Whose Law Is It Anyway?

Corporate Lawbreaking and Interactive Compliance, edited by Jay A. Sigler and Joseph E. Murphy. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1991. 201 pages. What can and should be the role of private groups in creating and maintaining law? What can and should be the relationship between law-giver and law-receiver? These fundamental questions haunt each of the essays that make up Corporate Lawbreaking and Interactive Compliance (hereinafter Corporate Lawbreaking). These questions, though not the explicit focus of the book, are questions to which the essayists and editors of this book are speaking whether they realize it or not. Seen as a series of discussions on the role of non-state groups in creating and maintaining law, this book is provocative and worth reading. Some of the proposals in this book, if taken seriously, would radically transform our legal system and could transform our democracy. But the book does not self-consciously set out to describe the role of private groups in maintaining law or the relationship between law-giver and law-receiver. It sets out to do something else-to ground with concrete examples a theory that the editors articulated in an earlier book. Judged in light of its professed goal, the book is less successful

Export expansion and diversification in Central and Eastern Europe : what can be learnt from East and Southeast Asia?

The outstanding world market success of East and Southeast Asian countries (ESAEs) provides lessons for Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) striving to penetrate Western markets, even though starting conditions were strikingly different between these country groups. While ESAEs enjoyed the reputation of stable domestic policies, CEECs had to deal with institution building, macroeconomic stabilization and privatization at the same time. First of all, sound macroeconomic policies and an unrestricted access to domestic and imported inputs are absolutely vital for exporters. These factors cannot be substituted for by specific export incentives. Furthermore, Asian experience suggests that such incentives should be granted on a temporary basis in order to discourage rent-seeking and minimize the budgetary burden. Export processing zones are ineffective if they do not exert competitive pressure on the rest of the economy via input and output linkages. Stimulating exports through direct export subsidies has become less important in ESAEs over time because of inconsistency with the GATT and the retaliatory actions of trading partners. Using such subsidies is further constrained in the case of CEECs: Subsidies would conflict with the Europe Agreements, which require that state aid and competition rules harmonize with EU regulations. Foreign direct investment can play an important role in enhancing export growth and diversification, especially if such investment is attracted by favourable market prospects rather than tax holidays. Export promotion by governments should preferably concentrate on institutional support aimed at reducing the information costs faced by local suppliers and foreign importers. Asia's world market success was accompanied by increasing diversification and technological sophistication of exports. Intra-regional networking in terms of trade and investment helped this process considerably. For CEECs, it is thus essential to enhance local technological capabilities in order to enable exporters to apply new technologies. Furthermore, the prospects for a market-driven integration between CEECs can be improved to the extent that mobility of goods and factors of production is allowed for. Economic transformation in CEECs involves policy challenges which clearly go beyond export promotion as in Asia. Moreover, CEECs are facing an uphill struggle against established suppliers on Western markets. Under such conditions, CEECs are well advised not to follow the Asian way of maintaining national sovereignty in trade-related policies. Rather, they had to commit themselves to internationally binding trade liberalization in order to enhance the credibility of their transformation policies. Such commitments were made on a regional basis within the EU framework of Eastern enlargement as well as on a multilateral basis within the GATT/WTO. The contribution of this approach of tying one's own hands to stabilizing expectations should be enhanced by the EU by offering CEECs stable conditions for market access. --

Regulating Sin Across Cultures

Using text analysis, this study compares the alcohol advertising strategy in Ukraine and the United States within the context of regulatory, historical, cultural, and economic factors. Results showed that Ukrainian magazine ads contained a larger number of violations than the American ads, which complied with the letter of the law, if not the spirit. The message strategies also told different cultural stories that reflect the different ideologies for the two countries, which means that specialized advertising approaches are needed for each country. American ads situate alcohol as part of normal life, whereas Ukrainian ads demonstrate conspicuous consumption and celebrate the change to a market economy. They must not only sell the product but also teach Ukrainians how to be part of the consumer culture

City versus Countryside: Environmental Equity in Context

This Article takes an approach to the problem of environmental equity that is different from the remedies advocated by the leaders of the environmental equity movement. The plea that the benefits of environmental protection be extended to all groups in society is, of course, a legitimate one, but the movement is too narrowly focused and its aims are too modest. I dissent from the two central premises held by environmental equity advocates. First, the movement assumes that judicially recognized and enforced rights will lead to improved public health. Second, the movement asserts that disadvantaged communities should adopt a “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) strategy. In contrast, I argue that the current focus of the environmental equity movement, important as it is, is too narrow because the legal strategy of the civil rights movement is largely inapplicable to environmental issues. Environmental protection is not a rights-based movement. Thus, the judiciary’s role in promoting environmental quality is limited compared to its role in promoting racial justice through the recognition and enforcement of constitutionally-based civil rights. In addition, I argue that the NIMBY strategy is equally shortsighted. Environmental equity takes current environmental protection strategies as a given at a time when the science and ethics of environmental protection are undergoing a profound re-evaluation

City versus Countryside: Environmental Equity in Context

This Article takes an approach to the problem of environmental equity that is different from the remedies advocated by the leaders of the environmental equity movement. The plea that the benefits of environmental protection be extended to all groups in society is, of course, a legitimate one, but the movement is too narrowly focused and its aims are too modest. I dissent from the two central premises held by environmental equity advocates. First, the movement assumes that judicially recognized and enforced rights will lead to improved public health. Second, the movement asserts that disadvantaged communities should adopt a “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) strategy. In contrast, I argue that the current focus of the environmental equity movement, important as it is, is too narrow because the legal strategy of the civil rights movement is largely inapplicable to environmental issues. Environmental protection is not a rights-based movement. Thus, the judiciary’s role in promoting environmental quality is limited compared to its role in promoting racial justice through the recognition and enforcement of constitutionally-based civil rights. In addition, I argue that the NIMBY strategy is equally shortsighted. Environmental equity takes current environmental protection strategies as a given at a time when the science and ethics of environmental protection are undergoing a profound re-evaluation

Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research

We review the burgeoning literature on the employment effects of minimum wages - in the United States and other countries - that was spurred by the new minimum wage research beginning in the early 1990s. Our review indicates that there is a wide range of existing estimates and, accordingly, a lack of consensus about the overall effects on low-wage employment of an increase in the minimum wage. However, the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect. A sizable majority of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries. Two other important conclusions emerge from our review. First, we see very few - if any - studies that provide convincing evidence of positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on the broader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model predicts disemployment effects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups.

Economic Feasibility, General Economic Impact and Implications of a Free Trade Agreement Between the European Union and Armenia

This study of the feasibility, costs and benefits of a free trade agreement between the EU and Armenia was conducted from July 2007 to April 2008 under contract with the European Commission. The first meeting in Brussels in September 2007 with Staff members of Directorates-General for Trade, External Relations, Economic and Financial Affairs, Internal Market and Services, Competition, Enterprise and Industry proved indispensable in our work on this report. During mission to Yerevan in October 2007 the consultations were held with a number of ministries, research institutes and business organizations. We greatly benefited from consultations with the representatives of the Ministry of Energy, Customs State Committee, Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen (Employers) of Armenia, National Institute of Standards, Wine Producers Union, Ministry of Finance and Economy AEPLAC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Armenian Development Agency UNDP, IMF and the World Bank. The European Commission Delegation to Armenia provided us with extensive information, consultation on key policy issues and organizational support, for chich we are very grateful. Several authors contributed to this study. David Dyker is the author of the introductory section (chapter 2) and the analysis of services sectors (chapter 7). Michael Emerson is the author of section on regional integration scenarios (chapter 3) and he also provided very valuable comments on all chapters in this study. Sveta Taran, Peter Holmes and Michael Gasiorek are the authors of chapter 4 employing the Sussex Framework to study the impact of FTA. Michael Gasiorek and Peter Holmes also provided valuable comments on the CGE modelling section. Evgeny Polyakov, Andrei Roudoi as well as Gevorg Torosyan contributed to the chapter on the institutional and regulatory harmonization (chapter 5). The team from the Global Insight including Andre Jungmittag, Vicki Korchagin, Evgeny Polyakov and Andrei Roudoi supervised the implementation of the survey and completed the analysis of the survey results (chapter 6). Also the same team from Global Insight contributed chapter 10 on sensitive sectors. The implementation of the survey of NTBs was conducted by AVAG Solutions under the supervision of Vardan Baghdasaryan and Melik Gasparyan. The analysis of FDI flows and their likely trends following an FTA was prepared by Malgorzata Jakubiak, while the estimation of the potential FDI flows was completed by Alina Kudina (section 8.4). The CGE analysis (chapter 9) was prepared by Maryla Maliszewska, who also acted as the project manager and the editor of the study. Finally, conclusions are a collective work of all the authors. Sierz Naurodski and Elena Kozarzewska provided an excellent administrative support. I would like to take his opportunity to thank them all for their cooperation, valuable contributions and comments.European Neighborhood Policy, free trade agreement, institutional harmonization, EU, Armenia