Human rights and Non-Communicable Diseases:Controlling Tobacco and Promoting Healthy Diets

This chapter explores how human rights principles, standards, and mechanisms can be applied to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). NCDs are now responsible for the vast majority of deaths worldwide. There is widespread recognition that four behavioral risk factors are at the root of the major NCDs: tobacco use, unhealthy diet, lack of physical exercise, and the harmful use of alcohol. It is widely understood that law and policy measures, including bans and price measures, are important tools for implementing structural and risk avoidance strategies and for changing unhealthy behaviors. Human rights scholars and practitioners increasingly emphasize the human rights dimensions of the NCD pandemic as a basis to develop laws and policies to address risk factors and prevent disease. This chapter outlines the current human rights dimensions and approaches to risk factors and suggests opportunities to strengthen legal obligations to respond to NCDs, with an emphasis on controlling tobacco and promoting healthy diets

IT governance maturity patterns in Portuguese healthcare

The pervasive use of technology in organizations to address the increased services complexity has created a critical dependency on information technology (IT) that calls to a specific focus on IT Governance (ITG). However, determining the right ITG mechanisms remains a complex endeavor. This paper uses Design Science Research and proposes an exploratory research by analyzing ITG case studies to elicit possible ITG mechanisms patterns. Six interviews were performed in Portuguese healthcare services organizations to assess the ITG practices. Our goal is to build some theories (ITG mechanisms patterns), which we believe will guide healthcare services organizations about the advisable ITG mechanisms given their specific context. We also intend to elicit conclusions regarding the most relevant ITG mechanisms for Portuguese healthcare services organizations. Additionally, a comparison is made with the financial industry to identify improvement opportunities. We finish our work with limitations, contribution and future work.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Impact of the information technology (IT) governance on business-IT alignment

Purpose: This basic, quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional research aims to empirically examine the impact of IT governance on business-IT alignment. Method: This study adopts the Structural Equation Model (SEM) technique with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to evaluate the relationship between IT governance and business-IT alignment, testing three basic hypotheses on the data collected from 672 web-based surveys of companies in Colombia. Main finding: IT governance significantly and directly affects business-IT alignment, but there are no differences in such influence as per industry type or company size. Limitations: This study only considered companies located in Colombia with a limited sample size in several industry types, which may become a possibility for further studies. Additionally, the data collected relies on the honesty of respondents and is not completely free of bias.Objetivo de la investigación: El propósito de esta investigación básica, cuantitativa, descriptiva y transversal es examinar empíricamente el impacto de la gobernanza de TI en el alineamiento de negocio y TI. Metodología: Este estudio adopta la técnica Modelo de Ecuaciones Estructurales (SEM) con Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio (CFA) con el fin de evaluar la relación planteada entre gobierno de TI y alineamiento de negocio y TI, poniendo a prueba tres hipótesis básicas, usando los datos recolectados procedentes de 672 encuestas realizadas vía web a empresas en Colombia. Hallazgos: Este estudio encontró que el gobierno de TI afecta de manera significativa y directa la alineación de negocio y de TI, pero no existen diferencias en dicha influencia entre tipos de industria y tamaños de empresa. Limitaciones: Este estudio solo tomó en cuenta empresas localizadas en Colombia con limitación en tamaño de muestra en varios sectores de actividad, lo que puede constituirse como una posibilidad para estudios posteriores. Adicionalmente, los datos recolectados están basados en la honestidad de los encuestados y no están completamente libres de sesgo.Tesi

The Colliding Vernaculars of Foreign Investment Protection and Transitional Justice in Colombia: A Challenge for the Law in a Global Context

This doctoral dissertation explores an argued normative tension between the legal protection of foreign investors via international investment agreements and the implementation of a transitional justice project in Colombia. Considering its nature and extent, this tension is regarded from a global perspective. These legal fields are acknowledged as the opus of transnational legal processes that have been triggered both to diffuse the political vision and to represent the interests of corresponding global epistemic communities. Therefore, their placement at the same political/legal level, and the shared interest they have in regulating access to and use of land and natural resources located within the countrys jurisdiction, encompass a conflictual dynamic. That is, the spread of a neoliberal economic model through the domestic internalization of a set of rules and institutions that limit the capacity of the state to intervene in certain areas of public concern, as opposed to the exercise of legal resistance to the detrimental socioeconomic effects produced on the occasion of the countrys internal armed conflict, by means of the structural adjustment of social relations. The main contention of this dissertation is that, within the realm of the aforementioned normative tension, the legal protection offered to foreign investors in Colombia by virtue of the systematic conclusion of international investment agreements, has the potential to restrict the countrys democratic and sovereign choice to achieve durable peace through the production of profound transformations at the level of social justice. In particular, it is argued that although the international investment agreements concluded by the country are the result of the effective exercise of sovereign prerogatives and place-binding obligations on the state, they cannot be constituted as impregnable commands able to shape indeterminately the countrys public policy space with regards to the implementation of the transitional justice project. Moreover, it is also contended that the legal responses to these investor-state controversies must encompass strong political considerations rather than mere technical issues, since they must acknowledge both the contextual particularities of this type of controversies and the transnational nature of the interests at stake

Coca Industrialization: A Path to Innovation, Development, and Peace in Colombia

For decades, Colombia has faced the challenge of promoting economic development and peace in its coca growing regions while quelling the flow of coca for unlawful purposes. During this time, the country has rarely considered promoting economic development with coca, partly because national and international frameworks and policies have written off coca growers as one of the main drivers of the drug trade.The 2016 peace agreement marked the first significant shift towards a paradigm that prioritizes human rights, rural development, and local governance in the issue of coca. Within the context of the provisions of the peace accord, concrete policy innovations were introduced in 2017. The National Training Service (SENA), a government entity in charge of offering vocational training in vulnerable communities, a peacebuilding organization, and members of the Lerma coca-growing community formed a partnership that became the key to success in advancing policy reform.Coca Industrialization: A Path to Innovation, Development, and Peace in Colombia presents coca as an agricultural product with ample industrialization opportunities that fit within the existing national and international legal arrangements. This report explores coca's diverse potential in applications as varied as nutrition, natural medicine, personal care, and agro-industry—as well as coca's historical cultural uses.The report suggests seeing the coca plant (Erythroxylum spp) as an agricultural product for lawful uses as well as the challenges and opportunities that have influenced industrialization. It proposes building a coca leaf industry that  guarantees a sound income for farmers; provides good quality, sustainable raw materials for manufacturers; and ensures traceability, and control across the supply chain, with adherence to international laws.Coca Industrialization explores the potential that the coca leaf holds and sets out the parameters for a system that could significantly expand coca industrialization in a manner that makes the most of its social, political, economic, and environmental benefits

A Strategy for the Commons: Business-driven Networks for Collective Action and Policy Dialogue. The Example of Global Compact Local Networks

The current challenges involved with ensuring global sustainability are daunting. Climate change is increasing the incidence of severe weather events, natural resources are undergoing rapid depletion, labor conditions in global supply chains are often inhumane and degrading, and corruption around the globe is undermining competition and destroying wealth. These and other global challenges pose serious problems not only to mankind in general, but also to the sustainability of companies. Indeed, companies rely on enabling environments, local and global alike, for long-term success. Companies depend on a reliable legal framework conducive to investment and competition, a healthy and viable natural environment, and a secure social environment that facilitates the wellbeing of its inhabitants. However, given the overexploitation of shared resources, also known as the “tragedy of the commons,” companies often find it difficult to address global sustainability challenges and invest in enabling environments. All sustainability challenges face this tragedy: Although each societal actor ought to have an interest in creating or ensuring the viability of these common goods, the incentive to “free ride” on the efforts of others and let them bear the costs is exceedingly high. As a result, short-term profit maximization often damages the longterm growth prospects of companies. Since governments lack the capacity to address the complexity and global scope of sustainability challenges alone, a “strategy for the commons” is needed that allows companies, governments and other actors to overcome the free rider dilemma and invest in sustainable development

Investing in Biodiversity Conservation: Proceedings of a Workshop

This document presents the proceedings of a one-day Workshop on Investing in Biodiversity Conservation held at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., on October 28, 1996. The first part of the workshop was dedicated to the presentation of key topics on biodiversity financing by five leaders in the field. The second part of the workshop was dedicated to a discussion and exchange of ideas on the role of the IDB in investing in biodiversity conservation. Three main recommendations emerged: 1) The Bank should prepare a report on on its experience in biodiversity projects and development programs with biodiversity components; 2) A task force should be formed to work on a bio-diversity policy or strategy; 3) IDB staff should be trained to understand the biodiversity concept and its implications in project preparation and implementation.Environmental Policy, Biodiversity, Natural Resources Management

Academic Aspect of the Leather Industry: An Interpretation from the Perspective of Business Science

In the leather industry, a production process that is the subject of many different disciplines is dominant. Many studies on these branches of science have examined the sector in detail in terms of production. On the other hand, studies dealing with the sector in terms of business administration department and sub-disciplines are not common. In this study, academic publications examining the relationship between the leather industry and the business administration department are the subjects. 98 scientific studies obtained after the search in the Web of Science database were examined in terms of the form of publication, the year of publication, the country where the publication was made and the sub-disciplines of the business department

Remedy for corporate human rights abuses in transitional justice contexts

Corporations and other business enterprises often operate in countries affected by conflict or repressive regimes and commit human rights violations and crimes under international law, either as the main perpetrator or as accomplices by aiding and abetting government forces. In transitional justice contexts, the trials, truth commissions, and reparations typically included within the set of remedy mechanisms have focused primarily on abuses by state authorities’ or by non-state actors directly connected to the state, such as paramilitary groups or death squads. Innovative uses of transitional justice mechanisms across the world, however, have started to address, even if still only in a marginal way, corporate accountability for human rights abuses and crimes under international law and have attempted to provide redress for victims. This research analyses this development. This research provides an original contribution to the field on business and human rights and the little-researched link with transitional justice by assessing how remedies for corporate human rights abuses and crimes under international law can be achieved in transitional justice contexts. To answer this question this research first analyses how different mechanisms (judicial processes at the international and domestic level, truthseeking initiatives, and reparations programmes) have dealt, or failed to deal, with remedy for victims of corporate human rights abuses. It then examines their outcomes, the results those processes have achieved and the obstacles they have faced. The research takes a victim-oriented approach by analysing the tools, instruments and institutions available for victims (the bearers of rights) in transitional justice contexts (i.e. in countries emerging from conflict or authoritarian regimes) to remedy violations when those are committed by corporations