A legal perspective of carbon rights and benefit sharing under REDD+: A conceptual framework and examples from Cambodia and Kenya

This article discusses two key issues in REDD+ design and implementation at the national level – carbon rights, and benefit sharing. Both carbon rights and benefit sharing can be understood as new legal concepts (although they build on existing law), and as legal concepts they offer a framework for addressing related areas of REDD+ policy. Many countries are currently considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing issues, including Cambodia and Kenya. Both of these countries host existing forest carbon projects and are also in the process of designing national REDD+ programmes. This article uses a conceptual framework for carbon rights and benefit sharing derived from legal analysis to consider the cases of both Cambodia and Kenya, and also includes a general discussion of the challenges countries might encounter when considering how to manage carbon rights and benefit sharing in the context of REDD+ implementation.

Rights and wrongs of Australian government asylum seeker policy

Worldwide, no fewer than 50 million people a year are now fleeing dangerous and often life threatening situations in their countries of origin (UNHCR, 2014c). As one part of this movement, thousands risk journeys through dangerous waters hoping to obtain asylum in Australia. However, Australian Government policies adopted since 2013 aim to ensure that no asylum seeker nor any of the 3,500 detainees held in offshore detention centres will ever be settled on the mainland. To this has now been added a declaration that none of the recent refugees or 6200 asylum seekers waiting in Indonesia in centres run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will gain entry (Whyte, 2014a). These immigration policies differ dramatically from those adopted in earlier decades that produced the country’s decidedly multicultural identity. This article reviews these changing perspectives of Australian governments and communities within the context of international obligations and expectations; the experiences of those directly involved in border policing practices and in detention centres; and the attitudes of national media. Relations and conflicts among the interests of the different parties are discussed and the scope for less punitive responses to the plight of asylum seekers is examined. The authors then focus on alternative processes to better address the interests and objectives of legitimately interested parties by processes which successively examine, optimise and reconcile the concerns of each. In so doing, they aim to demonstrate that such methods of sequential problem solving can respond effectively to the multiple concerns of the many significant stakeholders involved in increasingly significant global issues, whereas recourse to such single-goal, top-down programs as are expressed in the government’s current determination to “Stop the boats” at all costs are unlikely to prove sustainable.

Street-level perceptions of procedural rights for young unemployed people - a comparative study between Sweden and Australia

Two types of welfare states are compared in this article. Differences in procedural rights for young unemployed at the level of service delivery are analyzed. In Australia, rights are regulated through a rigid procedural justice system. The young unemployed within the social assistance system in Sweden encounter staff with high discretionary powers, which makes the legal status weak for the unemployed but, on the other hand, the system is more flexible. Despite the differences, there is striking convergence in how the young unemployed describe how discretionary power among street-level staff affects their procedural rights. This result can be understood as a result of similar professional norms, work customs and occupational cultures of street-level staff, and that there is a basic logic of conditionality in all developed welfare states where procedural rights are tightly coupled with responsibilities.

Human genome studies and intellectual property rights: Whither national interests?

India has been acknowledged as a large reservoir of nature's random mutation, an original 'rich' source of knowledge in the context of international genome studies. Human genome knowledge and the possible understanding of the basis of uniqueness of each individual in chemical terms has presented a number of inescapable challenges to our own jurisprudence philosophies and our ethical sensibilities.

Sexual harassment and the corporation in Australia and Japan: The potential for corporate governance of human rights

The authors explore the legal and social undercurrents in Australia and Japan which are encouraging corporations to embrace broader social responsibilities. They consider a case study of sexual harassment and its regulation within Australian corporations, uncovering the legal and social conditions that have led to the adoption of sexual harassment policies. The authors propose a model for determining when corporate governance of sexual harassment is likely to be effective and test the model by reference to the experience of sexual harassment in Japan. They draw some conclusions about what the experience of corporate implementation of management of sexual harassment might mean for other areas of human rights.

Private governance of public rights in Japan: Revisiting the Japanese governance debate

Dramatic growth in the Japanese economy in the postwar period – and its meltdown in the 1990s – has attracted sustained interest in the power dynamics underlying the management of Japan’s administrative state. For a long time, scholars and commentators have debated about who wields power in Japan. The question has been asked in different ways. In the 1970s and 1980s, the question was usually posed as: who orchestrated Japan’s economic miracle in the 1960s and 1970s? Today, the question is usually reframed to: who is accountable for the policy failures that plunged Japan into financial crisis and recession during the 1990s? Yet the core issue remains the same – who governs Japan? (Johnson 1995)...

Climate change and human rights: Intellectual property challenges and opportunities

Mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change will require innovation and the development of new technologies. Intellectual property laws have a key part to play in the global transfer of climate technologies. However, failures to properly utilize flexibilities in intellectual property regimes or comply with technology transfer obligations under international climate change agreements calls for a human rights based analysis of climate technology transfer. Climate change is an unprecedented challenge and requires unprecedented strategies. Given the substantial impact of climate change on all of humanity and the ethical imperative to act, a complete rethink of traditional intellectual property approaches is warranted. This report proposes a series of intellectual property law policy options, through a human rights framework, aimed at promoting access to technologies to reduce the human suffering caused by climate change.

Fundamental Principles and Rights At Work: Value, Viability, Incidence and Importance as Elements For Economic Progress and Social Justice

Working Paper prepared for the ILO by Maria Luz Vega Ruiz and Daniel Martinez, focusing on the rights at work in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Uzbekistan Supplementary NGO Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Republic of Uzbekistan

[Excerpt] The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was one of the first international instruments to which the Republic of Uzbekistan acceded, and with parliamentary ratification on 9 December 1992, the Republic of Uzbekistan entered into a commitment to observe all the provisions of the CRC and to shoulder its responsibility before the international community. As a result various legislative, administrative and other steps have been taken by the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan with a view to bringing the State policy and legislation on children to be in line with the provisions as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Constitution incorporates the fundamental provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the current stage in the restructuring of the country’s social and economic development, solid foundations have been laid for the conduct of significant democratic reforms based on a recognition of the innate worth of the individual (including the child) and of the unconditional respect of his or her rights and freedoms. Until recently, the State acted as the main guarantor of the provision of all social services, however the process of the transition (political/economic) to a market economy has entailed the development of new economic relations with a reduction in the allocation of state resources for the provision of social services to children. The efforts of the government made so far to bring the state policy and legislation on the child to be in line with the provisions enshrined in the convention on the rights of the child are commendable; never the less, the implementations of all these policies and laws into practice needs a lot to desire as there are a number of ongoing child rights violations. The National Report has fundamentally overlooked a number of child rights privileges enshrined in the CRC that have not yet been realised, or those rights that have been eroded since the independence. These shortcomings need to be noted for consideration so that the state steps up its efforts to enact new laws and/or to enforce the existing rules and regulations required for the protection and implementation of these child rights, and to improve the overall situation for children in the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Child rights as perceived by the community members in India

Attitudes, knowledge, and perceptions of an individual influence their behavior as well as culture of a society. The objective of the study was to understand the attitudes and knowledge of 584 Indian community members regarding child rights and their perceptions about whether selected child rights were secured in reality. Overall attitudes of vast majority (96 – 98%) of the participants towards child rights were found to be positive i.e., children should have rights in various respects except issue like right to meet others (Article 15 of CRC). Knowledge of majority of the participants about child rights related legislations was moderate and varied across the cities while participants were unanimous about poor lived experiences of child rights in reality. So far as attitude and perception are concerned about child rights, there was a significant difference in the distribution between cities (p<0.01). Overall, the Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 had the highest awareness (91.3%, n=533), followed by the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 (89.7%, n=523) and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (89.6%, n=523). Findings of the present study speak in favor of community awareness about child rights and penalties for violation of child rights.

Mary Robinson's declaration of climate justice: Climate change, human rights and fossil fuel divestment

In her biography, Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice, Mary Robinson explained how she became interested in the topic of human rights and climate change, after hearing testimony from African farmers, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Devolution of forest-related rights: Comparative analyses of six developing countries

The study focused on the different ways that forest-related rights can be devolved to the local level according to the current legal frameworks in Laos, Nepal, Vietnam, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. The eleven case studies represented the main ways in which forest-related rights can be devolved to communities or households in these countries. The objectives of this study were to 1) analyse the contents and extent of forest-related rights that can be devolved to the local level, 2) develop an empirical typology that represents the main types of devolution, and 3) compare the cases against a theoretical ideal type to assess in what way and to what extent the cases are similar to or differ from the theoretical construct. Fuzzy set theory, Qualitative Comparative Analysis and ideal type analysis were used in analysing the case studies and in developing an empirical typology. The theoretical framework, which guided data collection and analyses, was based on institutional economics and theories on property rights, common pool resources and collective action. On the basis of the theoretical and empirical knowledge, the most important attributes of rights were defined as use rights, management rights, exclusion rights, transfer rights and the duration and security of the rights. The ideal type was defined as one where local actors have been devolved comprehensive use rights, extensive management rights, rights to exclude others from the resource and rights to transfer these rights. In addition, the rights are to be secure and held perpetually. The ideal type was used to structure the analysis and as a tool against which the cases were analysed. The contents, extent and duration of the devolved rights varied greatly. In general, the results show that devolution has mainly meant the transfer of use rights to the local level, and has not really changed the overall state control over forest resources. In most cases the right holders participate, or have a limited role in the decision making regarding the harvesting and management of the resource. There was a clear tendency to devolve the rights to enforce rules and to monitor resource use and condition more extensively than the powers to decide on the management and development of the resource. The empirical typology of the cases differentiated between five different types of devolution. The types can be characterised by the devolution of 1) restricted use and control rights, 2) extensive use rights but restricted control rights, 3) extensive rights, 4) insecure, short term use and restricted control rights, and 5) insecure extensive rights. Overall, the case studies conformity to the ideal type was very low: only two cases were similar to the ideal type, all other cases differed considerably from the ideal type. The restricted management rights were the most common reason for the low conformity to the ideal type (eight cases). In three cases, the short term of the rights, restricted transfer rights, restricted use rights or restricted exclusion rights were the reason or one of the reasons for the low conformity to the ideal type. In two cases the rights were not secure.

What do prisoners eat? Nutrient intakes and food practices in a high secure prison

There are limited studies on the adequacy of prisoner diet and food practices, yet understanding these are important to inform food provision and assure duty of care for this group. The aim of this research was to assess the dietary intakes of prisoners to inform food and nutrition policy in this setting. This research used a cross-sectional design with convenience sampling in a 945 bed male high secure prison. Multiple methods were used to assess food available at the group level, including verification of food portion, quality, and practices. A pictorial tool supported the diet history method. Of 276 eligible prisoners, 120 dietary interviews were conducted and verified against prison records, with 106 deemed plausible. The results showed the planned food to be nutritionally adequate, with the exception of vitamin D for older males and long chain fatty acids, with sodium above Upper Limits. The Australian Dietary Targets for chronic disease risk were not achieved. High energy intakes were reported with median 13.8MJ (SE 0.3MJ). Probability estimates of inadequate intake varied with age groups: magnesium 8% (>30 years), 2.9% (<30 years); calcium 6.0% (>70 years), 1.5% (<70 years); folate 3.5%; zinc and iodine 2.7%; and vitamin A 2.3%. Nutrient intakes were greatly impacted by self-funded snacks. Results suggest nutrient intakes nutritionally favourable when compared to males in the community. This study highlights the complexity of food provision in the prison environment, and also poses questions for population level dietary guidance in delivering appropriate nutrients within energy limits.