Balance Between Investment Protection and Sustainable Development in BITs: the Example of Switzerland

The objective of this article is to examine how substantive and procedural rights granted to foreign investors by Swiss bits are gradually being balanced with social and environmental provisions. Switzerland has enjoyed a long bit practice, as it signed its first treaty with Tunisia fifty years ago. Swiss bits rely on the post-establishment model and include usual standards of treatment. From 1981, they also systematically provide for a dispute settlement mechanism for disputes arising between an investor and a host State. Since the Switzerland - El Salvador bit in 1994, sustainable development concerns have been expressly inserted in some Swiss bits, as well as in several recent free trade agreements. Provisions on this theme are however far from being systematic in Switzerland's bit practice and essentially remain declaratory in nature. The trend towards wider inclusion of sustainable development provisions in bits still faces several practical and political challenges.

La imatge social de la comunitat xinesa a la premsa a Catalunya. Estudi de cas al municipi de Santa Coloma de Gramenet

El present projecte busca estudiar la relació entre la imatge de la comunitat xinesa projectada a la premsa escrita i la seva construcció en l’imaginari col·lectiu, d’acord amb els postulats més vigents de les teories dels efectes dels mitjans de comunicació (attribute agenda setting, cultiu i framing) que emfasitzen el poder dels mitjans en la construcció social d’una realitat. Amb aquest objectiu, el projecte s’acota a la premsa escrita de major difusió a Catalunya i a la comunitat xinesa de Santa Coloma de Gramenet –el municipi català amb més percentatge de població xinesa sobre el total de població immigrant. El projecte consta de dues fases: una primera d’anàlisi dels textos periodístics –de la qual s’inclou un estudi pilot a petita escala– i una segona de recepció del discurs, mitjançant grups de discussió.

Small Cities, Neoliberal Governance and Sustainable Development in the Global South : A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda

Development and environmental issues of small cities in developing countries have largely been overlooked although these settlements are of global demographic importance and often face a "triple challenge"; that is, they have limited financial and human resources to address growing environmental problems that are related to both development (e.g., pollution) and under-development (e.g., inadequate water supply). Neoliberal policy has arguably aggravated this challenge as public investments in infrastructure generally declined while the focus shifted to the metropolitan "economic growth machines". This paper develops a conceptual framework and agenda for the study of small cities in the global south, their environmental dynamics, governance and politics in the current neoliberal context. While small cities are governed in a neoliberal policy context, they are not central to neoliberalism, and their (environmental) governance therefore seems to differ from that of global cities. Furthermore, "actually existing" neoliberal governance of small cities is shaped by the interplay of regional and local politics and environmental situations. The approach of urban political ecology and the concept of rural-urban linkages are used to consider these socio-ecological processes. The conceptual framework and research agenda are illustrated in the case of India, where the agency of small cities in regard to environmental governance seems to remain limited despite formal political decentralization.

The path: sustainable development in conjunction with meeting the demands of a changing environment.

In the context of severe economic recession, the Library is compelled to adapt to this changing environment, in order to meet the requirements and demands of users with very specific needs. Taking the pillars of sustainable development as a reference point, and extrapolating them to our domain, we establish the next main goals

Realización de una aplicación web para la consulta de los datos de los trabajos realizados por los servicios de apoyo al desarrollo en Santa Coloma de Gramenet

La finalitat d’aquest projecte és la realització d’un visor cartogràfic web, tot i que per fer-ho s’ha de crear una aplicació que transfereix dades automàticament des d’una base de dades de Microsoft Acces a MySQL mitjançant Visual Basic 2010 Express. Per realitzar el visor cartogràfic web s’ha utilitzat MapServer com servidor de mapes, el llenguatge de programació Javascript i les llibreries OpenLayers, ExtJS i GeoExt. Per últim es plantegen una sèrie de possibles millores del visor, tant a nivell de tecnologies utilitzades com de funcionalitats

Residència de la tercera edat al carrer Almogàvars, Santa Coloma de Gramanet

Award-winning