Corporate environmental assessment by a bank lender : a social constructionist perspective

Over the last decade evidence has emerged which suggests that lenders are considering environmental impact of corporate borrowers as part of their lending decisions. Environmental consideration by lenders may considerably influence the level of financial support available for economic growth and environmemntal management. The primary aim of this research project is to examine the development and use of corporate environmental assessment techniques by members of a commercial lending bank. The research will build upon previous findings that highlight the influences of culture upon bank members perception of environmental credit risks. Specific emphasis will be placed on evaluating the role of mechanisms for the communiaction of bank policy. These will be analysed to find out how and why corporate environmental performance considerations shape the lending process. Research will be undertaken in the form of a case study facilitated by Lloyds TSB Group plc. Analysis will centre on an evaluation of the rationalities for environmental assessment displayed by bank members and their justification for the application of specific environemnatal assessment techniques. The findings are expected to be of direct practical benefit to bank lending officers and others interested in lending processes and/or corporate environmental assessment techniques

The Full-Belly Thesis: Should Economics Rights Take Priority Over Civil and Political Rights? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper will discuss the relationship between civil/political and economic/social/cultural rights (as they are defined in the International Bill of Human Rights) in sub-Saharan Africa. There is an on-going debate, especially in United Nations circles and in non-governmental organizations, as to whether the separate sets of rights embodied in the two 1966 Covenants on human rights are intrinsically related, such that they must be developed and enlarged simultaneously, or whether, on the other hand, one set of rights takes priority over the other. Are they, in other words, sequential or interactive? Many spokespeople for Third World countries maintain that economic, social, and cultural, but especially “economic” rights (usually meant as the right to development) must take priority over civil and political rights. In the Western world, on the other hand, the assumption is sometimes made that civil and political rights must take priority over economic rights. I will address this debate using evidence from a number of (formerly and presently) English-speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa, namely Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. I will argue that suspension of civil and political rights in these countries until after economic development has been achieved will in effect mean that neither development nor rights will be attained. The argument for postponement is that economic development must be achieved before political liberties are allowed. A rather narrow functionalist perspective is adopted; economic development is taken as a goal, and civil and political rights are discussed as means which might or might not result in economic development. Civil/political are seldom considered as goals in and of themselves, although social and cultural rights are considered as goals, especially in Africa. In this paper, I will discuss civil/political rights both as means to ends and as goals in themselves

Women\u27s Social Rights: Untapped Economic Potential

This paper analyzes whether women’s social rights play a role in fostering higher levels of economic development. Prior development initiatives and economic policies failed to account for the productive capacities of women by discriminating against their basic rights to things such as an equitable education, equal inheritance, and marital rights. Applying the CIRI (Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights) dataset for women’s social rights, I found that improvements in these areas of human rights leads to significant increases in real GDP per capita, which highlights the need for development analysts and economists to focus their attention on countries’ most viable productive resource, women

Cultural rights and cultural policy : identifying the cultural policy implications of culture as a human right

This article explores the parameters of ‘culture’ as a Human Right – Cultural Rights – and culture in the Human Rights system of international law and its now globally-pervasive set of axioms. The article attends to definitional issues on the use of culture to determine critical loci of human identity formation and fundamental ethics, and the use of culture to conceptualise the scope and scale of human freedom. Its aim is to define Cultural Rights in direct relation to the interests of cultural policy making and more importantly in relation to the scholarly field of cultural policy research. This will involve defining the legal-institutional sphere of Human Rights and range of applications but only insofar as to focus on issues central to current cultural policy research and its contingent questions of interpretation (such as the meaning of a ‘cultural right’ in particular social contexts). The secondary aim of this article is to define how cultural policy research (historically invested in particular historical evolution of national arts traditions and heritage management) could be central to the study of ‘rights-based’ global development

Auditing Economic Policy in the Light of Obligations on Economic and Social Rights

One of the things we have learned so far is that the realization of human rights, especially economic and social rights, requires resources as well as laws. The availability and use of resources is strongly influenced by the type of economic policies that States Parties implement. This paper considers how concerned citizens might audit economic policies from a human rights perspective, with a particular focus on economic and social rights. It draws on an ongoing project, directed by Radhika Balakrishnan, advised by Diane Elson, and funded by the Ford Foundation, on economic policy and economic and social rights in Mexico and the USA. The project brings together human rights experts and activists who are focussing on economic and social rights, and economists who are critical of the neo-liberal economic policies being pursued by so many governments and international economic policy institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank. (Amartya Sen has called these critical economists ?non-conformist economists?, because they do not conform to the currently dominant forms of economic analysis and policy prescription). These economists share the concerns of the human rights community about poverty, deprivation and inequality; and draw on a range of other approaches to economic policy, including Keynesian, human development and feminist economics approaches. The project aims to audit key economic polices in the two countries in the light of human rights obligations, and the analysis produced by ?non-conformist? economists

Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Human Rights are natural rights that nature has given to all human beings and are inseparable, undividable and inalienable from human beings. They are vital, necessary and indispensable to a modern society, which without them would be unable to function and cannot be developed. From another perspective, “human rights are indivisible rights on individuals, based on their nature as human beings; they protect these potential attributes and holdings that are essential for a worthy life of human beings”. Human Rights in general and especially ESCR would be just illusory if they wouldn’t be justiciable. In relation to civil and political rights, it is generally taken for granted that judicial remedies for violations are essential. Regrettably, the contrary assumption is too often made in relation to ESCR. This discrepancy is not warranted either by the nature of the rights or by the relevant Covenant provisions, but is rather a result of states’ attempts to justify their failure to perform their obligations under ICESCR

Relations between the EU and the Western Balkans - recommendations of the EESC

Dokumenty Evropského dokumentačního střediskaBrusse

Cultural Rights and Civic Virtue

This paper addresses the potential tension between two broadly stated policy objectives: the preservation of distinctive cultural traditions, often through the mechanism of formal legal rights, and the fostering of civic virtue, a sense of local community and the advancement of common civic enterprises. Many political liberals argued that liberal societies have an obligation to accommodate the cultural traditions of various sub groups through legal rights and a redistribution of social resources. The “right to cultural difference” is now widely (if not universally) understood to be a basic human right, on par with rights to religious liberty and racial equality. Other theorists writing in the liberal, civic republican, and urban sociology traditions expounded on the necessity of civic virtue, community and common enterprises initiated and executed at the local or municipal level of government or private association. These theorists argued that common projects, shared norms and social trust are indispensable elements of effective democratic government and are necessary to the altruism and public spiritedness that in turn secure social justice. These two policy goals therefore may at times be in conflict. This conflict is especially severe in larger culturally diverse cities, where social trust and civic virtue are most needed and often in shortest supply. Policies designed to counter cosmopolitan alienation and anomie by fostering civic virtue, social trust and common social norms will inevitably conflict with the cultural traditions and sub group identification of some minority groups. The paper argues that such conflicts are often best confronted on the field of political debate and policy analysis, not in the language of civil rights. Rights discourse, with its inherent absolutism, is ill suited to the type of subtle tradeoffs that these conflicts often entail.Law, Rights, Multiculturalism

A Few Random Thoughts About Socio-Economic Rights in the United States in Light of the 2008 Financial Meltdown

Socio-economic rights, first articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sixty years ago, are regaining currency. Legal practitioners around the world, emboldened by emerging constitutional democracies in Eastern Europe and South Africa that constitutionalized socio-economic rights, are actively seeking to enforce these rights. The UDHR reaffirm [ed] faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, and served as the basis for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Among those rights included in the Covenant are housing, food, and healthcare