Trade policy and labor services : final status options for the West Bank and Gaza

The author considers the policy options of the West Bank and Gaza with respect to trade and the export of labor services. He concludes that: 1) Nondiscriminatory trade policy is unambiguously superior to a free trade agreement with Israel; 2) The West Bank and Gaza should pursue a nondiscriminatory trade policy with all its neighbors, but only on the condition that the trade policy be open, transparent, and enforced by a credible lock-in mechanism. Otherwise, a customs union with Israel may be preferable; 3) The Palestinian Authority should establish a system of fee-based permits for Palestinians working in Israel; and 4) The Palestinian Authority should consider allowing Jordanians access to the West Bank and Gaza labor market.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Rules of Origin,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Trade Policy,Trade and Regional Integration

Developing the Desert: A Case Study of Israeli Infrastructure Privatization

In the face of mounting hyperinflation in the 1970s and 1980s, Israel underwent a stabilization program focused on reducing the size of its public sector. The principles of the program, influenced heavily by neoliberal thinking, were a radical shift away from the collectivist ethos Israel had been built on. This paper focuses on the impact of the ensuing privatization of infrastructure-related state assets. Given the primacy of these assets to the public’s standard of living, infrastructure is of particular interest to any government. As Israel moved away from state ownership, it involved the private sector to various degrees. In telecommunications, the privatization of government company Bezeq was imperfectly executed, resulting in economic concentration that mirrors wealth inequality found in other parts of Israeli society. In water, Israel utilized more limited forms of privatization to greater success. The national water carrier, Mekorot, operates as a government company, but may sell a minority stake. Doing so would provide liquidity while maintaining the state’s decision-making authority over a scarce resource. Similarly, the use of public-private partnerships in major desalination plants has balanced the risk between the public and private sectors, tapping into private sector expertise while guaranteeing sustainable water output. The three cases studied demonstrate different approaches to economic liberalization in essential assets. For the most part, Israel’s modes of privatization, at least in infrastructure, have reduced the state’s burden while maintaining the public interest.LBJ School of Public Affair

When Does Internet Denial Trigger the Right of Armed Self-Defense?

Amid a 2007 dispute with Russia, Estonia suffered a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyber-attacks that disabled the websites of government ministries, political parties, news outlets, banks, and other firms for several weeks. The attacks employed digital bots to overload Estonia\u27s Internet infrastructure with an overwhelming stream of data packets, which caused serious service and communications disruptions before abruptly coming to a halt. During the initial stages, Estonia\u27s Computer Emergency Response Team (E-CERT) traced the attacks to I.P. addresses belonging to Russian nationalist groups, but was unable to establish direct participation by Moscow. Subsequent evidence suggested, however, that the attacks were tied to the Kremlin

The Biggest Peace: The Structure of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Politics of Separation

Part I of this Note summarizes the background leading up to the signing of the Oslo Accords. Part II details the overall structure and responsibilities laid out in Oslo II, with specific emphasis on the legal. Also, Part II presents for comparison the semi-autonomy arrangement devised and implemented in the Transkei of South Africa in the early 1960s. Part II concludes by examining the extent to which both of these arrangements were successful in satisfying the parties involved and makes some more general comparisons to similar reactions in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement. Part III attempts to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of limited autonomy to deal with the competing rhetoric of self-determination and the administration of viable political entities

Mexico’s global players. A. Great diversity of outward-investing industries in 2008. B. The impact of the global crisis on Mexican MNEs varies by industry in 2009

The foreign assets of the 19 companies ranked in table 1 below totaled about US$97 billion in 2008. Their overseas sales were about US$ 58 billion and the number of their employees abroad was around 190,000. The company in first place, Cemex, is ranked 45th among the 100 largest non-financial MNEs in the world that UNCTAD‘s World Investment Report presented in its 2009 edition. In this same report, in addition to CEMEX, another four Mexican companies appear among the 100 largest non-financial MNEs of developing countries... In 2009, the 20 companies listed in table 1 below posted about US$117 billion in foreign assets, 63 billion in foreign sales, and had 227,484 employees in their overseas operations. The top three companies on the list are CEMEX, America Movil, and Carso Global Telecom, which together controlled US$ 86 billion in foreign assets, which was 73% of the total on the list. The leading sectors on the list are food and beverages (4 firms), non-metallic minerals (4 firms), and telecommunications (2 firms)

Occupational hazards

This article provides an analysis and a critique of the law governing the employment relationship between Israeli employers and Palestinian employees in industries operating in the West Bank. Through an analysis of Israeli jurisprudence it highlights the intersection among different areas of law: choice of law, public international law (in particular the law of occupation), and labor law. The article explores the tensions that this intersection creates: first, between the importance that public international law ascribes to matters of sovereignty and territory, and the latter’s growing marginality in the labor field, which is increasingly becoming transnational; another tension is between the transience underlying the law of occupation and the exceptional duration of Israel’s occupation of the territories, which has led to an economic conundrum not predicted by the framers of the international legal structure, and with which the law of occupation can deal to a very limited extent. Through discussion of these tensions the article brings to the fore challenges to the role of meaning equality in transnational employment relationships, particularly in situations of structured power disparities deriving from political circumstances. While the challenges explored here are intimately linked to the phenomenon of occupation, the increased swiftness with which private companies worldwide are now able to cross borders and set up enterprises outside their state of origin makes the analysis highly relevant to businesses worldwide