Governance, scale and the environment: the importance of recognizing knowledge claims in transdisciplinary arenas

Any present day approach of the world’s most pressing environmental problems involves both scale and governance issues. After all, current local events might have long-term global consequences (the scale issue) and solving complex environmental problems requires policy makers to think and govern beyond generally used time-space scales (the governance issue). To an increasing extent, the various scientists in these fields have used concepts like social-ecological systems, hierarchies, scales and levels to understand and explain the “complex cross-scale dynamics” of issues like climate change. A large part of this work manifests a realist paradigm: the scales and levels, either in ecological processes or in governance systems, are considered as “real”. However, various scholars question this position and claim that scales and levels are continuously (re)constructed in the interfaces of science, society, politics and nature. Some of these critics even prefer to adopt a non-scalar approach, doing away with notions such as hierarchy, scale and level. Here we take another route, however. We try to overcome the realist-constructionist dualism by advocating a dialogue between them on the basis of exchanging and reflecting on different knowledge claims in transdisciplinary arenas. We describe two important developments, one in the ecological scaling literature and the other in the governance literature, which we consider to provide a basis for such a dialogue. We will argue that scale issues, governance practices as well as their mutual interdependencies should be considered as human constructs, although dialectically related to nature’s materiality, and therefore as contested processes, requiring intensive and continuous dialogue and cooperation among natural scientists, social scientists, policy makers and citizens alike. They also require critical reflection on scientists’ roles and on academic practices in general. Acknowledging knowledge claims provides a common ground and point of departure for such cooperation, something we think is not yet sufficiently happening, but which is essential in addressing today’s environmental problems

Property-Based Testing - The ProTest Project

The ProTest project is an FP7 STREP on property based testing. The purpose of the project is to develop software engineering approaches to improve reliability of service-oriented networks; support fault-finding and diagnosis based on specified properties of the system. And to do so we will build automated tools that will generate and run tests, monitor execution at run-time, and log events for analysis. The Erlang / Open Telecom Platform has been chosen as our initial implementation vehicle due to its robustness and reliability within the telecoms sector. It is noted for its success in the ATM telecoms switches by Ericsson, one of the project partners, as well as for multiple other uses such as in facebook, yahoo etc. In this paper we provide an overview of the project goals, as well as detailing initial progress in developing property based testing techniques and tools for the concurrent functional programming language Erlang

Coming of Age in A world of Diversity? An Assessment of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Inaugural Lecture delivered on 18 November 2010, upon the acceptance of the Endowed Chair of International Law and Development, established by the EUR Trust Fonds, at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Kinderrechten in Nederland onder de Loep: NGO’s en Jongeren Rapporteren aan de VN

In april 2012 maakte het Kinderrechtencollectief de meest recente NGO-rapportage over de naleving van het Internationaal Verdrag inzake de Rechten van het Kind (IVRK) door Nederland openbaar.1 In juni 2012 werd daar een Jongerenrapportage aan toegevoegd. Deze bijdrage zal beide rapporten kort bespreken

Rechtsbescherming van Mensenrechten in Nederland: Mag het een Onsje Meer zijn?

Sinds de aanvaarding van de Universele Verklaring voor de Rechten van de Mens in 1948 heeft het internationale recht ten aanzien van mensenrechten een enorme vlucht genomen. Een gestaag groeiend aantal mondiale en regionale verdragen heeft sindsdien een lappendeken van mensenrechtenverplichtingen van staten bindend vastgelegd. Nederland is partij bij veel van die verdragen, inclusief bijvoorbeeld de Internationale Verdragen inzake Burger en Politieke Rechten en Economische, Sociale en Culturele Rechten, het Vrouwenrechtenverdrag, het Kinderrechtenverdrag, het Europees Verdrag voor de Rechten van de Mens en het Europees Sociaal Handvest. In sommige gevallen heeft Nederland de werking van bepaalde verdragsbepalingen uitgesloten door middel van een voorbehoud. Waar dat niet het geval is, dient Nederland de desbetreffende verdragsverplichtingen vanzelfsprekend volledig na te leven

Caught in the Middle of Persistent Conflict. The Rights of Palestinian Children

Palestinian children have suffered greatly, whether as a result of numerous conflicts and Israel’s continued belligerent occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory, as a result of discrimination, or due to their prolonged exile. Their plight is a tragic illustration of the failure of all parties in the long-standing and intractable conflict or impasse between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people, and of international actors, to extend effective protection. Protection of Palestinian children, and adequate humanitarian assistance, is indispensable until a just and sustainable solution emerges

Constructing habitus: promoting an international arts trend at the Singapore Arts Festival

The Singapore Arts Festival (SAF) is Singapore’s largest government-supported international arts festival. SAF presents the best in international and local arts, in an attempt, to develop what it perceives to be a lack of cultural knowledge of the Singaporean arts-going public. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s key concept of ‘habitus’ together with an analysis of the programming of the festival, this paper will highlight how the festival seeks to create a specific cultural taste in Singaporean art-goers through privileging and promoting works that are internationally marketable to European countries. The paper will conclude that this programming style occurs at the expense of Singaporean artists and hinders the development of the city’s state cultural and artistic development