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"Environmentally sustainable development has become one of the world's most urgent priorities. But countries cannot achieve it alone: it depends on international coordination and action. Greening International Institutions, the latest in a series of highly-acclaimed publications devoted to environmental and developmental law, assesses how far and how successfully intergovernmental organizations have responded to the challenge. The organizations analyzed include: the UN General Assembly, the new Commission for Sustainable Development, UNEP, UNDP and UNCTAD, WTO, GATT, NAFTA, the Bretton Woods institutions and several regional bodies, as well as treaty bodies and the mechanisms for avoiding and settling disputes. For each, the contributors provide an accessible overview of the organization's mandate and structure, examine substantive policy initiatives and assess the need and scope for procedural and institutional reform. Drawing together a collection of essays by lawyers and researchers from various backgrounds, Greening International Institutions is stimulating reading for students and policy-makers, as well as anyone concerned with the development of international institutions. Jacob Werksman is an attorney, a Programme Director at FIELD, and Visiting Lecturer in International Economic Law at the University of London. Greening International Institutions is the fifth volume in the International Law and Sustainable Development series, co-developed with FIELD. The series aims to address and define the major legal issues associated with sustainable development and to contribute to the progressive development of international law. Other titles in the series are: Greening International Law, Interpreting the Precautionary Principle, Property Rights in the Defence of Nature and Improving Compliance with International Environmental Law. 'A legal parallel to the Blueprint series - welcome, timely and provocative'David Pearce Originally published in 1996"--Provided by publisher.

In their book,Gridlock: why global cooperation is failing when we need it most, Hale, Held, and Young argue persuasively why post-World War II institutions delivered the global cooperation anticipated but ended up creating other serious problems for international society. They explain how the successes of earlier cooperation efforts produced greater multipolarity, institutional inertia, institutional fragmentation, and some difficult problems that, in turn, paved the pathways through which the governance gap between the multilateral system and global needs became wide. However, their book, whose thesis revolves around the nature and functions of global institutions, fails to define the term 'institution'. This essay argues that had the authors elaborated institutions, their argument would have been much stronger.

Im Zuge des europäischen Integrationsprozesses sind eine ganze Anzahl von Institutionen entstanden, deren Aufgaben und Zusammenwirken vielfach nicht hinlänglich bekannt sind. Das gilt selbst wenn man nur die eigentlichen Europäischen Gemeinschaften betrachtet. Dabei hat der übliche Sprachgebrauch zur Verwirrung beigetragen, wenn von der "Europäischen Gemeinschaft" gesprochen wird, obwohl meist die Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft gemeint ist. Es wird hier deshalb versucht, in einzelnen Abschnitten die jeweiligen Institutionen möglichst knapp zu beschreiben. Dabei wird Gemeinsames nur an einer Stelle behandelt - die Organe der drei Europäischen Gemeinschaften z.B. nur unter diesem Stichwort. Dafür finden sich dann unter anderen Stichworten Verweise - z.B. unter Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft - eben auf die Behandlung der gemeinsamen Institutionen unter Europäische Gemeinschaften. Die Stichworte betreffen vor allem die durch die Verträge von Paris und Rom geschaffenen Gemeinschaften, zur Ergänzung aber auch die ECE und die EFTA.

MacIntyre reviews 'Australian Political Institutions, 5th edn' by Gwyneth Singleton, Don Aitkin, Brian Jinks and John Warhurst.

A Ramshackle Institution.
The crisis in magistrate recruitment (because of a lack of respect and low salary levels) is combined with a budget destitute in terms of legal aid, and overcrowding in the courts, which, in some cases, approaches paralysis. This results in poor time management, which threatens the quality of public service and the credibility of the judicial system, while a scarcity of resources hinders the normal functioning of law. Thus, the legal institution requires a real recovery plan, and, above all, a strong desire on the part of politicians to put it into practice.

I. Zur Demokratietheorie -- 1. Rätesysteme als Alternative? Zum Repräsentationscharakter direkt-demokratischer Organisationsprinzipien -- 2. Rätegedanke versus Parlamentarismus? Überlegungen zur aktuellen Diskussion der Neuen Linken -- 3. Repräsentation, imperatives Mandat und recall: Zur Frage der Demokratisierung im Parteienstaat -- 4. Bürgerinitiativen — Instrumente direkter Demokratie? Thesen zur Aktivierung und Organisierung fragmentierten bürgerlichen Bewußtseins -- 5. Wertewandel und politisches Institutionensystem -- II. Zur Theorie politischer Institutionen -- 6. Über Landstände. Zur Theorie der Repräsentation im deutschen Vormärz -- 7. Zum Institutionenverständnis in der Zeit der Reformation -- 8. Politische Institutionen und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Zum Institutionenverständnis im politischen Denken der Neuzeit -- 9. Defizite marxistischer Politiktheorie. Zur Notwendigkeit einer anthropologischen und institutionstheoretischen Fundierung materialistischer Staatstheorie -- 10. Die Aufhebung der Politik durch revolutionäre Philosophie. Überlegungen zu einigen frühen Schriften von Georg Lukács -- 11. Utopischer Minimalismus. Von der Utopie zur utopischen Intention -- III. Zur politischen Theoriengeschichte -- 12. Bemerkungen zur politischen Theoriengeschichte -- 13. Zur Entwicklung und zum Stand der politischen Theoriengeschichte -- Drucknachweise.

Based on five research papers, the dissertation "Institutions and Entrepreneurship" analyzes institutional influences on entrepreneurship, as well as determinants and effects of institutional change. In particular, the effects of implicit institutions, i.e. societal norms and values, on the occupational choice of becoming an entrepreneur, are investigated. Using the German history of separation and reunification as quasi-natural experiment, the thesis finds that the East Germans' preference structure significantly differs from the preference structure of the West German control group, thus constituting an obstacle to entrepreneurship in East Germany. The thesis shows that these differences in the implicit institutions result from the Socialist Regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and investigates various channels by which those institutions where formed. Particularly, the dissertation identifies the effects of education and schooling in the GDR on the formation of entrepreneurial preferences. Moreover, the thesis evaluates the effectiveness of several measures of entrepreneurship education at German universities. In a diff-in-diff framework, the analysis finds significant differences in the effects of the introduction of chairs for entrepreneurship, the participation in the publicly funded EXIST-program, and the simultaneous application of both measures, on students' attitude towards entrepreneurship as occupational alternative. Eventually, the dissertation takes a more general view on institutional change an identifies effects of the introduction of the Internet on voting behavior. Using a distance-based Instrumental Variables approach, the thesis shows that the introduction of the Internet significantly decreased voter turnout in Germany. However, it is rather the established parties that could benefit from the new medium, while small and particularly fringe parties tend to lose vote shares due to the introduction of the Internet.

Economic theory offers two different approaches to the analysis of group formation and the role of institutions. The general equilibrium approach explores the influence of the economic environment on the formation of groups. The game theoretic approach runs in the opposite direction; it explores the influence of institutions on economic outcomes. To integrate these approaches we consider situations in which institutions must compete for members. Our focus is on the fundamental interaction between memberships and policies. The policy that an institution adopts depends on its membership, while its membership depends on the policies of all the institutions. We provide the basic elements for a theory of competition among institutions: an abstract definition of an institution and the corresponding equilibrium concepts. We demonstrate by example, the possibility that equilibrium may not exist. In the absence of a general existence result, we pursue three different avenues. We begin with existence results based on maximization of a utilitarian social welfare function. This places strong restrictions on the decision-making process, although it covers a number of interesting political applications. This is followed by a continuity-based approach. Although quite general, it relies critically on an assumption that the institutions have certain idiosyncratic features. To handle cases without idiosyncrasies, we turn to an algebraic approach. Although existence is established, the result depends on the dimensionality of the problem. Together, these avenues provide a broad class of models for which equilibrium exists, covering cases with multiple dimensions, multiple institutions, and general institutional decision-making processes.

War must be regarded as an institution which has evolved over time. If it's incidence is to be reduced, the forces that maintain it as an institution must be understood. In this book the nature of war and the factors that sustain it are considered from diverse perspectives - anthropology, history, political science, theology, philosophy, international law, economics, psychiatry and biology

Die Redaktion ist bislang eine vernachlässigte Institution der Medienethik. Der Band begründet, warum sich dies im digitalen Zeitalter ändert: Weil die journalistische Marke als verlässlicher Informationsgarant in der Flut der digitalen Welt sichtbar sein soll, werben Redaktionen um Vertrauen beim Publikum. Instrumente, die redaktionelles Arbeiten transparent machen und die der Qualitätssicherung dienen, institutionalisieren das Gespräch zu Verantwortung und Qualität in der Redaktion und mit dem Publikum: z.B. Konzepte offener Redaktionen, Ombudsstellen oder qualitätsfördernde Routinen und Strukturen.