Internet Utopianism and the Practical Inevitability of Law

Writing at the dawn of the digital era, John Perry Barlow proclaimed cyberspace to be a new domain of pure freedom. Addressing the nations of the world, he cautioned that their laws, which were “based on matter,” simply did not speak to conduct in the new virtual realm. As both Barlow and the cyberlaw scholars who took up his call recognized, that was not so much a statement of fact as it was an exercise in deliberate utopianism. But it has proved prescient in a way that they certainly did not intend. The “laws” that increasingly have no meaning in online environments include not only the mandates of market regulators but also the guarantees that supposedly protect the fundamental rights of internet users, including the expressive and associational freedoms whose supremacy Barlow asserted. More generally, in the networked information era, protections for fundamental human rights — both on- and offline — have begun to fail comprehensively. Cyberlaw scholarship in the Barlowian mold isn’t to blame for the worldwide erosion of protections for fundamental rights, but it also hasn’t helped as much as it might have. In this essay, adapted from a forthcoming book on the evolution of legal institutions in the information era, I identify and briefly examine three intersecting flavors of internet utopianism in cyberlegal thought that are worth reexamining. It has become increasingly apparent that functioning legal institutions have indispensable roles to play in protecting and advancing human freedom. It has also become increasingly apparent, however, that the legal institutions we need are different than the ones we have

Fading Corporatism: Israel\u27s Labor Law and Industrial Relations in Transition

[Excerpt] This book surveys Israeli labor law from 1920 to the present. The process of writing and publishing a book does not always conform to the pace of events, particularly when the subject matter is contemporary history. The book is therefore updated until the end of 2005. References to court cases and events that began before 2005 were updated at the end of 2006. However, no developments since that time have been integrated into the text. In my opinion, no such event undermines the central argument of the book; several reinforce it. Presenting a book in English that focuses on Israel\u27s labor law presents many editorial dilemmas. Moreover, the book\u27s claim is that Israeli law developed on the basis of continental European systems and is now adopting features of American law. Hence it is difficult to determine how to translate the law and how to convey a feel of the Israeli story. While providing a consistent method was the most important goal, I have also attempted to keep the book as simple and user-friendly as possible

Achieving accountability through decentralization : lessons for integrated river basin management

While decentralization holds out the promise of increased flexibility and efficiency, the preconditions for realizing it are daunting. To draw lessons for productive decentralization in integrated river basin management, this paper surveys the decentralization experience in education, health care, roads, irrigation, and public infrastructure services. Case studies reveal that the prime focus in the design of a decentralized structure must be accountability, based on principles of subsidiarity, transparency, and allocation of property rights. While some debates are sector-specific, others, such as the need for political and financial accountability, the related data requirements, educating stakeholders and potential beneficiaries of the new system, and ensuring effective participation are true of decentralization wherever it is to unfold. Inturn, initial conditions and the adaptation of political leadership to suit the historical context determine the success of decentralization. Four issues demand high priority in integrated river basin management. These are (1) overcoming financial inadequacy at the local level; (2) commitment to upgrading skills, particularly management skills, while also ensuring that the expertise accumulated in central bureaucracies is not dissipated; (3) assuring pre-reform beneficiaries that their rights would be protected; and (4) sustaining a long-term commitment to an inevitably slow and drawn out decentralization process. The main conclusions of the literature survey caution those who believe that decentralization is, in itself, a solution to problems of inefficiency and inequity in developing countries. Tradeoffs and tensions need to be reconciled (such as economies of scale versus local monitoring and integrated management or interregional equity versus local control).Municipal Financial Management,Decentralization,Water Conservation,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Banks&Banking Reform

1. Strengthening International Regulation Through Transnational New Governance: Overcoming the Orchestration Deficit. 2. International Regulation without International Government: Improving IO Performance through Orchestration

1. A new kind of international regulatory system is spontaneously arising out of the failure of international 'Old Governance' (i.e., treaties and intergovernmental organizations) to adequately regulate international business. Nongovernmental organizations, business firms, and other actors, singly and in novel combinations, are creating innovative institutions to apply transnational norms to business. These institutions are predominantly private and operate through voluntary standards. The Authors depict the diversity of these new regulatory institutions on the 'Governance Triangle,' according to the roles of different actors in their operations. To analyze this complex system, we adapt the domestic 'New Governance' model of regulation to the international setting. 'Transnational New Governance' potentially provides many benefits of New Governance and is particularly suitable for international regulation because it demands less of states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). However, Transnational New Governance does require states and IGOs to act as orchestrators of the international regulatory system, and that system currently suffers from a significant orchestration deficit. If states and IGOs expanded 'directive' and especially 'facilitative' orchestration of the Transnational New Governance system, they could strengthen high-quality private regulatory standards, improve the international regulatory system, and better achieve their own regulatory goals. 2. International organizations (IOs) have been widely criticized as ineffective. Yet scholars and practitioners assessing IO performance frequently focus on traditional modes of governance such as treaties and inter-state dispute-resolution mechanisms. When they observe poor performance, moreover, they often prescribe a strengthening of those same activities. We call this reliance on traditional state-based mechanisms 'International Old Governance' (IOG). A better way to understand and improve IO performance is to consider the full range of ways in which IOs can and do operate - including, increasingly, by reaching out to private actors and institutions, collaborating with them, and supporting and shaping their activities. Such actions are helping to develop an intricate global network of public, private and mixed institutions and norms, partially orchestrated by IOs, that we call 'Transnational New Governance' (TNG). With proper orchestration by IOs, TNG can ameliorate both 'state failure' - the inadequacies of IOG - and 'market failure' - the problems that result when the creation and evolution of norm-setting institutions is highly decentralized. Orchestration thus provides a significant way for IOs to improve their regulatory performance. Some IOs already engage actively with private actors and institutions - we provide a range of illustrations, highlighting the activities of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Yet there remains a significant 'orchestration deficit' that provides real opportunities for IOs. We draw on the lessons of existing IO activities to suggest additional possibilities for improving IO performance. -- 1. Ein internationales regulatorisches System neuer Art entsteht derzeit spontan aus dem Versagen der internationalen 'Old Governance' - also der bestehenden internationalen Verträge und Organisationen - dabei, den internationalen Handel angemessen zu regulieren. Nichtregierungsorganisationen, Unternehmen und andere Akteure - allein und in ganz neuen Kombinationen - schaffen sich neue internationale Einrichtungen, um transnationale Normen auf internationale Geschäftstätigkeit anzuwenden. Es geht dabei vornehmlich um private Einrichtungen, die vor allem über freiwillige Standardbefolgung wirken. In diesem Beitrag werden die unterschiedlichen Regulierungseinrichtungen als Teil eines 'Governance Dreiecks' beschreiben und das geschieht vor allem in Blick darauf, welche Rollen die unterschiedlichen Akteure in ihrer Tätigkeit spielen. Um dieses komplexe System zu untersuchen passen wir das innenpolitische Regulierungsmodell der 'New Governance' an den internationalen Rahmen an. Die 'Transnational New Governance' enthält viele Vorteile der 'New Governance' und sie ist für die internationale Regulierung besonders angemessen, weil sie geringere Anforderungen an die Staatenwelt und an die intergouvernementalen Organisationen, die IGOs, stellen. Allerdings ist es für eine wirksame 'Transnational New Governance' weiterhin erforderlich, dass die Staaten und die IGOs das internationale regulatorische System 'orchestrieren'. Das heutige internationale regulatorische System leidet allerdings unter einem Orchestrierungsdefizit. Würden die Staaten und die IGOs die 'anweisende' und 'ermöglichende' Orchestrierungsfunktion des 'Transnational New Governance System' ausbauen, dann stärkten sie die privaten regulatorischen Standards von hoher Qualität, verbesserten das internationale regulatorische System und könnten ihre eigenen regulatorischen Ziele besser verwirklichen. 2. Internationale Organisationen (IOs) werden vielfach ob Ihrer Ineffizienz kritisiert. Allerdings konzentrieren sich Wissenschaftler und Praktiker bei dieser Bewertung der Leistungsfähigkeit von IOs häufig auf Maßstäbe, die den herkömmlichen Formen von Governance - wie internationalen Verträgen und den Mechanismen für die Schlichtung zwischenstaatlicher Konflikte - entlehnt sind. Soweit eine ungenügende Leistung festgestellt wird, empfehlen sie zudem meist, Tätigkeiten der traditionellen Art zu verstärken. Wir bezeichnen dies als ein Sich-Verlassen auf die herkömmlichen staats-basierten Mechanismen, als 'International Old Governance' (IOG). Man versteht die IOs besser und verbessert ihre Leistungsfähigkeit aber der Situation weitaus angemessener, wenn man die gesamte Vielfalt wirklicher und möglicher IO-Tätigkeiten in den Blick nimmt: Das umfasst vor allem, dass die IOs private Akteure und Organisationen einbeziehen, mit ihnen zusammenarbeiten, ihre Aktivitäten stützen, sie formen und ihnen Richtung geben. Diese Tätigkeiten schaffen ein fein gesponnenes globales Netzwerk von öffentlichen, privaten und gemischten Organisationen und Normen, das seinerseits teilweise durch die IOs orchestriert wird. Dieses Netzwerk bezeichnen wir als 'Transnational New Governance' (TNG). Wenn die Orchestrierung durch IOs gut funktioniert kann sie auch Staatsversagen (state failure) abmildern - also hier die Inadäquanzen von 'International Organization Governance' - und ebenso kann sie Marktversagen ausgleichen, also die Probleme, die sich ergeben wenn Herausbildung und Schaffung normgebender Einrichtungen höchst dezentralisiert verläuft. Über die Orchestrierung können die IOs auch die Leistungsfähigkeit ihrer Regulierungen erhöhen. Einige IOs sind schon jetzt stark zusammen mit privaten Akteuren und Einrichtungen unterwegs; in diesem Beitrag mustern wir das Spektrum solcher Aktivitäten. Wir betonen dabei die Unternehmungen des UN Environment Programme (UNEP), des Umweltprogramms der VN. Allerdings verbleibt ein erhebliches 'Orchestrierungsdefizit', das für die IOs zugleich Herausforderung und Chance ist. Wir stützten uns auf den Erfahrungsschatz der vorgefundenen IO-Aktivitäten, um den Möglichkeitsraum der IOs für die Zukunft auszumessen und Maßnahmen zur Verbesserung der Leistungsfähigkeit von IOs anzuregen.

Institutions and Inequality in Liberalizing Markets: Explaining Different Trajectories of Institutional Change in Social Europe

Economic and Social Research Council [grant number RES-061-25-0444]

Order Without Judges: Customary Adjudication

Scholarship on custom and law has largely focused on the creation and enforcement of informal rules, demonstrating and in some cases endorsing the existence of order without law. But creating and enforcing rules are only two of the three functions of governance, corresponding roughly with what in other contexts are called the legislative and executive branches. The third function—adjudication—has not played such a prominent role in the scholarly literature on informal governance. As one leading scholar puts it: Custom has no constitution or judges. But if customs can be created and enforced by nonstate actors, why should scholars assume that formal (that is, noncustomary) courts are the only institutions that do or should adjudicate those customs? This Essay seeks to describe and emphasize the role of customary adjudication, the third branch of customary governance. In doing so, it has three main goals: first, to argue that customary governance can be understood in terms of the same three functions familiar to students of formal governance; second, to deliver a preliminary and tentative account of the third of these branches; and finally, to suggest that existing scholarship on custom and law has given comparatively little attention to the functions and forms of customary adjudication. If successful, those contributions should set the stage for future descriptive and normative work

Economic role of public administration in Central Asia: Decentralization and hybrid political regime

The aim of the paper is to understand how the organization of public administration in Central Asia shapes the results of economic development in the region. It discusses the main factors of bad quality of public administration in the region, paying particular attention to the link between political regimes and public administration. Moreover, it provides an overview of decentralization and devolution of power in Central Asian countries as one of the main channels of transformation of administration. The paper covers both formal decentralization and informal distribution of power between levels of government.Public administration, hybrid regimes, decentralization

Policies for capacity development

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