The socio-legal implications of women’s work in the informal sector: A case study of women domestic workers in Pakistan

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website. Copyright @ 2009 The Author.The informal sector of economy is a major source of employment in Developing countries such as Pakistan.1Work opportunities in the informal sector play an important role in providing lively-hood to the poor, unskilled or semi-skilled, less educated and illiterate men and women workers in the society. There has been a significant change in the informal labour market with more women working for wages. However women remain amongst th lower earners of society, as despite performing the same tasks they are paid less compared to their male counterparts and are mostly engaged in part time jobs. Domestic service is one such category in the informal employment sector which provides jobs to women in large numbers. Yet of the eleven labour policies framed by various governments since the creation of Pakistan in 1947 none has addressed the issue of domestic workers, nor are domestic workers covered under the general labour laws of the country.2In the light of this situation thepaper attempts todeconstruct the role of law in empowering women domestic workers by exploring the relationship between law, gender and empowerment in a plural legal society

Worldwide Access to Foreign Law: International & National Developments Toward Digital Authentication

This paper was originally presented at the World Library & Information Congress of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Helsinki, Finland, August 2012, as part of a panel on Promoting Global Access to Law: Developing an Open Access Index for Official Authenticated Legal Information, Part II. Europe. http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78/programme-and-proceedings-day/2012-08-14. It focuses on worldwide access to the official word of the law, specifically to statutes, codes, regulations, court decisions, and international agreements in different foreign countries. The importance of improving global access to foreign law was highlighted at a 2012 joint European Commission/Hague Conference on Private International Law, with the hope for a global instrument to facilitate access to foreign law in civil and commercial matters. The paper discusses the challenges of digital law and the importance of authentication of official legal information worldwide. It retraces the history of what happened in the USA at the federal and state levels, in particular the successful information policy advocacy by law librarians that led to the enactment of the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) in 2012. It highlights the role of law librarians in the digital age and their concern for the sustainability of the digital format. Much effort has been expended on moving legal information from a preserved state (print) to an accessible state (digital). It is important to ensure as well that accessible legal information has a preserved (official, authentic -- hence reliable) venue. The Conclusion mentions a few prospects for the future, and a possible role for IFLA to develop a set of standards to encourage governments worldwide to authenticate their official legal information. This might fit well with IFLA’s stature as the major forum to influence information policy at the international level

Worldwide Access to Foreign Law: International & National Developments Toward Digital Authentication

This paper was originally presented at the World Library & Information Congress of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Helsinki, Finland, August 2012, as part of a panel on Promoting Global Access to Law: Developing an Open Access Index for Official Authenticated Legal Information, Part II. Europe. http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78/programme-and-proceedings-day/2012-08-14. It focuses on worldwide access to the official word of the law, specifically to statutes, codes, regulations, court decisions, and international agreements in different foreign countries. The importance of improving global access to foreign law was highlighted at a 2012 joint European Commission/Hague Conference on Private International Law, with the hope for a global instrument to facilitate access to foreign law in civil and commercial matters. The paper discusses the challenges of digital law and the importance of authentication of official legal information worldwide. It retraces the history of what happened in the USA at the federal and state levels, in particular the successful information policy advocacy by law librarians that led to the enactment of the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) in 2012. It highlights the role of law librarians in the digital age and their concern for the sustainability of the digital format. Much effort has been expended on moving legal information from a preserved state (print) to an accessible state (digital). It is important to ensure as well that accessible legal information has a preserved (official, authentic -- hence reliable) venue. The Conclusion mentions a few prospects for the future, and a possible role for IFLA to develop a set of standards to encourage governments worldwide to authenticate their official legal information. This might fit well with IFLA’s stature as the major forum to influence information policy at the international level

Taxation, International Cooperation and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda

This open access volume addresses the link between international taxation, the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the medium-term revenue strategy concept. It also analyses how countries and governments can reinforce this link in current and future initiatives in international taxation, including the base erosion profit shifting project initiated by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development with the political mandate of the G20. It discusses the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda that are relevant for taxation and assesses the current work done by international organizations, regional tax organizations and countries to achieve these Sustainable Development Goals. The contributions to this volume provide an interdisciplinary mix of expertise in tax law, international political economy, global governance and international relations. Through these different perspectives, this volume provides an elaborate reference and evaluation framework for multilateral cooperation on tax and development to strengthen the revenue system of developed and developing countries. This topical volume is of interest to students and researchers of the social sciences, law and economics, as well as policy makers working on taxation

Sustainable Development Disciplines for Humanity

This Open Access book provides eight problem solving lectures for sustainable development for people, peace, and partnerships. Those are three of the five keywords for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): people, the planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships or “the 5Ps”. Each of these lectures is classified into one of the keywords for SDGs and based on the history of social thought, human development, law, education, sociology, and peace studies. Further, each lecture delineates the essence of each discipline when it is practically applied to development studies. This book, Sustainable Development Disciplines for Humanity, along with its sister volume related to the planet and prosperity, Society, will be useful in studying development. Interdisciplinary research is necessary to achieve the SDGs advocated by the United Nations. Hence, it is essential to learn the basics of individual disciplines, as they each offer ample knowledge fostering problem solving through the accumulation of existing research. This and its sister volume are the first comprehensive textbooks summarizing the essence of each necessary discipline to approach development studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. In developing countries, this book will provide access to development research for readers aiming to further develop their own nations. Moreover, in developed countries, the book will provide access to problem-solving research for readers seeking holistic solutions to complex social problems

Management of Institutional Repositories (IR) in Developing Countries

The chapter discusses the management of institutional repositories (IR) in developing countries. It starts with the introduction of the concept of institutional repositories and its origin. Various definitions of institutional repositories are highlighted. The chapter goes further to discuss the features of institutional repositories such as infrastructure, hosted service, customer support, content organization and control, content discovery, publication tools, reporting, multimedia, social features and notifications, and so on. It further analyses vital issues in management of institutional repositories. Peculiar issues in open access for developing countries are also identified and discussed. The chapter covers the roles of libraries and librarians in the management of institutional repositories; the roles include collection development and management, software acquisition and training, formulation of guidelines for standard metadata and catalogue system, assessment of submission for standard and quality, persuading authors to contribute their intellectual works, enlightenment on copyright issues, information literacy in the use of institutional repositories, promotion and marketing of institutional repositories. The chapter further highlights the challenges and intervention strategies in the management of institutional repositories in developing countries; it enumerates the challenges to include: personnel and technical staff, ICT equipment and infrastructure, lack of awareness and advocacy, inadequate funding, poor policy guidelines, poor power supply, open access, software, copyright law and inadequate internet bandwidth. Based on these, the chapter recommends that an aggressive enlightenment programme should be carried out from time to time; developing countries and their higher institutions should wake up to their responsibilities by formulating policies on institutional repositories (IR); developing countries should also come together to form consortia in the areas of software selection and deployment for institutional repositories. Management of institutions in these countries should make funds available for the smooth running of their institutional repositories, and so on. The chapter concludes with the need for academic institutions and their libraries to pay more attention to the funding and development of institutional repositories in order to provide more effective and efficient access to digital information services to the global academic community

Sustainable Development Disciplines for Society

This multidisciplinary Open Access book provides nine problem-solving lectures for sustainable development for the planet and prosperity. Those are two of the five keywords for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): people, the planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships, or “the 5Ps”. Each of these lectures is classified into one of the keywords for SDGs and based on law, economics, management, international trade, input–output analysis, or agricultural and urban engineering. Further, each lecture delineates the essence of each discipline when it is practically applied to development studies. This book, Sustainable Development Disciplines for Society, along with its sister volume related to the people, peace and partnerships, will be useful in studying development. Interdisciplinary research is necessary to achieve the SDGs advocated by the United Nations. Hence, it is essential to learn the basics of individual disciplines, as they each offer ample knowledge fostering problem solving through the accumulation of existing research. This and its sister volume are the first comprehensive textbooks summarizing the essence of each necessary discipline to approach development studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. In developing countries, this book will provide access to development research for readers aiming to further develop their own nations. Moreover, in developed countries, this book will provide access to problem-solving research for readers seeking holistic solutions to complex social problems