Global private regimes: Neo-spontaneous law and dual constitution of autonomous sectors in world society?

In the current globalization debate the law appears to be entangled in economic and political developments which move into a new dimension of depoliticization, de-centralization and de-individualization. For all the correct observations in detail, though, this debate is bringing about a drastic (polit)economic reduction of the role of law in the globalization process that I wish to challenge in this paper. Here one has to take on Wallerstein’s misconception of “worldwide economies” according to which the formation of the global society is seen as a basically economic process. Autonomous globalization processes in other social spheres running parallel to economic globalization need to be taken seriously. In protest against such (polit)economic reductionism several strands of the debate, among them the neo-institutionalist theory of “global culture”, post-modern concepts of global legal pluralism, systems theory studies of differentiated global society and various versions of “global civil society” have shaped a concept of a polycentric globalization. From these angles the remarkable multiplicity of the world society, in which tendencies to re-politicization, re-regionalization and re-individualization are becoming visible at the same time, becomes evident. I shall contrast two current theses on the globalization of law with two less current counter-theses: First thesis: globalization is relevant for law because the emergence of global markets undermines the control potential of national policy, and therefore also the chances of legal regulation. First counter-thesis: globalization produces a set of problems intrinsic to law itself, consisting in a change to the dominant lawmaking processes. Second thesis: globalization means that the law institutionalizes the worldwide shift in power from governmental actors to economic actors. Second counter-thesis: globalization means that the law has a chance of contributing to a dual constitution of autonomous sectors of world society.Deutsche Fassung: Globale Privatregimes: Neo-Spontanes Recht und duale Sozialverfassungen in der Weltgesellschaft. In: Dieter Simon und Manfred Weiss (Hg.) Zur Autonomie des Individuums. Liber Amicorum Spiros Simitis. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2000, 437-453 und in Bruno Dechamps, Eduard Kroker (Hg.) Zeitenwende, Verlag Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch, Frankfurt 2001, 169-175. Englische Fassung: Global Private Regimes: Neo-Spontaneous Law and Dual Constitution of Autonomous Sectors? In: Karl-Heinz Ladeur (Hg.) Public Governance in the Age of Globalization. Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, 71-87. Italienische Fassung: Regimi privati globali: diritti neo-spontanei e costituzione duale di settori autonomi nella società-mondo? . In: Gunther Teubner, Costituzionalismo societario. Armando, Roma 2004 (im Erscheinen). Französische Fassung: Un droit spontané dans la société mondiale? In: Charles-Albert Morand (Hg.) Le droit saisi par la mondialisation. Bruylant, Bruxelles 2001, 179-220. Portugiesische Fassung: Regimes privados: direito neo-espontaneo e constituicoes dualistas na sociedade mundial. In: Gunther Teubner, Direito, Sistema, Policontexturalidade, Editora Unimep, Piracicaba Sao Paolo, Brasil 2005, 105-12

Machiguenga Mobilization in the Peruvian Amazon: An Analysis of COMARU as an Effective Change Agent

COMARU (Consejo Machiguenga del Río Urubamba) is an indigenous organization that promotes the rights of thirty native Amazonian communities in the face of the Camisea Project, a massive natural gas extraction project. The state has consistently ignored negative health, environmental, and cultural impacts from five spills that have occurred in the natural gas pipeline, and the communities the right of consultation granted to them in the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169. This paper, using interviews with Machiguenga community members and COMARU leadership in addition to political ecology scholarship, analyzes the success of COMARU’s politicized and depoliticized strategies. Through the use of four criteria, it determines that while the organization needs to make several changes to how it operates as a change agent, it is generally successful due to its ability to navigate unequal power structures within Peru and genuinely listen to the voices of the communities

Inter-organizational communities of practice: specificities and stakes

Inter-organizational communities of practice (IOCoPs) are today an emergent research topic and studies in this area are still in an exploratory phase. Theoretical mechanisms are vaguely specified and empirical studies are incipient. For this reason, this paper firstly aims at presenting the specificities and stakes of such organizational forms, establishing reference points for further research in this field. We will introduce the main features of IOCoPs and explain why they do not represent a mere subcategory of CoPs, but a unit of analysis per se. In this paper, we will follow a thematic approach to indicate IOCoPs’ specificities and stakes. We will thus look at the IOCoPs’ actors (in part I), IOCoPs as original organizational forms (part II), then IOCoPs’ life cycle (part III). Finally, we will synthesize IOCoPs’ distinctive features and conclude with a discussion on key interests of IOCoPs for both practitioners and academics.Community of practice; inter-organizational relationships; professional practice; expertise; knowledge management; learning; organizational boundaries; life-cycle

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Role in International Law

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has played, and continues to play, an important and largely unrecognized role as a lawmaking body. The OECD occupies a unique space in the international lawmaking field, in large part because it was not established with lawmaking as a priority. In a small number of cases, however, it has played a significant role in crafting the emerging architecture of global governance. Case studies of the hazardous waste trade, the Bribery Convention, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are presented to demonstrate a clear pattern. A topic of major concern arises on the international stage, such as hazardous waste trade, bribery, or corporate conduct. Efforts within the United Nations or other international organizations to draft an agreement are unsuccessful. The OECD proceeds on its own and provides an agreement that serves as the basis for future negotiations in fora with wider membership. The keys to this approach are opportunism and path dependence. The OECD serves as an advantageous forum to host negotiations, in part because of its significant technical expertise, in part because of its membership of like-minded countries, and in part because of its closed proceedings. This can be a very effective strategy to provide the tracks on which the train of international agreements proceeds. But it does not always work. A case study on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment explores the OECD’s greatest failure in international lawmaking

Space and Personal Contacts: Cross-Group Interaction between Mainland and Local University Students in Hong Kong

Despite sharing physical space which supports contact with out-group members and institutional arrangements that encourage cross-group interaction, many university students still congregate within their own groups. To explain this phenomenon, this study examines the micro-level social processes that prevent or facilitate intergroup interaction. A qualitative study of Mainland Chinese and local university students in Hong Kong reveals that students lack opportunities for mutually engaging experiences across multiple points in time due to fragmented daily living space, defended interpersonal space, and politicized online space, which contribute to the absence of cross-group interactions. Cross-group friendships depend on external forces to remove inhibitions, which then allow emotional bonding. This study contributes to the understanding of cross-group interaction by pointing out the importance of daily routine activities and mutually engaging experiences in influencing cross-group interaction among students.postprin

Innovations from the Margins: Creating Inclusive and Equitable Academic-Community Research Collaborations

How does one build a Request for Proposals (RFP) process that allows for bottom-up participation while simultaneously being pragmatic and adept enough to manoeuvre the complexities of a multi-stakeholder environment defined by differing interests, objectives, mandates, and power dynamics? This article showcases the findings from participatory work with stakeholder groups working in the area of food security in Southern Ontario’s Halton Region. It demonstrates a process designed with the specific intent of increasing the engagement of beneficiaries and service providers in the RFP process. Finally, the article seeks to shed additional light on theory and practice of “participatory approaches” in the context of philanthropy. It is important to be realistic in not reifying participation itself in this context. In both theory and practice, this means adopting lenses and models that openly consider the complex realities, political obstacles, and trade-offs that occur when negotiating participation in this environment

Challenges in Building Robust Interventions in Contexts of Poverty:Insights from an NGO-driven multi-stakeholder network in Ethiopia

We examine the demise of a multi-stakeholder network that was launched to promote an inclusive dairy market in Ethiopia to better understand why nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may develop interventions in contexts of poverty that fail to endure after they exit. We identify organizational reflexivity – the capacity to recognize and understand the recursive interplay between an intervention and the local environment – as a key explanatory mechanism for this intervention outcome. Limited reflexivity not only prevented the NGO we studied from properly aligning the intervention with the context (design failures), but also prevented the organization from adjusting its intervention when negative feedback emerged (orchestration failures), which eventually evolved into the demise of the network (maintenance failure). While our study confirms the theoretical premise that NGOs need to contextualize their interventions, we expand current knowledge by highlighting the role of organizational reflexivity in this process. Moreover, by showing how reflexivity deficits can trigger a cascade of failure, especially when intervening in voids where incumbent firms have interests in maintaining the void, our study calls attention to the politicized nature of institutional voids