Les signes de qualité

This paper analyses the relationship between trust and reputation, legal and informal rules in the process of quality identification of products and economic agents. After a discussion over the main approaches and conclusion reached by historiography, sociology and economics, we shall study the wine market in XIX^th-century France. We shall stress the role rules and trust played during the last quarter of the XIX^th century, in response to phylloxera, on the one hand, technical progress and the development of the international markets, on the other hand. We shall further consider the debates over individual and collective wine trademarks and their practises all along the XIX^th century. This analysis will lead us to consider the question of the link between the legal protection of private property, trust anchored to a given territory and market dynamics. Our main conclusion is that rules, trust and reputation act much less as substitutes than as complements in the market dynamics. Trust has to be included in a given cognitive and institutional framework without which it could not intervene in the market coordination process.     

Reform of the structural funds after 1999

In efforts to promote cohesion in the EU, the structural funds are an important instrument. The current mandate for the funds comes to an end in 1999, and it mill have to be renegotiated shortly against a backdrop of the start of EMU and probable enlargement of the EU. This paper reviews the principles governing the structural funds and looks at the problems they face in practice. It then considers possible reforms to meet the obligations on, and expectations of, the EU in the years to come, and what these would imply for different regions as well as the potential new member states.     

非物质文化遗产知识产权保护研究进展

近年来,关于如何建立有效的保护非物质文化遗产知识产权法律机制,建构相应的规则体系和理念基石,成为国内外学术界、实务界讨论的热门话题。本文在对国内外非物质文化遗产知识产权保护研究成果梳理的基础上,通过分析日本、韩国、法国、意大利等国家非物质文化遗产知识产权法律保护以及我国关于知识产权保护的立法实践,从研究非物质文化遗产概念、性质,国内非物质文化遗产保护现状入手,对非物质文化遗产知识产权保护的正当性,非物质文化遗产知识产权的权利主体、保护客体以及非物质文化遗产知识产权保护模式等方面进行归纳与总结,进而提出在非物质文化遗产可以采用或借鉴知识产权保护模式进行保护的前提下,将非物质文化遗产划入现行知识产权法的保护范围,在现有法律框架基础上确立社区或族群作为知识产权主体的权利,以及采取"适度原则",在现行知识产权框架内创设一种"传统资源权"等观点。     

Communicating environmental knowledges: young people and the risk society

In this paper I illustrate how an increased demand for the communication of environmental knowledges in contemporary society can be understood using ideas purported by the risk society thesis. In order to deepen these connections and understandings I discuss how trust, and by association doubt, are constructed by examining the interesting, though little explored example of young people. Drawing on empirical work at a botanical garden with over 150 young people between 6 and 12 years old, I provide insights into the use and negotiation of trust and doubt in practice.     

The south pacific ‘experiment’: Reflections on the origins of regional identity

Abstract

When colonial administrators decided to encourage a sense of unity among the members of the emergent élite of their Pacific Island territories in the late 1940s, they regarded their project as novel. Rather than a sense of tapping a pre‐existing affinity, it seemed that what was being attempted was social engineering on a grand scale. The first South Pacific Conference of Pacific Island representatives held at Nasinu, Fiji, in April‐May 1950, was seen by European officials and observers as an ‘experiment’.

The attempt to forge a sense of regional unity was seen as pushing against the perceived gulf between Melanesian and Polynesian cultures and as expecting too much in the way of conference skills from ‘undeveloped’ societies. But the ‘experiment’ was considered necessary for other important post‐war goals. Although the Nasinu conference is to be seen broadly as an experiment in the promotion of trusteeship, or ‘native welfare’, principles, there was by no means agreement on its ultimate purposes. For some it offered the best (if risky) chance of minimising United Nations interference in the continuation of colonial control, for others a way of ensuring the demise of empire by serving the needs of self‐determination. Finally, the promotion of a sense of region among Pacific Islanders was seen by some as part of an experiment in keeping the region from Communist influence.     

The role of zoning in the strategic planning of protected areas: lessons learnt from EU countries and Serbia

This paper aims to highlight the problems and possibilities for improving the nature protection zoning of protected areas (PA) in spatial planning. It analyses and compares the systems of spatial planning and the legal basis for protecting nature in PAs in selected EU countries and Serbia. It investigates and compares the role of nature protection zoning and the practice of spatial planning for selected European countries. The case study of a national park in each of the selected countries is used to analyse the nature protection zoning and its role in the coordination of spatial planning for PAs and their surroundings. The initial hypothesis is tested and confirmed that, regardless of differences in the planning systems of the selected European countries, the models of nature protection zoning established for PAs are defining for the coordination of planning instruments in achieving the protection and sustainable development of PAs. The lessons learnt concern the identification of similarities and differences in approaches to nature protection zoning, and their relationship with the spatial planning for PAs in six European countries. Based on these lessons and existing research, recommendations are given for improving the legal basis for the nature protection zoning and spatial planning of PAs in Serbia.     

The Archaeology of Immateriality

Despite changes in archaeological theory and practice over the past 40 years, most archaeologists are still not very good at acknowledging that “significance” is context-dependent and non-material. In this paper I present two cases studies from New England where archaeologists collaborated with Native peoples on sites that had significant preservation concerns. I evaluate to what extent these projects were successful in their goal of decolonizing archaeology. I call for a definition of materiality that acknowledges that tangible objects and their intangible contexts and meanings are inextricable, and that values are continuously created and recreated in the present by a variety of memory communities.     

The Financialisation of Rental Housing 2.0: Releasing Housing into the Privatised Mainstream of Capital Accumulation

This article presents two cases of listed real estate companies that operate in the Ruhr metropolitan region of Germany. The first is Immeo Wohnen, a subsidiary of the French real estate investment trust (REIT) Foncière des Régions that was previously owned by a US hedge fund. The second is Vonovia, Germany's largest real estate company, originally a subsidiary of a British private equity firm. Both examples embody what we call the shift from financialisation 1.0 to financialisation 2.0, i.e. the transition from pure speculation to long‐term investment. We show that long‐term investment strategies are used by REITs and listed funds in order to release housing into the privatised mainstream of capital accumulation. With the advent of the financialisation of rental housing 2.0, the long‐term investment focus of these funds paradoxically enables a short‐term investment focus by buying and selling shares in these funds on the stock exchange.     

Pacific Studies in China: Policies,Structure and Research

ABSTRACT

The expansion of Chinese influence in the Pacific has aroused growing attention from academics and policymakers. Although China has established six main Pacific research centres, there has been little investigation into what motivates this increasing interest. Building on the author's recent interviews with 39 Chinese mainstream scholars on the subject of Pacific Studies, this paper aims to fill this gap by providing an in-depth analysis of Pacific Studies in China, especially how centres are structured and what motivated their establishment. It is argued that the initiation, structure and scholarly focus of academic research on the Pacific in China has been largely driven by government policies, but also that government interest has fluctuated under President Xi Jinping. Government policy dependence is a double-edged sword that both promotes and hinders Pacific scholarship.     

Spatial and sectoral differentiation of support to innovative companies from EU funds in Czechia

This paper aims to introduce a case study of Czechia in distribution of the EU funds and their spatial patterns. EU funds receive plenty attention from both European society and the scientific community. However, there is a lack of detailed evaluations of spatial and sectoral differentiation, which might bring a better understanding to the whole EU funds system. This paper attempts to fill this gap with a method of geographical differentiation analysis of the Czech operational programme Enterprise and Innovations 2007–15, which should increase the competitiveness of industry and develop services for commercial activities. Historically, subsidies often go to peripheral regions at the borderland with Slovakia and Poland, while regions along the borders with Germany and Austria receive only a low level of support. Jurisdictions of the major recipients from hi-tech sectors are mainly in the close vicinity of the largest cities (Praha, Brno), which are natural centres of high technologically demanding sectors, but a high share of high-tech subsidies goes to some peripheral districts as well. These findings can contribute not only to the academic discussion about contradictory developmental impacts of subsidies but to the all-European debate on the EU funds purposes as well.     

First Impressions:

They say first impressions always matter. Americans acquired an empire of tropical islands in the Pacific about which they knew little and cared even less. Yet they set to almost immediately to understand and harness these new environments for their own purposes. This paper looks at the processes through which these strange new worlds in the Philippines and Guam were incorporated and subordinated into a comprehensible imperial framework through the diaries of two environmental managers, Gifford Pinchot and William Safford. Both men wrote about their first encounters with the tropics, recording its strange flora and fauna, noting its seismic convulsions and climatic extremes, and trying to manage it by making sense of what they saw, heard, smelt and touched. As diarists, scientists and, above all, imperialists, they give us rare insight into the initial attitudes of the men who managed these new imperial landscapes.     

Constitutional change in Tuvalu

With constitutional change playing an important role in the evolving political status of the small Pacific island state of Tuvalu, island leaden seeking to protect its indigenous culture and values adopted a new constitution in 1986, eight years after independence. The document's commitment to the Tuvaluan way of life challenges aspects of the democratic ethos, as its phrasing* resonate more closely with Tuvalu's values and nationalism than with Western concepts of individual entitlement. Although divisions persist within the Pacific over the role of custom and tradition in political and legal affairs, developments in Tuvalu suggest one approach for states grappling with comparable political and cultural concerns.     

’African Churches Willing to Pay Their Own Bills’: The Role of Money in the Formation of Ethiopian-type Churches with Particular Reference to the Mzimba Secession

ABSTRACT

Matters related to money were fundamental to the causes of the formation of Ethiopian-type churches. These included inter alia the raising of funds abroad and the subsequent need to control such funds by white ministers, delay or refusal of ordination due to cost factors and differentials in stipends, lack of or poor allowances, lack of trust in the use of funds, poor emoluments and accommodation. This was in contradiction to emerging mission policy as propounded by Henry Venn in his Three-Self formula, particularly with regard to the principle of self-support following Pauline methods. At the heart of such issues was the need for missionaries to control what they had created, and maintain and perpetuate a sense of dependency. The Mzimba Secession offers substantial evidence to support the suggestion that finance was a central concern in fostering inferiority and subjection in the mission field leading to the formation of a new church movement.     

Wildlife trade, sanctions and compliance: lessons from the CITES regime

The international community possesses a powerful tool to control wildlife trade—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). For over 20 years it has used trade sanctions as the cornerstone of a unique compliance system that has evolved through practice and secondary rules. This article discusses the mechanisms through which sanctions are imposed and assesses their effectiveness. The CITES compliance system has evolved largely in isolation from other environmental treaties, yet there are lessons that could be learned by other trade-related agreements that are in the process of developing their mechanisms to address non-compliance. CITES is particularly dependent on a sanctions-based approach because of the lack of funds to support capacity building. The article demonstrates through the national legislation project how sanctions used to back-up technical assistance can indirectly build capacity to implement the treaty. It concludes by arguing that guidelines on compliance currently under negotiation risk undermining the CITES compliance system and eroding the gains of the last three decades.     

‘Best Practice’ Options for the Legal Recognition of Customary Tenure

Is there a ‘best practice’ model for the legal recognition of customary tenure? If not, is it possible to identify the circumstances in which a particular model would be most appropriate? This article considers these questions in the light of economic theories of property rights, particularly as illustrated by the World Bank's 2003 land policy report. While these theories have their flaws, the underlying concept of tenure security allows a typological framework for developing legal responses to customary tenure. In particular, this article suggests that the nature and degree of State legal intervention in a customary land system should be determined by reference to the nature and causes of any tenure insecurity. This hypothesis is discussed by reference to a wide variety of legal examples from Africa, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific. The objective is not to suggest that law determines resource governance outcomes in pluralist normative environments, but to improve the quality of legal interventions in order to assist customary groups to negotiate better forms of tenure security and access to resources.     

Contesting captive cetaceans: (il)legal spaces and the nature of dolphins in urban Singapore

Drawing on the debate over dolphin captivity in Singapore, we examine the ways in which human–animal relationships are contested. Departing from most animal geography studies which often focused on the conflictual spatial transgressions of animals into human spaces, we use the idea of ‘captivity’ as a heuristic to posit that human–animal relationships are necessarily moral, spatially enmeshed in contestations over what is (un)natural and increasingly entwined in legal geographies. While such an argument mirrors other sites of animal captivity (for example, zoos), dolphin captivity sits in a more ambiguous legal terrain than most other captive animals in zoos. Moreover, the very ‘nature’ of dolphins makes debates over their ‘authenticity’ ever more complex. The moralities of cetaceans are simultaneously underpinned by questions of the spatial (‘captive sites’ and ‘open seas’), the socio-cultural (‘charismatic animals’) and the legal (‘regulatory frameworks governing their welfare and whether they are endangered or not’). Hitherto, cetaceans are less researched (compared to terrestrial creatures) in animal geographies with even fewer studies focusing on cetacean captivity. We call for an expanded notion of ‘captivity’ that is relative, relational and non-absolute and underpinned by the notions of ‘nature’. In so doing, we align ourselves more with the anti-captivity camp.     

The Meanings of Conversion: Treaty Law,State Knowledge,and Religious Identity among Russian Captives in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire

This article examines the role of religious conversion in the rules worked out, on paper and in practice, between the Ottoman and Russian empires for the return of captives following their frequent eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conflicts. The author shows that the abolition of ransom led the Ottoman state to take the central role in the liberation of captives in private hands in its territories. For cultural and fiscal reasons, this required the state to define a test for captives’ conversion to Islam, a matter which had previously been communally and religiously defined. The author traces the changing conversion tests used, and the ways they were manipulated by both captors and captives for their own ends, arguing that the legal definition of conversion undermined official trust, and perhaps community trust more broadly, in conversion's social role. This discussion sheds light on the connections between state knowledge, centralisation, and identity, while suggesting that Ottoman state intervention in matters of slavery and conversion, which has previously been seen as a product of the consciously reforming nineteenth-century Tanzimat, emerged earlier as a pragmatic result of Ottoman participation in the international arena.     

Wilderness use,conservation and tourism: what do we protect and for and from whom?

For many people today, the idea of wilderness conjures up meanings and images referring to wild, remote, and untrammeled natural areas, which need protection from human presence and utilization. Institutionally, the first Wilderness Act was prescribed in the United States over 50 years ago and the wilderness conservation originates from the establishment of the first national parks in North America in the nineteenth century. First conservation and wilderness areas and related legal acts provided a model on how to organize and manage conservation areas globally. However, this created ‘fortress’ model of global conservation thinking, separating wilderness, and nature from culture and people, has recently been increasingly challenged by views calling for more people-centered approaches in natural resource management. In addition, the tourism industry has become an increasingly important user and socioeconomic element of change in wilderness areas, which has created new kinds of utilization needs for the remaining wild environments. Thus, there are different ways to understand what wilderness is and for and from whom we are protecting those areas. This paper aims to overview some of the key perspectives on how wilderness environment are contextualized, used, and contested: as units of strict conservation; resources for livelihoods and raw materials, and/or tourist products. The purpose is to point out that while we have different and often conflicting understandings of what wilderness is and what it is for, there are also potentially symbiotic relations between different views which could help us to protect the remaining wilderness areas. This is the case especially in the Global South, where the sociopolitical pressures of economic utilization of the remaining wilderness environments are currently the sharpest.