From corporate social responsibility to the democratic regulation of transnational corporations

This publication examines the role of transnational corporations in governance and critically evaluates the dominant self-regulatory approach of corporate social responsibility (CSR). By placing the onus for change on the corporation, CSR represents an agent-led approach to a systemic problem, and as such it is flawed. After distinguishing between the ideas of CSR and corporate accountability, the latter of which emphasises the answerability of the corporation to public authorities and citizens, the publication then offers an original model for the democratic regulation of the corporation. The model proposes, first, the negotiation of a new corpus of international law to be agreed by states but ratified by those corporations that wish to trade or invest internationally and, second, the reinvigoration of the public charter as an active instrument of public control. The model aims to provide a nested framework within which corporations can trade and compete, while restoring to local communities final decision making authority on the conditions under which corporations may, or may not, operate. Some possible objections to the model are anticipated and addressed

National Forest Programmes in Europe: Generating policy-relevant propositions for formulation and implementation

The COST Action E19 on National Forest Programmes in a European Context assembled more than 70 researchers and civil servants from 20 European countries and the USA. Some meetings were also attended by scholars from Canada, China and Japan. The participants aimed to provide policy makers in Europe with improved means for the formulation and implementation of National Forest Programmes (NFPs) for ensuring sustainable forest management. In order to accomplish this objective the work programme comprised the following tasks: to interpret the basic elements and institutional and procedural requirements of NFPs, to assess the effects of these elements and requirements on NFPs, to assess the supporting and impeding factors for the development of substantive NFPs, to evaluate the significance of NFPs in comparison to other policy means

The Reconstruction of the Beirut Central District: An urban geography of war and peace

Three conceptual themes of public-private, temporality, and heritage-modernity are used to develop an urban geography of war and peace of Beirut. During the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war public space shrank and people retreated deeper into localised neighbourhoods, with private space becoming more public as people accommodated those who were displaced. Since the war, the public sector has been rehabilitated, but decision making autonomy on the reconstruction of Beirut’s centre has been handed to a private company. The theme of temporality concerns the relationship between the city’s past, present, and future, with debates on what parts of the city should be preserved intimately bound with notions of memory and forgetting. The relationship between heritage and modernity, both of which are fluid and evolving notions, has informed the reconstruction of the city. The reclamation by Beirutis of the centre of the city following the assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005 makes clear that urban space is constructed as much by publics as by architects and town planners, with Place des Martyrs once again functioning as an integrating space for public dialogue and reconciliation

An Evaluation of Distortion and Interference Sources originating Within a Millimeter-wave MIMO Testbed for 5G Communications

This paper presents an evaluation of distortion and interference sources, namely, the harmonic distortion and antenna crosstalk, originating within a 2 x 2 millimeter-wave (mm-wave) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) testbed. The experience gained through the insight into the built testbed could be fed into the design of future mm-wave massive MIMO testbeds.Comment: 2nd URSI Atlantic Radio Science Meeting (URSI AT-RASC 2018

Millimeter-Wave Over-the-Air Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio Measurements Using a MIMO Testbed

In this paper, over-the-air experiments with external and internal interferences were performed using Chalmers millimeter-wave multiple-input-multiple-output testbed MATE. The resulting SINR for both interference experiments are compared and discussed.Comment: 2nd URSI Atlantic Radio Science Meeting (URSI AT-RASC 2018

Inhomogeneous universes in observational coordinates

Isotropic inhomogeneous dust universes are analysed via observational coordinates based on the past light cones of the observer's galactic worldline. The field equations are reduced to a single first--order {\sc ode} in observational variables on the past light cone, completing the observational integration scheme. This leads naturally to an explicit exact solution which is locally nearly homogeneous (i.e. {\sc frw}), but at larger redshift develops inhomogeneity. New observational characterisations of homogeneity ({\sc frw} universes) are also given.Comment: 17 pages LaTeX, no figures; to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Bridging Certification and Community Forestry through NTFPs: A Case Study from Nepal

Issue - For a variety of reasons, community forestry is not always well suited to existing forest certification schemes. Using the case of Nepal, this paper considers the extent to which promoting the trade in nontimber forest products can complement, or even provide an alternative to, forest certification for timber while promoting sustainable community forestry. The paper develops recent work on the interaction of transnational business governance (TBG) schemes to suggest how these two approaches to sustainable forest management can work together productively