Search results

Wie die Regierungen in vielen Ländern, die nach Jahren in der Opposition an die Macht kommen, hat auch die Demokratische Partei Japans (DJP) die Reform des Gesetzes über die Offenlegung von Informationen zu einer ihrer politischen Prioritäten erklärt, nachdem sie 2009 die Regierungsverantwortung übernommen hatte. Das Gesetz, über das in der ZJapanR bereits berichtet wurde, ist nunmehr seit über zehn Jahren in Kraft, aber Kritiker (darunter auch die DJP) haben von Anfang an Schwachpunkte bemängelt. Ein Gesetzesentwurf, der etliche der Schwachpunkte zu beheben versucht, liegt dem Par­lament zwar vor, doch hat sich dieses seit über 18 Monaten damit nicht befasst. Der Beitrag legt eine englische Übersetzung des Gesetzesentwurfes vor, die durch eine Kommentierung der Hintergründe der Änderungen und deren voraussichtlichen Wirkungen ergänzt wird. Der Verfasser kritisiert, dass die vorgeschlagenen Änderungen keine grundsätzliche Überarbeitung des gesetzlichen Rahmens für die Informations­freiheit in Japan darstellen und dass Diskrepanzen zu anderen informationsbezogenen Gesetzen bestehen bleiben, die reformiert wurden oder sich im Stadium der Über­arbei­tung befinden. Ungeachtet dessen hat eine Reihe der novellierten Vorschriften das Potential, den gegenwärtigen Stand der Informationsfreiheit zu verbessern und ins­besondere die Möglichkeit der Gerichte zu unterstützen, Entscheidungen zu überprüfen, in denen Informationen nicht offengelegt wurden.Der Beitrag schließt mit der Beobachtung, dass der Entwurf zwar einen Kompromiss darstelle, dass er jedoch im Falle seiner Verabschiedung durchaus das Potential habe, Japan einen Schritt weiter in Richtung einer transparenten Regierung zu bringen. Angesichts der jüngsten Skandale wie etwa der Unterlassung der Aufsichts­behörde für die Atomenergie, Protokolle ihrer Sitzungen in den Wochen nach der Katastrophe vom 11. März 2011 zu fertigen, ist dies für Japan eine Notwendigkeit.(Übers. durch d. Red.) ; Like political parties forming new governments after years in opposition in many other jurisdictions, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) made reform of the country's Information Disclosure Law one of its first priorities upon taking power in 2009. The Law (detailed in previous issues of this publication) has now been in force for more than ten years, but critics (including the DPJ itself) have pointed out shortcomings in the Law even since its inception. Although now stalled for nearly 18 months, a bill currently before the Diet aims to remedy a number of these shortcomings.This article provides a translation of the Information Disclosure Law as amended by the bill, together with a commentary on the background to the amendments and their likely effectiveness. It argues that the proposed amendments do not represent a funda­mental rethinking of Japan's freedom of information framework, and that indeed a number of discrepancies remain between the Information Disclosure Law and other information laws that have been or are in the process of reform. Nevertheless, a number of the amendments could improve current levels of disclosure, and augment in parti­cular the ability of the courts to review non-disclosure determinations.It concludes that while the amendment bill itself has been compromised, if passed, it has the potential to bring Japan a step closer to the Law's goal of open government, which is sorely needed in light of recent scandals, such as the failure of the Atomic Energy Commission and other relief teams to keep minutes of their meetings in the wake of the March 2011 disaster.

The matter of transparency regarding information and data emerges as a pivotal concern in the context of mitigating the COVID-19 epidemic in Indonesia. The regulation of public information transparency in Indonesia is stipulated in Law Number 14 of 2008, which ensures the disclosure of public information. The objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive examination of the extent to which the Government of Indonesia adheres to the principles outlined in its legislation with regard to the implementation of transparency throughout the pandemic. The approach employed to assess the degree of adherence is normative-empirical analysis. The findings of this research analysis indicate a significant lack of transparency in the public dissemination of COVID-19 information and data in Indonesia. This lack of transparency is inconsistent with the provisions outlined in Law No. 14 of 2008, which governs the publication of public information in the country. The act of downplaying COVID-19 through the dissemination of information, along with the government's decision to withhold comprehensive data, and the prevailing skepticism toward scientific research might be characterized as efforts to impede citizens' access to precise knowledge.

In recent years, China has adopted a range of measures for information disclosure or "open government information." This comes as a surprise in an authoritarian system known more for secrecy and information control. Why do authoritarian leaders embrace such mechanisms, and how do state and society actors respond? This Article examines in particular the emergence of environmental information disclosure in China, and makes two main contributions to the scholarly debate on Chinese law and governance. First, this Article demonstrates how local demand for legal transplant can arise out of diverse (and sometimes competing) societal interests. State, society and international actors saw in information disclosure law a range of possibilities - the prospect of improved environmental performance, greater accountability to citizens, and strengthened state control. This interest convergence among strange bedfellows has enabled the seemingly paradoxical flowering of disclosure law in China. Second, this Article unpacks the social effects of information disclosure law in China's authoritarian bureaucratic governance setting. Where interests are compatible in practice, disclosure has enabled state and society advocacy, and catalyzed new channels for public supervision in environmental regulation. It has also provided a powerful rights-based way for advocates to frame their actions. Yet for all its promise, information disclosure creates risks for those involved and reveals deep tensions in Chinese governance – between authoritarian and bottom-up approaches to rule, and the overarching policy objectives of social stability and performance. These tensions limit the utility of disclosure in practice, with serious potential consequences (e.g., weakened state legitimacy and a hobbled environment) for state and society actors alike.

We study dynamic information disclosure by a sender attempting to persuade a partially informed receiver to take an action. We consider vertical and horizontal information. With vertical information, an optimal disclosure plan is static. If the sender cannot commit to the disclosure plan, there exists a simple Markov equilibrium with sequential disclosure. Shrinking the time interval to zero gives rise to full disclosure almost instantly. With horizontal information, the sender often benefits from sequential disclosure. Assuming partial commitment and a special receiver‐type space, a Markov equilibrium exists and almost instant full disclosure arises in the limit.

A seller designs a mechanism to sell a single object to a potential buyer whose private type is his incomplete information about his valuation. The seller can disclose additional information to the buyer about his valuation without observing its realization. In both discrete-type and continuous-type settings, we show that discriminatory disclosure—releasing different amounts of additional information to different buyer types—dominates full disclosure in terms of seller revenue. An implication is that the orthogonal decomposition technique, while an important tool in dynamic mechanism design, is generally invalid when information disclosure is part of the design. (JEL D11, D82, D83)

This paper analyzes a situation in which the seller controls the accuracy of what potential buyers learn about their valu- ation of a go o d to b e sold. This setting is related to many real situations such as home sales, antique auctions, and digital platforms such as Google and Facebook selling online adver- tising slots. Two important questions arise: what is the op- timal selling mechanism, and what is the optimal disclosure policy of the seller. Under the assumption of private values, a simple auction with a reserve price is the optimal mechanism. What we show is that the amount of (costly) information pro- vided increases with the numb er of p otential bidders when using the optimal mechanism and is greater than when the object is always sold. Because information changes the distri- bution of a bidder's expected valuations, the optimal reserve price also changes, so that the number of bidders (indirectly) ; Juan-José Ganuza gratefully acknowledges the support of the Barcelona GSE Research, the government of Catalonia, and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación through project ECO2017-89240-P (AEI/FEDER, UE). Jose Penalva acknowledges the support of the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad through project ECO 2012–36559 and 2016/00118/001 (MINECO/FEDER, UE), and the Comunidad de Madrid S2015/HUM-3353 (EARLYFIN-CM).