U.S. Climate Change Law and Policy in the Time of Trump and Beyond
Paul A. Barresi 1,2
1 Professor of Political Science and Environmental Law
Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
2 Adjunct Professor of Law
Sun Yat-sen University School of Law, Guangzhou, P.R.C.
Volume 13, Issue 02, Pg: 11-35.
Abstract: As the world’s second most profligate greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emitter, the United States is one of the two keys to any successful global effort to limit global climate change to sub-catastrophic levels, which in turn is a prerequisite for efforts to achieve sustainable development worldwide. The other key is China, the world’s most profligate GHG emitter. Yet meaningful, sustained progress toward limiting U.S. GHG emissions and toward U.S. cooperation with less developed countries such as China to help them to limit their own emissions remain elusive goals. Domestically, the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan regulations and new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (“CAFE”) standards for passenger cars and light trucks were steps in the right direction. They also paved the way for the executive agreement on limiting GHG emissions signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015 and for their joint effort to bring the Paris Agreement into being the following year. Donald Trump’s surprise election as U.S. President in 2016 has undermined the promise of even these modest steps, however, by empowering further an ideologically radical minority within the U.S. political system. These traditional conservatives are mostly white, Christian evangelicals who are concentrated in the States of the South, Midwest, and Intermountain West. They remain hostile to nearly all laws or policies that would limit U.S. GHG emissions or that would require the United States to provide financial or technical assistance or to make other concessions to less developed countries such as China to help them to limit their own emissions. The predictability of these effects flows ultimately from the Calvinist moral content of American traditional conservatism. Although simmering tensions within the Republican Party inject some uncertainty into the task of making long term predictions, certain structural and other features of the U.S. Government likely mean that even the end of the Trump Administration will not eliminate the resulting barriers to progress in limiting GHG emissions in the United States or anywhere else. Even so, other structural features suggest that the efforts of traditional conservatives to roll back the existing U.S. GHG emissions and related regulations that would provide an indispensable foundation for reviving progress over the long term will be easier said than done. Still other structural features suggest that the most fruitful opportunities for long term progress will revolve less around the U.S. Federal Government than it will around the U.S. States.
Keywords: Climate change, traditional conservatism, United States, law, foreign policy
Sustainable goals within corporate governance: an Italian model of reputational investment
Giovanna Maria Flavia Nitti 1,2
1 Department of Company Law, Radboud University, Netherlands.
2 Department of Law, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Italy.
Current address: Van der Heijden Instituut, OO&R, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 10, 6525HR Nijmegen.
Volume 13, Issue 02, Pg: 37-54
Abstract: The relation between corporate reputation and ethical behavior is easily understandable. Nevertheless, this simple statement hides a complex underlying problem: the critical connection between ethical rules and the assumption of responsibility.
It almost seems a contradictio in terminis, to the extent that acting ethically does not always mean acting according to legally binding norms.
This study analyses the important attempt observed in the Italian legal system to connect ethical behaviors to the assumption of responsibility with the introduction of the “legality rating for enterprises”, an instrument that gives an answer to the described problem and other relevant issues obstructing the changing process towards sustainable development.
The followed method moves from a corporate governance perspective and consists of externally offering a mechanism of objectification of benefits, correspondent costs and responsibilities in order to overcome frequent obstacles encountered by sustainable businesses.
Preemptively, it is argued that business executives can (and in certain cases must) pursue sustainable goals, at least to preserve corporate reputation. In fact, on the one hand, it is possible to connect responsible business choices to a reputational investment; on the other hand, a real duty of the directors to prevent a reputational risk arises when the shareholder value might be negatively affected.
Afterwards, it is explained how the mechanism of the legality rating works, in which terms it connects reputational returns and sustainable objectives and, finally, how it overcomes the challenges of sustainability.
This instrument acts like a ‘special license’ issued and monitored by the Italian Antitrust Authority on the basis of the ethical behavior of companies; it is capable of integrating sustainability into business choices, creating shared value while improving economic performances.
For all these reasons and, in particular, for the innovative approach used to connect ethical behavior and responsibility, as well as the costs of sustainability with secure economic benefits, it is overall believed that this model of reputational investment is an effective instrument of sustainable development and presents relevant profiles of interests for an international audience.
Keywords: corporate governance; reputational investment; reputational risk; shareholder value; sustainable development.
The possibilities of 21st century skills 2.0 by systems thinking toward new pedagogy
The magnitude and significance of the impact of the new type COVID-19 pandemic
Masahiro Arimoto 1 , Kohei Nishizuka 2
1, 2 Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University, 27-1 Kawauchi, Sendai, Japan.
Volume 13, Issue 02, Pg: 55-66.
Abstract: The sudden appearance of COVID-19 is becoming a driving force for change in the global learning environment. The challenge of this crisis has already been heightened in Japan since the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, when the country was hit by the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant accident, and a runaway object of COVID-19 and the earthquake require a synchronic transformation of the two through the simultaneous interaction of individuals and society. In this context, 21st century skills need to be exercised and trained. At this time, systems thinking, which breaks the negative chain of connections by looking at the big picture of a phenomenon and changing the mindset to do so, has been expected to be an innovative pedagogy. However, since thinking and performance are highly socio-cultural practices prior to domain specificity, this concept must be formulated in a way that is linked to culture. The integral consideration of thinking and culture is one of the issues that are essential to the proper execution of pedagogy, but are not discussed in detail in the current 21st century skills. Therefore, the purpose of this study is “How can systems thinking as a socio-cultural practice be explained and observed in practice?”.
First, the socio-cultural tendencies of systems thinking are theoretically examined from the perspective of the unique Japanese value system called “kankei (the Japanese word for inter-relationships)”. The first author has prepared the figure of the doors of 20 (omitted in this abstract) by combining abstract jargon of pedagogical concepts, not just lectures in pedagogy textbooks, but project work towards deep learning. Kankei is centrally located as a world views. in Japanese culture, on the doors of 20 such as curiosity (individual development and characteristics) and innovation (social process and structure). Curiosity are therefore founded upon the value attached to kankei and the fundamental concept of ‘good living’. In Japan, social and learning interactions are considered ‘successful’ when they can be described as equitable, reciprocal, harmonious, stable and balanced. The emphasis on the quality of relationships promotes effective interaction, revealing the recondite knowledge of learners to their teacher, and to each other (Arimoto & Clark 2018).
These themes are pervasive in Japanese culture, naturally consistent with a persistent emphasis on equitable social- relationships (kankei) and holistic inter-connectedness (tsunagari). It is Japanese tradition that the sustainability of one’s life, the perceived quality of one’s existence as a ‘connected being’ are states of tsunagari. Such overarching philosophy impacts. not only classroom assessment (becoming more interactive/ verbal), but also how its application might transform the focus of curriculum design.
As such, young people should learn in environments founded upon carefully realised theories that go beyond the maintenance of a ‘common’ social connection (kankei). Kankei is, therefore, the traditional belief, or “background theory”, that creates a ‘spectrum of legitimacy’; sanctioning social-interactions to the extent that they are equitable, mutual, reciprocal, inter- subjective, or harmonious, stable and balanced. The Japanese classroom, as a microcosm of wider social life, is fully engaged with interactions that preserve kankei, assuring group connection and consensus (Clark, Nae & Arimoto 2020).
Next, the authors will elucidate the outcomes and possibilities of socio-cultural systems thinking practices, using examples from the author’s own educational experiences at high schools and universities.
Finally, the author will point out the challenges of integrating context-dependent systems thinking, which is the impetus for a sustainable society, into educational design, and the issues to be considered in the future.
Keywords: coronavirus pandemic as a disaster for the world, kankei, pedagogy and visualization of worldview Risk of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), systems thinking
Contribution of Hygiene Behavior Change interventions in trachoma elimination efforts in Uganda: A case study of Napak and Nakapiripirit districts
Denis Kayiwa 1 Ronnie Murungu 2 David Watako 3 Martin Othieno Radooli 4 Jane Sembuche 5 Olutayo Bolawole 6
1, 4, 5 WaterAid Uganda, Kampala, Uganda.
2, 3, 6 WaterAid East Africa, Kigali, Rwanda.
Volume 12, Issue 02, Pg. 67-74.
Abstract: Trachoma a neglected tropical disease remains the World’s leading infectious cause of blindness thriving especially in living conditions where there are shortages of water, inadequate sanitation and where numerous eye-seeking flies are present (WHO 2018). World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the “SAFE (Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness, and Environmental improvements) strategy for elimination of trachoma by 2020. Today the number of people at risk of trachoma has fallen from 1.5 billion in 2002 to just over 142 million in 2019, a reduction of 91%, (WHO 2019). WaterAid Uganda (WAU), Implemented hand and face washing 2-year project in Napak and Nakirpirit districts of Uganda as part of the F and E strategy guided by a Hygiene Behavior Change (HBC) strategy. This paper seeks to exhibit the contribution of Hygiene Behavior Change, particularly adoption of hand and face washing in addressing the high prevalence Trachoma. A cross-sectional household and community surveys were used to assesses the status of face and hand washing before and after the project implementation as part of the baseline and end-line survey/s conducted by the Global Trachoma Mapping Project (GTMP). In the GTMP 2007 Baseline surveys; Napak and Nakirpirit districts had a Trachomatous follicular (TF) first stage of trachoma characterized by the inflammation of the eyelids prevalence of > 10%. In the 2018 Trachoma impact assessment survey, Napak and Nakirpirit districts had a TF prevalence of > 5% and have now achieved elimination threshold thus no more intervention. The end-line survey indicates increase in households with hand/face washing facilities with water by 43% (4.2 to 7.4, p=0.03) and households with hand/face washing facilities with soap increased by 59.5% (1.7 to 4.2, p=0.016). Respondents who knew 1+ symptoms of trachoma increased by 21.8% (70.9 to 90.7, p<0.001). Belief amongst primary caregivers that health hygiene practices (such as hand and face washing) will reduce chances of getting trachoma increased by 42.3% (43.3 to 75.0, p<.001). In summary, HBC communication interventions can bring about change community members’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior related to prevention and control of trachoma irrespective of the community’s poverty levels. Findings highlighted the need to integrate HBC intervention in ongoing WASH intervention as part of the Facial cleanliness and environmental improvement(F&E) component.
Keywords: Trachoma, Hygiene Behavior Change, Facial cleanliness, Environment, Blindness, Water, Sanitation
Economic Integration vs. Social Policy?
The case of changing schemes of healthcare systems in the EU
Aikaterini Tsalampouni
Department of International and European Studies,
University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
Volume 12, Issue 02, Pg. 75-92.
Abstract: The European Union (EU) has long been the most developed model of economic and political integration that has brought a common market, a common currency and a standardization of national policies in certain areas in consistent with EU values and principles for Sustainable Development. To this direction, there is a parallel process of social integration that effect public policy decisions of member states. Even though social policy, i.e. social protection and moreover healthcare policy, still remains in state’s responsibility to develop, EU applies different mechanisms in order to influence health policy regimes since from a more federalist point of view, EU ought to expand its regulatory and legislative roles in as many policy areas as possible. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the above issues and provide an insight on the impact of economic integration in formulating market oriented national healthcare systems.
Keywords: Economic Integration, European Union, Health Care Systems, Social Policy
Governance, ethnicity and response to conflicts: Deficit to sustainable development in Nigeria
Osondu Chukwudi Solomon
Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State, Nigeria.
Volume 12 Issue 02, Pg. 93-100.
Abstract: Nigeria has never been more divided in its history along ethnic and religious lines than it is today. Not even in the period preceding the Nigeria-Biafra war was Nigeria faced with the level internal dysfunction, disorder, fear and real challenge to the continued existence of the country as it is presently constituted. Internal conflicts have spread to areas hitherto believed to be insulated, the Nigeria Middle Belt or the North Central Nigeria. The current situation has raised the ethnic and religious tensions, and internal security concerns to an unprecedented and unpredictable level. There seems to be a general feeling that anything can happen any time to the Nigeria project. For over a decade the menace of the Islamist terrorism has crippled economic and social activities in the North Eastern part of Nigeria. Currently, the activities of the Fulani Herders, especially in the North Central Nigeria or the Middle Belt, pose grave danger to the future of Nigeria. Most of the states of the North Central Nigeria form the food basket of the Nigeria. The Fulani Herders have killed thousands of farmers and sacked many farming towns and communities. As much danger these activities pose to sustainable development in and indeed the corporate existence of Nigeria, the response to these recent coordinated attacks by the Fulani herders by the Federal Government of Nigeria tends to accentuate a great measure of ethno-religious perceptions of government bias in favour of the Fulani Herders who incidentally are Muslims against the Tivs and other ethnic groups in the Middle Belt states who are mostly Christians. The perceived government weak response has continued to elicit reactions from the different divides in the Nigeria Project. The reactions could not be less when the seeming government inaction is coming in the heels of brutal military operations mounted by the same government to crush the pro-Biafra group, IPOB, in its non-violent self-determination campaign for a sovereign State of Biafra. The government even went ahead and enlisted the unarmed group as a terrorist organization. There is a general perception in the South-East, South-South and North-Central Nigeria that the current Nigerian government is tacitly, to say the least, encouraging a gradual but violent Islamization programme of the Hausa-Fulani in Nigeria. The conflicts, the government lack-lustre responses and the perceptions of the various ethno-religious groups at the receiving end of these conflicts, constitute sure setbacks to national development. This paper, therefore, interrogates the Nigerian Government’s response to conflicts in some parts of the country and concludes that these responses tend to justify the perception that the government is pursuing an ethno-religious agenda. The paper goes on to further hold that current situation is a deficit to sustainable development in the short run, and the continued existence of Nigeria in the long run. It finally tries to suggest some line of action that may reinvigorate the Nigeria project and enhance sustainable development.
Keywords: ethnic agenda, Fulani herders, internal conflicts, sustainable development
Legal Mechanism for Blowing the Whistle against Incidence of Tax Haven in Nigeria
Eti Best Herbert
Adeoyo Street, Beside El Shaddai Baptist Church, Agbowo, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
Volume 12, Issue 02, Pg. 101-114.
Abstract: Tax havens are jurisdictions with little or no direct tax imposition. The manifestation of the activities of tax haven is tax evasion and avoidance in high taxing jurisdictions. This often leads to capital flight to tax havens at the risk of economic misfortunes for the high tax jurisdictions. Tax haven has become a matter of global concern which has warranted several international responses especially from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development. Nigeria has not been proactive with the global move. Our tax system is not fully developed to tackle tax avoidance and evasion from tax payers. At the level of international cooperation, Nigeria needs to enter into bilateral and multilateral treaties in this regard. At the domestic level, this paper reckons with the important role the use of whistle-blowers could have on information gathering by the tax authorities. Regrettably, Nigeria only has pockets of policies and codes which lack legal force to adequately guarantee the protection of whistleblowers. This, of course, limits the information gathering potentials from whistleblowers. This paper suggests the overhaul of existing tax codes and more visibility of Nigeria in the international scene in the battle against the incidence of tax havens.
Keywords: Tax Avoidance, Tax Evasion, Tax Haven, Capital Flight, Whistleblower.