Odious Debt Wears Two Faces: Systemic Illegitimacy, Problems, and Opportunities in Traditional Odious Debt Conceptions in Globalized Economic Regimes

Backer examines how the traditional notion of odious debt as a method of repudiating sovereign debt may undergo a conceptual revolution as it changes focus from the illegitimacy of governments obtaining loans to the illegitimacy of the systems through which such loans are made and enforced generally. He focus his analysis on the conceptual framework Fidel Castro sought to introduce into the debate about the legitimacy of sovereign debt and the extent to which this reframing might influence international institutional approaches

Retaining Judicial Authority: A Preliminary Inquiry on the Dominion of Judges

Why do the people and institutions of democratic states, and in particular those of the United States, obey judges ? This article examines the foundations of judicial authority in the United States. This authority is grounded on principles of dominance derived from the organization of institutional religion. The judge in Western states asserts authority on the same basis as the priest - but not the priest as conventionally understood. Rather, the authority of the judge in modern Western democratic states is better understood when viewed through the analytical lens of priestly function developed in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Focusing on the United States Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice, this paper examines the manner in which high-court judges have successfully internalized the characteristics of Nietzsche\u27s Paul and his priestly caste within the religion of Western constitutionalism. Paul wanted the end, consequently he also wanted the means. What he himself did not believe, the idiots among whom he threw his doctrine believed. His need was for power; in Paul the priest wanted power once again - he could use only concepts, doctrines, symbols with which one tyrannizes masses and forms herds.\u2

The Cooperative as a Proletarian Corporation: The Global Dimensions of Property Rights and the Organization of Economic Activity in Cuba

Since the 1970s, the relationship between productive property, and the state and individual has been contested in Marxist-Leninist nations. Though China has moved to permit robust private activity and the private aggregations of capital in corporate form, Cuba has strictly adhered to traditional communist principles. In the face of recent financial upheavals, Cuba is seeking to liberalize its approach to economic organization, but in a way that would retain a state monopoly of the use of the corporate form while opening a small and well-managed consumer oriented private sector. Among the most innovative alternatives being developed is the cooperative, which has the potential to develop into a useful form of what this Article calls a proletarian corporation. But innovation faces substantial hurdles. This Article examines in Part II the context for the development of this new approach to cooperative organization. Part III then turns to a close study of the cooperative and its constraints, starting with a consideration of the agricultural cooperative as template for changes. It then turns to a critical consideration of the development of a theoretical basis for changing the function and operation of cooperatives developed by Cuban intellectuals, and ends with an examination of the transposition of that theory into the guidelines for restructuring the Cuban economy (Lineamientos) adopted by the Cuban government, and then articulated through a regulatory framework. Part IV then briefly considers the role of the cooperative in efforts to internationalize the Cuban economic model through vehicles such as the Alianza Bolivariana. This Article concludes that while the cooperative fits nicely within Cuba’s efforts to develop a complex and well-integrated program of economic organization, its theoretical elegance remains in tension with the realities of Cuban politics. This tension increases the risk that cooperatives will be reduced to little more than a means of privatizing central planning

The Cooperative as a Proletarian Corporation: The Global Dimensions of Property Rights and the Organization of Economic Activity in Cuba

Since the 1970s, the relationship between productive property, and the state and individual has been contested in Marxist-Leninist nations. Though China has moved to permit robust private activity and the private aggregations of capital in corporate form, Cuba has strictly adhered to traditional communist principles. In the face of recent financial upheavals, Cuba is seeking to liberalize its approach to economic organization, but in a way that would retain a state monopoly of the use of the corporate form while opening a small and well-managed consumer oriented private sector. Among the most innovative alternatives being developed is the cooperative, which has the potential to develop into a useful form of what this Article calls a proletarian corporation. But innovation faces substantial hurdles. This Article examines in Part II the context for the development of this new approach to cooperative organization. Part III then turns to a close study of the cooperative and its constraints, starting with a consideration of the agricultural cooperative as template for changes. It then turns to a critical consideration of the development of a theoretical basis for changing the function and operation of cooperatives developed by Cuban intellectuals, and ends with an examination of the transposition of that theory into the guidelines for restructuring the Cuban economy (Lineamientos) adopted by the Cuban government, and then articulated through a regulatory framework. Part IV then briefly considers the role of the cooperative in efforts to internationalize the Cuban economic model through vehicles such as the Alianza Bolivariana. This Article concludes that while the cooperative fits nicely within Cuba’s efforts to develop a complex and well-integrated program of economic organization, its theoretical elegance remains in tension with the realities of Cuban politics. This tension increases the risk that cooperatives will be reduced to little more than a means of privatizing central planning

From Institutional Misalignments to Socially Sustainable Governance: The Guiding Principles for the Implementation of the United Nations Protect, Respect and Remedy and the Construction of Inter-Systemic Global Governance

Once upon a time, and for a very short time, there was something that people in authority, and those who manage collective memory, considered a stable system of political and economic organization. It was grounded on a complex division of authority between states, economic entities and social collectives. Contemporary economic globalization has destabilized this traditional system. Corporations are no longer completely controlled by the states that chartered them or within complex enterprises, even by those in which they operate. Social collectives now operate to change the political cultures that affect the public policy of states and the economic behavior of companies. These changes have produced a dynamic state in governance, one which has been characterized as furthering misalignment among governance regimes. These misalignments have the potential to detrimentally affect the welfare of individuals and groups. Over the last decade a number of efforts have been made to offer a new context for stability in the relationships between the political, economic and social orders at the national and international levels. Among the most valuable proposals, one most likely to contribute significantly to the new governance order, has been efforts to elaborate a transnational regulatory framework for transnational corporations and other business enterprises - the United Nations’ \u27protect, respect, and remedy\u27 framework. This framework system has been developed to reframe the way in which the political, economic and social governance orders work together. Now reduced to a set of Guiding Principles, this framework seeks inter-systemic harmonization that is socially sustainable, and thus stable. The framework both recognizes and operationalizes emerging governance regimes by combining the traditional focus on the law systems of and between states with the social-systems of non-state actors and the governance effects of policy. This paper critically analyzes the Guiding Principles and its three key parts - the state duty to protect, the corporate responsibility to respect and the access to remedies. Part One provides a short introduction to the problems and issues that led to the movement toward the development of a framework for governance regimes for business and human rights. Part Two then focuses on the development of the Guiding Principles from conception to articulation. Part Three examines the Guiding Principles in detail. The examination starts from the report introducing the Guiding Principles, and then turns to a section-by-section analysis of the Guiding Principles themselves. These serve as a basis for an overall assessment of the Protect, Respect and Remedy framework as a viable, coherent and comprehensive effort to frame a governance regime for business and human rights. The Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework operationalized through the Guiding Principles presents an innovative approach to governance. But its most forward looking and valuable characteristics are also ones that make the project vulnerable - for states there is too great a recognition of the autonomy and power of social-norm systems. The GP framework represents a microcosm of the tectonic shifts in law and governance systems and the organization of human collectives confront the consequences of globalization