at [email protected] if you are interested in reading a particular chapter or being sent the entire manuscript for private use. -/- The thesis offers a comprehensive argument in favor of a regulationist approach to autonomous weapon systems (AWS). AWS, defined as all military robots capable of selecting or engaging targets without direct human involvement, are an emerging and potentially deeply transformative military technology subject to very substantial ethical controversy. AWS have both their enthusiasts and their detractors, prominently (...) advocating for a global preemptive ban on AWS development and use. Rejecting both positions, the author outlines a middle-of-the-road regulationist approach that is neither overly restrictive nor overly permissive. The disqualifying flaws of the rival prohibitionist approach are demonstrated in the process. After defining the core term of autonomy in weapon systems, the practical difficulties involved in applying an arms control regime to AWS are analyzed. The analysis shows that AWS are an extremely regulation-resistant technology. This feature when combined with their assumed high military utility makes a ban framework extremely costly to impose and enforce. As such it is ultimately very likely to fail at the benefit of the most unscrupulous international actors and at a very substantial risk to those abiding with international law. Consequently, to be ethically viable, a prohibitionist framework would need to offer substantial moral benefits impossible to attain through the rival regulationist approach. The remainder of the thesis undertakes to demonstrate that this is not the case. Comparing the considerations of military and strategic necessity to humanitarian concerns most commonly voiced by prohibitionists requires finding a common denominator for all values being referred to. Consequently, the thesis proceeds to show that both kinds of concerns are ultimately reducible to respect for basic human rights of all stakeholders, and so that the prohibitionist and regulationist approach may ultimately be compared in terms of consequences their adoption would generate for basic human rights realization. The author then evaluates both the potential humanitarian benefits, and the potential humanitarian hazards of AWS introduction. The benefits of leaving frontline combat to machines are outlined, with the unique kinds of suffering that would be abolished by such a development being described in detail. The arguments against AWS adoption are then divided into three classes: arguments related to alleged impossibility of compliance with The Laws of Armed Conflict, non-consequentialist and broad consequentialist arguments. This analysis, which comprises the greater part of the entire thesis, shows that the concerns behind compliance arguments are indeed substantial and have to be accommodated via a complex framework of best practices, regulations and localized restrictions on some kinds of AWS or AWS use in particular environments. They do not, however, justify a universal ban on using all the diverse forms of AWS in all environments. Non-consequentialist objections are found either reducible to other classes of arguments or thoroughly unconvincing, sometimes to the point of being actually vacuous. Broad consequentialist concerns are likewise found to be accommodable by regulation, empirically unfounded or causally disconnected from the actions of legitimate actors acquiring AWS, and therefore irrelevant to the moral permissibility of such actions. The author concludes that the proponents of prohibitionism are unable to point to moral benefits substantial enough to justify the costs and risks inherent in the approach. A global ban is, in fact, likely to have a worse humanitarian impact that well-regulated AWS adoption even if the strategic risks are disregarded. On the other hand, the analysis shows that there indeed exists an urgent need to regulate AWS through a variety of technological, procedural and legal solutions. These include, but are not limited to, a temporary moratorium on anti-personnel AWS use, development of internationally verified compliance software and eventual legal requirement of its employment, a temporary moratorium on AWS proliferation to state actors and a ban on their proliferation to non-state agents. (shrink)

The ethical Principle of Proportionality requires combatants not to cause collateral harm excessive in comparison to the anticipated military advantage of an attack. This principle is considered a major (and perhaps insurmountable) obstacle to ethical use of autonomous weapon systems (AWS). This article reviews three possible solutions to the problem of achieving Proportionality compliance in AWS. In doing so, I describe and discuss the three components Proportionality judgments, namely collateral damage estimation, assessment of anticipated military advantage, and judgment of (...) “excessiveness”. Some possible approaches to Proportionality compliance are then presented, such as restricting AWS operations to environments lacking civilian presence, using AWS in targeted strikes in which proportionality judgments are pre-made by human commanders, and a ‘price tag’ approach of pre-assigning acceptable collateral damage values to military hardware in conventional attritional warfare. The article argues that application of these three compliance methods would result in AWS’ achieving acceptable Proportionality compliance levels in many combat environments and scenarios, allowing AWS to perform most key tasks in conventional warfare. (shrink)

The essay concerns the negative end of the political argument of the Republic, that injustice—the rule of unreason—is both widespread and undesirable, and that whatever shadows of virtue or order might be found in its midst are corrupt and unstable. This claim is explained in detail in Republic 8 and 9. These passages explain recognizable faults in recognizable regimes in terms of the failure of the rule of reason and the corresponding success of the rule of non-rational forms of (...) motivation. I will first look at degenerate regimes as they appear in a less systematic way in the Ship of State passage in Republic 6 and in the discussion with Thrasymachus in book 1. I then give a general overview of the system of degenerate regimes in book 8 to examine what exactly goes wrong with them and why, and explain how the process of degeneration ought be understood as the progressive decay of the rule of reason. Finally, I argue that a close look at this decay reveals something surprising: that degenerate regimes and characters feature weak versions of virtue, shadow-virtues that are based on appearances and held in place by force. Thus in the end the whole process of degeneration ought be understood as an extended conflict between reason and appetite. (shrink)

Typically, fair machine learning research focuses on a single decision maker and assumes that the underlying population is stationary. However, many of the critical domains motivating this work are characterized by competitive marketplaces with many decision makers. Realistically, we might expect only a subset of them to adopt any non-compulsory fairness-conscious policy, a situation that political philosophers call partial compliance. This possibility raises important questions: how does partial compliance and the consequent strategic behavior of decision subjects affect the (...) allocation outcomes? If k% of employers were to voluntarily adopt a fairness-promoting intervention, should we expect k% progress (in aggregate) towards the benefits of universal adoption, or will the dynamics of partial compliance wash out the hoped-for benefits? How might adopting a global (versus local) perspective impact the conclusions of an auditor? In this paper, we propose a simple model of an employment market, leveraging simulation as a tool to explore the impact of both interaction effects and incentive effects on outcomes and auditing metrics. Our key findings are that at equilibrium: (1) partial compliance by k% of employers can result in far less than proportional (k%) progress towards the full compliance outcomes; (2) the gap is more severe when fair employers match global (vs local) statistics; (3) choices of local vs global statistics can paint dramatically different pictures of the performance vis-a-vis fairness desiderata of compliant versus non-compliant employers; (4) partial compliance based on local parity measures can induce extreme segregation. Finally, we discuss implications for auditors and insights concerning the design of regulatory frameworks. (shrink)

When people share the same knowledge and culture, it is difficult to distinguish whether their ‎national speech is humanitarian or racist. Such things make it easy for people to accept ‎unhumanitarian speech just because it stems from their culture. Hence, the purpose of this ‎investigation is to give readers a tool to assist them in discriminating between discourses that ‎are racist and those that are humanitarian. It is called the principle of compliance. The principle ‎said that if all nations (...) and different cultures apply this discourse, what will be the overall ‎result in respect for people’s lives and plant resources? Does this discourse encourage ‎greater goodness or evil?. Goodness has been defined as preserving humanity and the Earth's ‎natural resources.‎. (shrink)

I provide counterexamples to Kit Fine's semantics for imperative and deontic modals. In particular, I argue that the semantics fails to provide necessary conditions for conjunctive imperatives.

My paper argues that the Nicomachean Ethics endorses kingship (basileia) as the best regime (aristê politeia). In order to justify such a claim, I look at Aristotle’s discussion and rankings of regimes throughout the Ethics, specifically, the discussions of regime division in EN VIII.10, the inculcation of virtue in II.1, ethical habituation in X.9, and the “one regime which is best everywhere according to nature” in V.7.

The assumption that coercion is largely responsible for our legal systems’ efficacy is a common one. I argue that this assumption is false. But I do so indirectly, by objecting to a thesis I call “(Compliance)”, which holds that most citizens comply with most legal mandates most of the time at least partly in virtue of being motivated by legal systems’ threats of sanctions and other unwelcome consequences. The relationship between (Compliance) and the efficacy of legal systems is (...) explained in section 1. There I also show that (Compliance) must be rejected for it relies on unsubstantiated empirical assumptions. In section 2, I claim that an alternative, and more refined, formulation of (Compliance) also lacks adequate support. I conclude with a few general remarks about the centrality of coercion in our thought and talk about legal systems. (shrink)

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to avoid the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining or drastically diminishing social contacts. Compliance (or lack thereof) with these recommendations is a controversial and divisive topic, and lay hypotheses abound regarding what underlies this divide. This paper investigates which cognitive, moral, and emotional traits separate people who comply with official recommendations from those who don't. (...) In four studies (three pre-registered) on both U.S. and French samples, we found that individuals' self-reported compliance with official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly driven by individual differences in moral values, disgust sensitivity, and psychological reactance. We discuss the limitations of our studies and suggest possible applications in the context of health communication. (shrink)

The automobile has reshaped our conceptions of space and our modes of accessing and penetrating the urban and non-urban territory in multiple ways, revolutionizing how architects perceive the city and contributing significantly to the transformation of the relationship between architecture and the city. Despite the fact that many architects and architectural critics and theorists have been attracted to automobile vision, in the field of history and theory of architecture and urban design, many questions concerning the impact of the automobile on (...) our perception of the city and its territory have not yet been explored in depth. This is surprising when one considers that no other single factor changed the city so drastically during the twentieth century as the pervasive presence of the automobile. The article examines three different cases of architects—John Lautner, Alison and Peter Smithson, and Aldo Rossi—who tried to construct new visual regimes in photography from the car. The main objective is to present how new visual regimes in photography from the car informed in various ways the visual attitudes in their designs of buildings. The interexchange between the ways of capturing the views from the car and the formation of new design methods can explain the necessity to establish a new theoretical framework offering the possibility to historians of architecture and urban design to address in a sharp and concrete way the reciprocal relation between automobile vision and design approaches. (shrink)

Joseph Raz claims that there can be reason to do the impossible; but partial compliance with reason is better than non-compliance and the closer one gets to complying with reason, the better. I propose some exceptions.

If computer ethics is to constitute a real engagement with industry and society that cultivates a genuine sensitivity to ethical concerns in the creation, development, and implementation of technologies, a genuine sensitivity that stands in marked contrast to ethics as “mere compliance,” then computer ethics will have to consist in issuing an open invitation to inquiry, since going beyond mere compliance requires a sensitivity to the importance of what we care about, and inquiry has the potential to leverage (...) what our audiences already care about to bring them to care about computer ethics. This commitment to open inquiry is apparent in the practice of computer ethics at Ethicomp and in our interfaces with various audiences beyond Ethicomp. We mentor professionals, aspiring professionals, managers, end-users, policy makers, and each other by offering an open invitation to inquiry about the broad ethical implications of the practices, professions, and institutions of computing and the design, development, and implementation of computer artifacts. (shrink)

Having an adequate and extensively recognized resource governance system is essential for the conservation and sustainable use of crop genetic resources in a highly populated planet. Despite the widely accepted importance of agrobiodiversity for future plant breeding and thus food security, there is still pervasive disagreement at the individual level on who should own genetic resources. The aim of the article is to provide conceptual clarification on the following concepts and their relation to agrobiodiversity stewardship: open access, commons, private property, (...) state property and common heritage of humankind. After presenting each property regime, we will examine whether and how these incentivize the conservation, improvement and sharing of crop genetic resources, and conclude by defending a mixed property regime. (shrink)

This work offers a possible Foucaultian interpretation of Corporate Compliance Management. It is motivated by the so-called "failure" of ethical training. This research pursues a critical and local perspective. The aim is to endorse and strengthen the ethical potentiality of a Compliance Program. In the first part, metaphors produced by corporate employees are presented. These images symbolize the power relationships with their employers and illustrate some Foucaultian concepts. In the second part, Compliance Management is interpreted as an (...) exercise of corporate power validated by an intentioned discourse. In the third part, Compliance Program is interpreted as a possibility of power resistance. In the fourth part, it provides a discussion with some authors who have tried to rescue Foucault's contribution to business ethics. It is reached to the conclusion that a Compliance Program contains potentialities for the individual´s empowerment. This empowerment is mainly granted through dialogue in training workshops. (shrink)

Recently the role of ideology and hegemony has received increased attention to explain varying dynamics of diffusion and autocratic cooperation. As a result, patterns of interaction in clusters from regions without hegemony or ideology have been overlooked because their autocracy-toautocracy transitions are no threat to the global status of democracy, even when active regime promotion is very common. This article will apply insights from economic cluster theory to political regimes and introduce a typology to differentiate among clusters. Regime Cluster (...) Theory is the first framework that presents three ideal-types of ideological, hegemonic and biotopical regime clusters. With a new concept of ‘biotopical clusters’ the paper explains the dynamics of clusters in often omitted regions, like in Sub Saharan Africa, Latin America during the Cold War, or Central Asia during the 1990s. RCT offers a dynamic approach to recognize and assess patterns of forcible regime promotion per cluster as well as distinguish between their different diffusion patterns (coercive, voluntary, bounded learning, contagion) in four arenas: institutions, ideas, policy and administrative practices. RCT advances the comparative study of regime promotion and diffusion in various regions of the world and hopes to shed new light on related theories of alliance formation, regional institutionalization, and (conflict) spill-over effects. (shrink)

The recent political developments in the Philippines require a reevaluation of the nature of the State under the Rodrigo Duterte regime. Just years ago, scholars illustrated the regime of Duterte to be a populist, illiberal, or authoritarian one. But since then, and especially during the pandemic, a lot of things have changed. In this paper, I will argue that Duterte’s regime is a fascist one. Unlike how Walden Bello characterized Duterte as a fascist original, a characterization laden with theoretical inconsistencies (...) and practical difficulties, I will develop a concept of fascism proper to the neoliberal and semi-colonial conditions of the Philippines. I will likewise trace the rise, development, and stabilization of the regime’s fascism. The discussion will be supported and illuminated by some illustrative examples taken from the experience of the mass movement in Cebu. (shrink)

Wie Herrschaft kritisieren, wenn Kategorien wie Staat, Souveränität und Demokratie nicht mehr funktionieren? Der Regimebegriff verspricht einen Ausweg aus diesem praktischen wie theoretischen Dilemma. Er soll nicht nur helfen, Macht und Herrschaft besser zu verstehen, sondern auch eine neue Grundlage für tiefere und radikalere Gesellschaftskritik bieten: Das Denken in Regimen bezieht Denk- und Wahrnehmungsmuster in die Analyse und Kritik von gesellschaftlichen Strukturen, (politischer) Macht und alltäglichen Normen und Praxen ein. Kurz: Regimeanalysen helfen uns zu sehen, was sonst unsichtbar bliebe, wie (...) etwa die rassistische Regulierung von Migration, die Normierung von Geschlechterverhältnissen oder die Neoliberalisierung von Universitäten. Es wundert nicht, dass ein Begriff, mit dem solch verschiedene Phänomene beschrieben werden können, »sehr weitläufig und oft ungenau und spekulativ« ist. Die AutorInnen aus dem Umfeld der Wiener Akademie der Künste führen deshalb in ihren Buchbeiträgen zunächst in die unterschiedlichen Regimebegriffe ein und möchten untersuchen, »welchen diskursiven und politischen Gewinn er verspricht und tatsächlich bringt.«. (shrink)

Recently, I have proposed an extension of the framework of the ethics of collegiality (Berber & Subotić, forthcoming). By incorporating an anti-individual perspective and the notion of epistemic competence, this framework can reveal the epistemic virtue/vice relativism, which, in turn, charts the tension between being a good colleague and an efficient, loyal employee. In this paper, however, I want to sketch how the ethics of collegiality could be applied to practical domains, such as the historical accountability and atonement of corporations (...) that participated in the anti-Semitic policies of the Third Reich and contributed to the Holocaust by using slave or forced labor. New studies suggest that corporations ought to engage in deeper historical reflection and ethical dialogue between Shoah survivors and top managers to address the issue of industrial compliance (Federman 2021), whereas most of the work on this topic traditionally focused on the issue of reparations litigation (Kelly 2016, Neuborne 2003). Through the notions of collective institutional epistemic vice and institutional ethos (Fricker 2021), the upshot is to assess whether it is feasible for corporations to be genuinely repentant regarding their role in the Holocaust thanks to the ethics of collegiality instead of merely offering compensation. I will argue that instead of emphasizing ethical leadership and the top-down approach to the (re-)implementation of values in corporate conduct, the spotlights should be on the bottom-up approach grounded in collegial solidarity among all employees. (shrink)

Jordan made substantial market access commitments as part of its WTO membership negotiations. Jordan has low average tariffs with single or two digits rate and ad valorem-only duties with some exceptions where specific duties apply. Customs standards in Jordan were streamlined in accordance with WTO rules. Jordan confirmed in its accession to the WTO that free zones or export processing zones would be fully subject to the coverage of the commitments taken in the protocol of accession. The purpose of this (...) article is to examine and analyse Jordan’s current imports and tariffs regime. (shrink)

Um exemplar do livro intitulado Notas sobre a arte chinesa, publicado pelo colecionador José Vicente Jorge em 1940 e reeditado em 1995 pelo Instituto Cultural de Macau, encontra-se no acervo do Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, o qual pretendemos explorar. Apontamos a obra de um colecionador como ponto de partida para a observação de seu papel como mediador linguístico e cultural. A escolha das obras que compõem seu catálogo de objetos artísticos fornece uma descrição cronológica da arte chinesa e das (...) suas principais produções em cada dinastia. Ademais, analisaremos as obras de um pintor atuante em Macau na época em que Jorge escrevera suas Notas. Assim, veremos de que maneira a obra pictórica de Fausto Sampaio insere-se na tradição naturalista de pintura que, desde meados do século XIX, procura fixar em telas a diversidade dos costumes nacionais. Sampaio vem a ser testemunha ocular do Império ultramarino português. Estudaremos como suas imagens foram instrumentalizadas com fins políticos, desempenhando um papel na construção de uma identidade nacional continuamente evocada pela propaganda do Estado Novo. (shrink)

In this thesis we have examined the complex interaction between intellectual property rights, life sciences and global justice. Science and the innovations developed in its wake have an enormous effect on our daily lives, providing countless opportunities but also raising numerous problems of justice. The complexity of a problem however does not liberate society as a whole from moral responsibilities. Our intellectual property regimes clash at various points with human rights law and commonly held notions of justice.

In this paper, I will deal with the issue of the relationship between trust, authoritarian democratic regimes and crises. I will pay special attention to the issue of the relationship between personal trust and trust in institutions. I will try to point out the way in which distrust in institutions develops in authoritarian regimes, as well as the populist way of diminishing the importance of institutions and trust in them, which are seen as obstacles to an efficient relationship (...) between the leader and the people. Finally, I will say a few words about trust in science and its way of approaching the public. (shrink)

The information regime is mediated by the culture of the electronic device. It is characterized by the control of the deluded citizen through the deployment of freedom, thereby nullifying the core issue of human life: freedom. Through phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology (Heidegger, 2002), this work starts from the world of digital life to direct the interpretation towards digital governance, all of which appears as a hermeneutic horizon the information regime. It is concluded that in this new social order the political and all (...) other orders that arise from interaction are governed by a capitalism of emotions. (shrink)

Thesis )--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.

The state of the availability of digital resources and institutional compliance to COVID-19 mitigation measures was evaluated by the researchers in this study. Informed by the need to answer two research questions, the study adopted the descriptive survey design. A sample of 409 participants was drawn from a population of 2,410 academic staff at the University of Calabar, leveraging the multistage sampling process. “Availability of digital resources and institutional compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures questionnaire” was used for data (...) collection. After administration, we recovered 397 copies of the instrument successfully. We used descriptive statistics to answer the research questions. Our findings indicated a great extent in the availability of digital resources such as computers (91.18%), human capacity (63.48%), network printers (67.76%), projectors (59.19%), websites (92.95%), and wireless networks (86.65%). There was a low extent in the availability of digital resources such as local area network (5.79%), cloud storage systems (2.27%), digital libraries (7.56%), firewalls (1.26%), Internet service (48.36%), routers (23.69%), and Zoom videoconferencing platform (23.93%). The unavailability of digital resources such as host/servers (0%) and virtual private networks (0%) in the higher education institution (HEI). Further evidence shows a low extent of institutional compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures generally and specifically for all indicators. In conclusion, there is a high degree of unreadiness to promote e-learning when flexible learning systems should operate in the institution. Among others, we recommend that the management of the HEI should apportion proceeds from internally generated funds to procure digital resources to increase the institution's capacity to respond to COVID-19 or similar cases in the future. (shrink)

Scholarly attempts to analyze the history of science sometime suffer from an imprecise use of terms. In order to understand accurately how science has developed and from where it draws its roots, researchers should be careful to recognize that epistemic regimes change over time and acceptable forms of knowledge production are contingent upon the hegemonic discourse informing the epistemic regime of any given period. In order to understand the importance of this point, I apply the techniques of historical epistemology (...) to an analysis of the place of the study of astrology in the medieval and early modern periods alongside a discussion of the “language games” of these period as well as the role of the “archeology of knowledge” in uncovering meaning in our study of the past. In sum, I argue that the term “science” should never be used when studying approaches to knowledge formation prior to the seventeenth century. (shrink)

Abstract: Polystyrene/waste tires composites were prepared in this study by incorporating small particles of waste tires into polydisperse commercial polystyrene (PS) in a melt-mixing method. The dynamic mechanical properties of PS and PS/composite were studied using ARES-Rheometer under nitrogen atmosphere in parallel plate geometry with diameter 8 mm. The measurements were carried out over a wide range of temperatures ranged from 120°C to 220°C and frequencies from 100 to 0.1 radians per second. The shear compliance of PS composite were (...) studied and compared with those of unfilled PS. The shear compliance were studied and evaluated. Where the values of J' at  = 0.06 radians/s are 110-4 and 5.310-5 Pa-1 for PS and PS composite, respectively At  = 0.1 radians/s the addition of the rubber alters the value of J'' from 1.610-4 to 8.410-5 Pa-1. That means the stability of PS is enhanced by the incorporation of the rubber. (shrink)

As the aim of the responsible robotics initiative is to ensure that responsible practices are inculcated within each stage of design, development and use, this impetus is undergirded by the alignment of ethical and legal considerations towards socially beneficial ends. While every effort should be expended to ensure that issues of responsibility are addressed at each stage of technological progression, irresponsibility is inherent within the nature of robotics technologies from a theoretical perspective that threatens to thwart the endeavour. This is (...) because the concept of responsibility, despite being treated as such, is not monolithic: rather this seemingly unified concept consists of converging and confluent concepts that shape the idea of what we colloquially call responsibility. From a different perspective, robotics will be simultaneously responsible and irresponsible depending on the particular concept of responsibility that is foregrounded: an observation that cuts against the grain of the drive towards responsible robotics. This problem is further compounded by responsible design and development as contrasted to responsible use. From a different perspective, the difficulty in defining the concept of responsibility in robotics is because human responsibility is the main frame of reference. Robotic systems are increasingly expected to achieve the human-level performance, including the capacities associated with responsibility and other criteria which are necessary to act responsibly. This subsists within a larger phenomenon where the difference between humans and non-humans, be it animals or artificial systems, appears to be increasingly blurred, thereby disrupting orthodox understandings of responsibility. This paper seeks to supplement the responsible robotics impulse by proposing a complementary set of human rights directed specifically against the harms arising from robotic and artificial intelligence technologies. The relationship between responsibilities of the agent and the rights of the patient suggest that a rights regime is the other side of responsibility coin. The major distinction of this approach is to invert the power relationship: while human agents are perceived to control robotic patients, the prospect for this to become reversed is beginning. As robotic technologies become ever more sophisticated, and even genuinely complex, asserting human rights directly against robotic harms become increasingly important. Such an approach includes not only developing human rights that ‘protect’ humans but also ‘strengthen’ people against the challenges introduced by robotics and AI [This distinction parallels Berlin’s negative and positive concepts of liberty ], by emphasising the social and reflective character of the notion of humanness as well as the difference between the human and nonhuman. This will allow using the human frame of reference as constitutive of, rather than only subject to, the robotic and AI technologies, where it is human and not technology characteristics that shape the human rights framework in the first place. (shrink)

The years that followed the fall of the Berlin wall and various authoritarian regimes in different regions of the world, witnessed the growth of a wide literature on democratization, which was influenced more and more by the paradigm of transition and the “consolidation” of democracy. Since then, evaluations as well as perspectives through which were seen various regimes (the new democracies “with problems”) are developed mainly through the theoretical lens of consolidation paradigm, according to which full democratic consolidation (...) was the endpoint of regime transitions. But it has become clear today that in many countries, in which more than three decades have passed since the fall of authoritarian regimes, the issue of “completion” of democracy in their social and political context is still far from being a happy reality. The purpose of this paper is to criticize both in the theoretical and the empirical level, the concept of “consolidation of democracy”, seeing it as a non-valid concept for the study of democratization. This paper will argue that essentially the concept of consolidation is teleological and problematic in the sense that democracy is seen not as a process but an endpoint product. (shrink)

Sometimes, people who are otherwise eligible to donate blood are unduly deferred from donating. “Unduly” indicates a gap where a deferral policy misstates what exposes potential donors to risk and so defers more donors than is justified. Since the error is at the policy-level, it’s natural and understandable to focus criticism on reformulating or eliminating the offending policies. Policy change is undoubtedly the right goal because the policy is what prevents otherwise safe eligible donors from donating needed blood. But focusing (...) exclusively at the policy-level passes over a largely undiscussed question: if policy change takes time and there is an urgent need for blood now, then what should unduly deferred donors do in the meanwhile? Blood banks and federal agencies recommend that deferred donors donate their time or money until they become eligible, but blood is a non-fungible good: donated cash or volunteered time cannot replace a transfusion. Further, this request ignores that otherwise eligible donors could safely donate their blood in addition to their time and money. Here is the central question I will focus on in this paper: is a donor morally justified in lying on a questionnaire to donate blood if they justifiably believe that their blood poses no risk to a recipient and knows that honestly answering a donor questionnaire would unduly defer them from donating? (shrink)

Le contrôle de constitutionnalité, dont la magistrature parlementaire de l’Ancien Régime revendiquait le plein droit, n’était pas fondé uniquement sur les lois fondamentales du royaume, mais sur l’ensemble des principes (« les maximes ») tirés de la « Tradition ». Cette dernière était composée en premier lieu par le droit divin et le droit naturel, c’est-à-dire par des systèmes juridiques qui nécessitaient, tous les deux, une interprétation juridictionnelle ‘sapientiale’. Cette activité interprétative était ‘révélatrice’ d’un corpus de valeurs métaphysiques à laquelle (...) seule la Scientia Juris des magistrats pouvait puiser. Mais dans la sphère de la Tradition juridique rentraient aussi le « dépôt légal », c’est-à-dire l’ensemble de toutes les lois, même des lois ainsi dites « ordinaires », c’est-à-dire celles qui avaient été produites par la simple manifestation de volonté souveraine d’un roi prédécesseur « car tel avait été son plaisir » (moderne formulation du brocarde de droit romain : « quidquid principi placuit legis habet vigorem »). Ainsi la juridiction parlementaire donnait lieu à un jugement de constitutionnalité qui était normalement exercé de manière très flexible par le corps de la magistrature, dépendant des circonstances et des intérêts politiques momentanés des situations juridiques qu’elle voulait protéger. La hiérarchie des normes était ainsi un formidable instrument de protection de cet ordre juridique dont les legum doctores se sentaient les tuteurs. Elle était, donc, directement liée au gouvernement politique des juges. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge and Andrew Kuper suggest that we should promote an ‘institutional’ solution to global poverty. They advocate the institutional solution because they think that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can never be the primary agents of justice in the long run. They provide several standard criticisms of NGO aid in support of this claim. However, there is a more serious problem for institutional solutions: how to generate enough goodwill among rich nation-states that they would be willing to commit themselves to supranational (...) institutional reforms. In the current international political climate, the implementation of such institutional reforms introduces several intractable problems, including difficulties of global coordination and enforcement. I defend the solution of NGO aid from the criticisms presented by Pogge and Kuper, and propose how it might be reformed. My main suggestion is that all practising NGOs should be required to be ‘accountable for reasonableness’ in the sense that Norman Daniels and James Sabin have outlined. (shrink)

This paper presents preliminary results of a survey experiment examining the effects of international illegality on public support for proposed public policies. It adds three specific dimensions to the existing literature. First, it tests whether the effects of international illegality differ depending on the international regime whose rules are violated, testing the effects of violations of both human rights and trade regimes. Second, it tests how far the involvement of international courts vary these effects. And third, it examines these (...) questions using parallel studies with UK and US respondents to test the robustness and generalisability of the relations identified. Results confirm that, across both jurisdictions, illegality under either trade or human rights regimes, and with or without the additional involvement of an international court, have a statistically significant negative effect of public support for a policy. They further identify a greater negative effect where an international court has confirmed this illegality, although this result is statistically significant in only one case. They do not identify any statistically significant difference in the support depressing effect of illegality under the trade regime compared to the human rights regime. (shrink)

In this paper, I show that Polleit and Mariano (2011) are right in concluding that Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are per se unobjectionable from Rothbard’s libertarian perspective on property rights and contract theory, but that they fail to derive this conclusion properly. I therefore outline the proper explanation. In addition, though Polleit and Mariano are correct in pointing out that speculation with CDS can conceivably hurt the borrowers’ interests, they fail to grasp that this can be the case only in (...) some peculiar circumstances that I identify. In other words, they miss the bigger picture, the one outside special circumstances, in which CDS trading has the opposite effect. That is, CDS facilitate debt accumulation, including government debt accumulation. Finally, I point out how this can precipitate the collapse of fiat money regimes. An incidental goal of the analysis is to provide a better account than Polleit and Mariano of recent government interventions in and around CDS markets. (shrink)

The present article aims to offer a synoptic picture of communist Romania’s relations with Third World countries during the Ceaușescu regime. Within these relations, economic and geopolitical motivations coexisted along with ideological ones, thus making the topic one of the most interesting and relevant key for understanding RSR’s complex and cunning international strategy. However, I intend to prove that mere pragmatism is not enough to comprehend the drive behind Ceaușescu’s diplomatic efforts in post-colonial Africa; ideological factors need also to be (...) taken into account. (shrink)

Sabine Hohl and Dominic Roser argue that states that emit their fair share of greenhouse gases have a duty to step in for states that emit more than their fair share. In this comment I ask two questions: First, given that Hohl and Roser are right, how relevant is the duty to step in for the polluters in practice? Second, is there such a duty on more non-ideal approaches than the one taken by Hohl and Roser as well? I argue (...) that the duty to step in for the polluters is not very relevant (because of considerations of demandingness and fairness) and that on more extremely non-ideal approaches there may be only a limited duty to take up the slack, or no such duty at all (because the duty must be weighed against other duties, and because states are poorly motivated to act in conformity with it). (shrink)

Two property regimes for software development may be distinguished. Within corporations, on the one hand, a Private Regime obtains which excludes all outsiders from access to a firm's software assets. It is shown how the protective instruments of secrecy and both copyright and patent have been strengthened considerably during the last two decades. On the other, a Public Regime among hackers may be distinguished, initiated by individuals, organizations or firms, in which source code is freely exchanged. It is argued (...) that copyright is put to novel use here: claiming their rights, authors write `open source licenses' that allow public usage of the code, while at the same time regulating the inclusion of users. A `regulated commons' is created. The analysis focuses successively on the most important open source licenses to emerge, the problem of possible incompatibility between them (especially as far as the dominant General Public License is concerned), and the fragmentation into several user communities that may result. (shrink)

Tourism is one of the socio-economic trends that significantly contributes to the shift of the planetary system into the Anthropocene regime. At the same time, it is also a socio-cultural practice characteristic of the imperial mode of living, or consumerism. Thus, it is a form of commodification of nature, also a way of deepening social inequalities between a privileged minority of the global population and an exploited majority providing services to those whose socio-economic status allows them to travel for fun (...) and commoditised “experience”. This is not an inevitable activity, an activity in which environmental costs (carbon footprint, water footprint, energy consumption, and waste production) are necessary to ensure the basic resources of life. Tourism is therefore a form of luxury consumption. For any tourism model to be, not only, environmentally sustainable but also socially just, or at least acceptable, it would have to be accessible to all people. Ecotourism should also have to meet the criterion of a solidarity mode of living referred to as sufficiency. This is hardly conceivable in the climatic, demographic, and political regime of the Anthropocene. The latter is likely to be characterized by, among other things, mass migration of climate or environmental refugees on the one hand and climate apartheid of the states of the global North on the other. Ecotourism, accessible to an even smaller proportion of the world`s population than the current mass tourism, will thus be more likely to accentuate the social and environmental inequalities of which it is already a significant manifestation. Therefore, the question is whether the concept of ecotourism is not just another manifestation of greenwashing, i.e. an attempt to legitimize economic, social, and cultural activities that devastate the social and environmental environment. (shrink)