"Get new lawyers!"

In James Rubin's account of the Kosovo war, he describes an exchange between Secretary Albright and Robin Cook (the British Foreign Secretary). Cook was explaining that it is difficult for Britain to commit to the war without UN Security Council approval because the legal advice he had received was that such action would be illegal under international law. Albright's response was, simply, "get new lawyers". Rubin "credits" Blair with a "push" that swung the British to "finally agree" that a UN Security Council resolution was "not legally required". Robin Cook later stated in Parliament and that the war was legal. Interestingly, Blair did not. This article does not look at whether or not such an exchange took place; rather look at the ethical issues that such a situation would generate. The article suggests what the ethical obligations of the key legal players in such institutional dramas should be—including governments seeking advice, the lawyers giving it, the ministers reporting it and the opposition in Parliament. The article sets out the particular responsibilities of the lawyers and officials of a Westminster system. It also sets out some of the institutional mechanisms for making it more likely that those obligations are fulfilled—as always through the interaction of obligations by different players that make it more risky for any player to breach his or her ethical obligations. Analogous duties would be faced by the relevant actors in other systems.

Removing barriers to protection at the exported border : visas, carrier sanctions, and international obligation

Asylum is being gradually denuded of the national institutional mechanisms (judicial, legislative and administrative) that provide the framework for a fair and effective asylum hearing. In this sense, there is an ongoing ‘denationalization’ or ‘deformalization’ of the asylum process. This chapter critically examines one of the linchpins of this trend: the erection of pre-entry measures at ports of embarkation in order to prevent asylum seekers from physically accessing the territory of the state. Pre-entry measures comprise the core requirement that foreigners possess an entry visa granting permission to enter the state of destination. Visa requirements are increasingly implemented by immigration officials posted abroad or by officials of transit countries pursuant to bilateral agreements (so-called ‘juxtaposed’ immigration controls). Private carriers, which are subject to sanctions if they bring persons to a country who do not have permission to enter, also engage in a form of de facto immigration control on behalf of states. These measures constitute a type of ‘externalized’ or ‘exported’ border that pushes the immigration boundaries of the state as far from its physical boundaries as possible. Pre-entry measures have a crippling impact on the ability of asylum seekers to access the territory of states to claim asylum. In effect, states have ‘externalized’ asylum by replacing the legal obligation on states to protect refugees arriving at ports of entry with what are perceived to be no more than moral obligations towards asylum seekers arriving at the external border of the state.

Sustainable creative career development pathways for young people in Tanzania : a case study

Tanzania has a rich and diverse cultural history based in community cultural life. However, at present, young people have limited opportunity to exploit this richness of traditional knowledge and engage in creative jobs as their means of future sustainable employment. Hence, the significant challenge remains: how to integrate and enhance the traditional knowledge in a learning strategy, while there is no “inter-ministerial action and institutional mechanisms” (United Nations 2008, 33-35) to promote creative employment for young people. This article reports on a case study that examined how the two Ministries of Culture and Education might work together to support Tanzania’s young people to secure, and engage successfully in creative jobs. The case study employed mixed methods, incorporating questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. The study was undertaken in Dar-Es-Salaam, Mwanza, Bagamoyo, Dodoma, Lindi and Morogoro from July to October, 2012. This paper discusses some of the issues and argues that there is no practical utilization of traditional knowledge and skills in “putting education to work” (UNESCO 2012, 170) for the better prospects of young people and to reveal the story of their lives. Although this study is specific to Tanzania, the case may also apply to other developing countries.

Corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management in transitional countries – evidence from Chinese listed firms

The objective of this thesis is to investigate whether the corporate governance practices adopted by Chinese listed firms are associated with the quality of earnings information. Based on a review of agency and institutional theory, this study develops hypotheses that predict the monitoring effectiveness of the board and the audit committee. Using a combination of univariate and multivariate analyses, the association between corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management are tested from 2004 to 2008. Through analysing the empirical results, a number of findings are summarised as below. First, board independence is weakened by the introduction of government officials as independent directors on the boards. Government officials acting as independent directors, claim that they meet the definition of independent director set by the regulation. However, they have some connection with the State, which is the controlling shareholder in listed SOEs affiliated companies. Consequently, the effect of the independent director’s expertise in constraining earnings management is mitigated as demonstrated by an insignificant association between board expertise and earnings management. An alternative explanation for the inefficiency of board independence may point to the pre-selection of independent directors by the powerful CEO. It is argued that a CEO can manipulate the board composition and choose the "desirable" independent directors to monitor themselves. Second, a number of internal mechanisms, such as board size, board activities, and the separation of the roles of the CEO and chair are found to be significantly associated with discretionary accruals. This result suggests that there are advantages in having a large and active board in the Chinese setting. This can offset the disadvantages associated with large boards, such as increased bureaucracy, and hence, increase the constraining effects of a large and resourceful board. Third, factor analysis identifies two factors: CEO power and board power. CEO power is the factor which consists of CEO duality and turnover, and board power is composed of board size and board activity. The results of CEO power show that if a Chinese listed company has CEO duality and turnover at the same time, it is more likely to have a high level of earnings management. The significant and negative relationship between board power and accruals indicate that large boards with frequent meetings can be associated with low level of earnings management. Overall, the factor analysis suggests that certain governance mechanisms complement each other to become more efficient monitors of opportunistic earnings management. A combination of board characteristics can increase the negative association with earnings management. Fourth, the insignificant results between audit committees and earnings management in Chinese listed firms suggests that the Chinese regulator should strengthen the audit committee functions. This thesis calls for listed firms to disclose more information on audit committee composition and activities, which can facilitate future research on the Chinese audit committee’s monitoring role. Fifth, the interactive results between State ownership and board characteristics show that dominant State ownership has a moderating effect on board monitoring power as the State totally controls 42% of the issued shares. The high percentage of State ownership makes it difficult for the non-controlling institutional shareholders to challenge the State’s dominant status. As a result, the association between non-controlling institutional ownership and earnings management is insignificant in most situations. Lastly, firms audited by the international Big4 have lower abnormal accruals than firms audited by domestic Chinese audit firms. In addition, the inverse U-shape relationship between audit tenure and earnings quality demonstrates the changing effects of audit quality after a certain period of appointment. Furthermore, this thesis finds that listing in Hong Kong Stock Exchanges can be an alternative governance mechanism to discipline Chinese firms to follow strict Hong Kong listing requirements. Management of Hong Kong listed companies are exposed to the scrutiny of international investors and Hong Kong regulators. This in turn reduces their chances of conducting self-interested earnings manipulation. This study is designed to fill the gap in governance literature in China that is related to earnings management. Previous research on corporate governance mechanisms and earnings management in China is not conclusive. The current research builds on previous literature and provides some meaningful implications for practitioners, regulators, academic, and international investors who have investment interests in a transitional country. The findings of this study contribute to corporate governance and earnings management literature in the context of the transitional economy of China. The use of alternative measures for earnings management yields similar results compared with the accruals models and produces additional findings.

Assessing financial reporting comparability across institutional settings : the case of pension accounting

The drive for comparability of financial information is to enable users to distinguish similarities and differences in economic activities for an entity over time and between entities so that their resource allocation decisions are facilitated. With the increased globalisation of economic activities, the enhanced international comparability of financial statements is often used as an argument to advance the convergence of local accounting standards to international financial reporting standards (IFRS). Differences in the underlying economic substance of transactions between jurisdictions plus accounting standards allowing alternative treatments may render this expectation of increased comparability unrealistic. Motivated by observations that, as a construct, comparability is under-researched and not well understood, we develop a comparability framework that distinguishes between four types of comparability. In applying this comparability framework to pension accounting in the Australian and USA contexts, we highlight a dilemma: while regulators seek to increase the likelihood that similar events are accounted for similarly, an unintended consequence may be that preparers are forced to apply similar accounting treatment to events that are, in substance, different.

Institutional investors, political connections and analyst following in Malaysia

We examine the association between institutional ownership, political connections, and analyst following in Malaysia from 1999 to 2009. Based on 940 firm-year observations, we document a positive relation between institutional ownership, particularly by Employees Provident Fund (EPF), and analyst following, thus supporting the governance role that institutional investors play in promoting corporate transparency. However, there is no evidence that political connections matter to analyst following. The monitoring role of institutional investors, including EPF, does not appear to be any different between politically connected and non-connected firms.

Structural differentiation and corporate venturing : the moderating role of formal and informal integration mechanisms

Research has suggested that corporate venturing is crucial to strategic renewal and firm performance, yet scholars still debate the appropriate organizational configurations to facilitate the creation of new businesses in existing organizations. Our study investigates the effectiveness of combining structural differentiation with formal and informal organizational as well as top management team integration mechanisms in establishing an appropriate context for venturing activities. Our findings suggest that structural differentiation has a positive effect on corporate venturing. In addition, our study indicates that a shared vision has a positive effect on venturing in a structurally differentiated context. Socially integrated senior teams and cross-functional interfaces, however, are ineffective integration mechanisms for establishing linkages across differentiated units and for successfully pursuing corporate venturing.

Managing infrastructure transitions : a complex adaptive systems perspective

Engineering assets such as roads, rail, bridges and other forms of public works are vital to the effective functioning of societies {Herder, 2006 #128}. Proficient provision of this physical infrastructure is therefore one of the key activities of government {Lædre, 2006 #123}. In order to ensure engineering assets are procured and maintained on behalf of citizens, government needs to devise the appropriate policy and institutional architecture for this purpose. The changing institutional arrangements around the procurement of engineering assets are the focus of this paper. The paper describes and analyses the transition to new, more collaborative forms of procurement arrangements which are becoming increasingly prevalent in Australia and other OECD countries. Such fundamental shifts from competitive to more collaborative approaches to project governance can be viewed as a major transition in procurement system arrangements. In many ways such changes mirror the shift from New Public Management, with its emphasis on the use of market mechanisms to achieve efficiencies {Hood, 1991 #166}, towards more collaborative approaches to service delivery, such as those under network governance arrangements {Keast, 2007 #925}. However, just as traditional forms of procurement in a market context resulted in unexpected outcomes for industry, such as a fragmented industry afflicted by chronic litigation {Dubois, 2002 #9}, the change to more collaborative forms of procurement is unlikely to be a panacea to the problems of procurement, and may well also have unintended consequences. This paper argues that perspectives from complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory can contribute to the theory and practice of managing system transitions. In particular the concept of emergence provides a key theoretical construct to understand the aggregate effect that individual project governance arrangements can have upon the structure of specific industries, which in turn impact individual projects. Emergence is understood here as the macro structure that emerges out of the interaction of agents in the system {Holland, 1998 #100; Tang, 2006 #51}.