There has been an increased presence of non-state actors in the field Research Paper

There has been an increased presence of non-state actors in the field of international dispute resolution. Discuss the significa - Research Paper Example In recent years however, non-state actors, including NGOs, individual personalities, and even private corporations have also become more involved in the management of these international disputes. This is a significant development especially as greater transparency and participation of the NGOs at the WTO and the ICSID can be ensured. This paper shall discuss significance of such move in eventually securing transparency and improved participation of non-state actors in the actions and decisions of the WTO and the ICSID. Initially, this paper shall discuss incidents wherein non-state actors have taken a greater role in the field of international dispute resolution. The relevance of their role in terms of transparency as well as improved participation shall also be presented. A focus on the role of non-state actors in relation to international financial institutions shall also be discussed in this paper in order to better understand the impact of non-state actors on the international c ommunity. Body The elements involved in maintaining and building states calls for the assistance and participation of all state and in this case, non-state actors. Capable states are those which have strong and responsible as well as vital forces to ensure peace, prosperity as well as public goods for the people (Ulimwengu, 2007). The state has long been considered the primary focus of these processes, and the non-state actors have a crucial role to play in supporting these national and government processes (Mabogunje, 2000). It is therefore important to determine who these actors are. It is also important to identify the aspects of governance where they can assist and to understand better how they work, their style of interventions, and the barriers interfering with their actions (Catbagan, 2011). In Africa, the role of the non-state actors have been especially significant in terms of ensuring the security and public safety of non-state territories, and those territories where issu es of insecurity have impacted on state capacity in terms of security management (Ulimwengu, 2007). Issues and challenges in governance and development have prompted the need for assistance from non-state actors. This was the same in different parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and even Europe. As transitions in African rule were observed, major shifts in political relations were also observed (Ulimwengu, 2007). The end of the Cold War was seen alongside efforts to democratize African countries and in the midst of these challenges, non-state actors emerged in the form of NGOs and other related organizations (Woodward, 2013). In Easter Europe, some of these groups had a crucial role in toppling the communist regimes. This was seen in Poland with the union-based Solidarnosc, including other movements in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union (Heines, 2010). There is not much evidence to indicate whether these actors persisted in their role within the post-communist regim es; still, their roles have been acknowledged and their possibilities have also been considered for other areas. Non-state actors have become more accepted in the international community in the past few decades as politicians, sociologists, and mediators have sought their expertise especially where certain state actions have to be understood in terms of impact and sustainability (Ulimwengu, 2007). Non-state actors include NGOs and are generally understood within civil

The WTO has been hijacked by rich country interests, thereby worsening Essay

The WTO has been hijacked by rich country interests, thereby worsening the conditions of the poor in less prosperous countries - Essay Example Taking the case of Zimbabwe as case in point, one can see how the WTO seeks to exploit this resource rich area of the globe for its mineral wealth while at the same time rejecting the market value of finished goods or food that Zimbabwe is capable of producing (Baumberg & Anderson, 2008). As such, the relationship is only a one way relationship in which Zimbabwe, and many nations like it, are forced to sell their products at lower prices to the richer members of the WTO. Further, even the goods that might exist to be traded on the global market are disproportionately priced and locked out of key global markets as a result of the actions that entities such as the WTO engage. Yes, it must not be the understanding of the reader that such a situation of raw material extraction and price setting is somehow unique with regards to sub-Saharan Africa. Instead, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that developed nations around the globe utilize price setting and currency wars, as well as pro duct dumping, to ensure that this particular approach to global supremacy and economic power are maintained at a systemic level. Further, taking the example of Burma, a nation that has only recently stepped out of military dictatorship, it can be understood that the WTO also seeks to take advantage of this nation; not only with respect to its surplus of cheap labor but with regards to its agricultural exports. As a direct result of the combined benefit of preferential trade, WTO member nations, specifically the wealthy ones, are able to pay their own farmers a subsidy in order that they might be able to compete with the low cost exports of nations such as Burma. In such a manner, entities such as the WTO are able to exploit poorer/less developed nations by forcing them to sell the products that are desired at a given price as well as ensuring that they are not able to gorow their own domestic economy by subsidizing any industry or agricultural sector that runs the risk of being over taken by the cheap exports that such a nation might provide to the market (Williams, 2001). One need look no further than the way in which heavy levels of subsidies exist throughout Western Europe and the United States in order to understand the way in which offenses maneuvers are continually engaged to ensure that the third world is unable to compete with the first. As such, the take away understanding that can be provided from this brief analysis is the fact that the WTO is ultimately like any other organization is made up of a large number of stakeholders (Antell & Coleman, 2011). Rather than determining that the WTO is brought to human ethics and should be dissolved immediately and forth with, the more reasonable and rational understanding that should be engaged is the fact that a disproportionate level of power and determinacy is given to those nations that hold the wealth throughout the global system; enabling them to take advantage of the poorer nations and set prices rather than engaging in a level of true economic freedom and cooperation. Ironically, this level of freedom and economic cooperation is the cornerstone upon which the WTO was originally founded. However, as can be seen from the preceding

Violence Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Violence - Research Paper Example In the modern world, the beliefs and attitudes and that parents possess are formed mostly by interacting with those people who are in their society and based on what they read (Walsh, 2002). As a result, people have differing views towards corporal punishment today when compared to traditionalists. The purpose of this paper is to undertake a critique on the article titled Spankers and Nonspankers by Wendy Walsh, and propose the mechanisms that should have been adopted in order to make the research exercise an effective one. This way it will be clearer as to whether spanking is appropriate or inappropriate to be practiced as a means of disciplining young children. Spanking is adopted in many families as a common practice though it subjects children to risks that are associated with its side effects. As a result, it is treated as an inappropriate mechanism of managing behavior. Therefore, before embarking on spanking, it is essential for one to seek relevant advice on its appropriateness towards moulding the behavior of children. The study related to the article adopted the health belief model. Here, spankers and nonspankers were investigated based on the spanking messages that were given to them from a total of eight sources of the information. They were also supposed to reveal the relevance that they attributed to the messages (Walsh, 2002). The data that was aimed at facilitating for the study was gathered from telephone interviews that were conducted in 998 mothers who had children that were aged between 2 and 14 years (Walsh, 2002). After an analysis of the data was carried out, it was revealed that 33 percent of the mothers rated the information that they received from magazines, newspapers, workshops and pediatricians as very important. At most 15 percent of the mothers rated relatives, parents and friends as very important (Walsh, 2002). The people who were aligned towards

Managing Information Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Managing Information Systems - Essay Example Data in a Data Warehouse is arranged by subject not by function. As a result a data warehouse provides a peculiar view of the data that is amenable to manipulation for decision support. Levine and Siegel (2003) identify the key elements of a data warehouse as: "They are subject orientated, integrated, time variant, nonvolatile, and contain a collection of both detailed and summary data." The data warehouse can enable a business to solve many problems that can only be diagnosed when someone looks for a pattern in data. For instance, someone can determine problems associated with a product buy analyzing return and repair records. Data warehouse can be used for customer profiling where customer behavior in past promotions can be used to predict results of a planned campaign. A targeted campaign can be launched on a specific set of profiled customers where the anticipated response is expected to be higher. A data warehouse manager is the key person in defining requirements and format of a data warehouse. He or she must ensure at all the time that the data warehouse is meeting a company's strategic objectives. A data warehouse manager leads in specification of new solutions for the business. He or she is in charge of a team of experts that are involved in data warehousing projects. He or she has to ensure that any projects are implemented on time and properly and meet the company's objectives. The data warehouse manager needs to understand the different job responsibility of customers including the user computer skills. It is important that he understands the nature of decisions that need to be supported. In monitoring the system the manager should identify the most effective users of the warehouse. Expand usage of the system within company by identifying non-users of data warehouse and schedule them for appropriate training. The manager must ensure that the user interfaces are user-friendly. Data integrity issues are also the responsibility of the data warehouse manager. It is important to make sure the data in the warehouse is trustworthy. To this end data should be continuously monitored. The manager must search for new data sources and adapt the warehouse to changing data profiles, reporting requirements, and business priorities. The manager must highlight any successful decision made using data warehouse. Finally, "[k]eep your business users, executives, and boss happy". Data warehousing is a dynamic process. The warehouse manager has to ensure that the data is refreshed frequently and no data goes stale. Monitoring of utilization of the warehouse is also important for the data warehouse manager to understand how suitable each of the warehouse solutions is to the business. Being essentially a team leader a data warehouse manager has to supervise a high level team of programmers and database experts. With his or her team the data warehouse manager devises projects such as load processes automation and data modeling. The data warehouse manager must understand high-level business modeling and decision support to assist in development of business solution. Components of a data

PROJECT 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PROJECT 3 - Essay Example Practical mode of action research allows the researcher and the practitioner to communally merge so as to identify the actual potential problems. While working in a single unit, they are able to find out the underlying causes and to formulate possible solutions and stratagems (Newton and Burgess, 2008). According to Blaxter, Tight and Hughes (2010), mutual understanding is usually sought in practical action research, while the main goal is set to understanding practice and finding solutions to problems at hand. Practical mode of action research is known to adopt a non-positivist, ductile and a pliable technique to change. This kind of action research is commonly used in the field of education and other arenas, such as practitioner and human service development. Practical action research can therefore be summarized as an essential, a spot on and an immediate procedure that is specifically designed to tackle a concrete problem and provide a reliable solution. Other modes of action research tend to singularly identify a problem and tackle it in isolation, divorcing it from other contexts. One key feature or component of practical action research is the variation of knowledge that can be obtained while seeking solution to the problem. There are three main conditions which must be satisfied for a condition to be regarded as a critical, practical action research. The three conditions are individually essential and jointly competent in meeting practical action research requirements. The three are: 1. The project must involve the people responsible for the problem at hand at all moments of the activity. This aspect enables the project to widen the participation borders to gradually include any other parties that might have been affected by the problem at hand. The collaborative nature and control of the project must also be maintained. 3. The project must pass through, and successfully meet all the requirements of planning,

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Culture Study Coursework

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Culture Study - Coursework Example It is still regularly in the news bulletins as different schools and their systems all over the United States have either banned it or restored it in their teaching spaces. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has for a long time been perceived as Mark Twain’s masterwork and a classic American literature and was the first critical American work that departed from European literary models. The book utilized borderline humor, vernacular speech as well as an uneducated young narrator in the portrayal of life in America. Even though the novel was initially plainly condemned as being inappropriate for the well-mannered readers, it ultimately found an outstanding place in the canon of American literature. The book is recognized for its intriguing description of people and places that are located along the Mississippi River. The Book is set in the Southern antebellum society which had stopped existing almost twenty years prior to the publication of the work and is often a sarcastic acc ount of ingrained attitudes especially racism. The book had been criticized when it was released as it contained coarse language and its contentiousness increased in the twentieth century because of its apparent use of racial typecasts as well as its frequent usage of racial slur regardless of the tenor of the book being considered anti-racist. Continually popular with the readers, the book has also remained a focus of study by numerous literary critics since it was published. The book dwells on ideas of associated with race and identity which are obvious complexities that exist in regard to Jim’s character (Stecopoulos and Uebel 366). Even though it can be concluded that Jim is good at heart, ethical and unintelligent, the novel has continued to be perceived as racist based on the use of the word â€Å"nigger†.

“The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells Essay Example for Free

â€Å"The Time Machine† by H.G. Wells Essay In â€Å"The Time Machine† by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveler confronts a future that has apparently developed into a communist utopia, a belief system that Wells, a socialist, might well have supported.   The Traveler’s immediate reaction to the Eloi and his initial assumption that society has devolved into a classless cooperative reveals Wells’ bias towards a classless society. He also depicts the future as a beautiful, fruit-filled land instead of the dirty, smog-ridden reality that was Victorian era London. It is clear even in the opening chapters of the novel, that the Time Traveler shares many of Wells’ own biases and belief systems.   Though he believes that the Eloi have â€Å"devolved† due to the fact that they no longer need to work or improve their minds, the Time Traveler believes that this society is better than the one he came from where the poor were routinely mistreated and often malnourished. In many ways, the Time Traveler is the ultimate egalitarian: he believes that an Eloi society where the community works together to find its food and to live as equals is superior to his own society. It is not until the Traveler becomes aware of the presence of the Morlocks that he begins to question his initial impression. The fact that the Morlocks have become cannibalistic, Eloi-herders as a way of life is incredible depressing to the Traveler and he sets about to document these changes. Wells writes eventually that the Traveler is wrong in his theory about how the Morlocks and the Eloi come to be, but never discusses what the real cause of the evolution might be. From a philosophical standpoint, Wells development of the Eloi and Morlocks in his story is a remarkable commentary on his observations regarding the nature of man and how society might evolve. It is clear that in the Traveler’s initial opinion, the Eloi have developed from the upper class, from those who were too soft for manual labor and to enamored of recreational pursuits to challenge their minds. Likewise, the Morlocks are clearly supposed to have developed from the underclass and have resorted to violence and death as their way of life, never evolving to the point of problem solving or higher thought. In these most basic descriptions, Wells reveals his own bias towards the class warfare of Victorian England. Indeed, the Morlocks’ propensity for flesh-eating might well have developed out of the satirical writings of Jonathon Swift and his â€Å"A Modest Proposal.†Ã‚   Though in Swift’s essay it is the rich who eat the poor as a form of population control,   his commentary on the classes is very clearly echoed in â€Å"The Time Machine.†Ã‚   Both men argue effectively that class differences in the British Isles will likely lead to one class eating the other. By the subtle change from Swift’s â€Å"Proposal† to Wells’ Morlocks, we find that Wells’ believes it is likely the working class that will become cannabalistic and that the upper class has no redeeming qualities other than the ability to stuff their faces. Another philosophical issue facing the Time Traveler is the impact his travel will have on the world around him. This issue is central to the most recent film adaptation of the movie. In it, the Traveler attempts repeatedly to change the course of time to save his ill-fated fiancà © from certain death.   In both the film and the novel, the Time Traveler is forced to eventually face that he is unable to change the natural progression of time. The most interesting question here is whether he should have attempted to change time in the first place. Having seen the existence of the Eloi and the Morlocks and the eventual destruction of the planet, does the Traveler have any right to unwind, rewind or otherwise twist the fabric of time?   This question is largely unresolved in the novel, as the Traveler simply discovers that if he changes one event in the past, other events adapt to end with the same conclusion. The other question that this demands an answer to is the theory of time itself and of predetermination. If the Traveler is unable to change destiny by changing a specific event and if time adapts so that what is supposed to happen does, in one fashion or another, is there truly any conception of self-determination or is everything predestined. In his novel, Wells’ makes an effective argument for the concept that things happen as they are ordained to happen and man’s impact on them is infinitesimal. He argues through the repeated deaths of the Time Traveler’s fiancà © that fate is fate and cannot be changed. The joy of Wells’ novel is that on the surface it is simply a fantastical voyage into a future that might be, but that once one begins to scratch the surface, he finds a commentary on social justice, industrialization and even religion, as some religions argue that man is pre-destined to live his life in a certain manner. By never resolving the issues within the book, Wells allows the reader to determine for themselves whether they believe in predetermination or if they believe the future can be changed. He allows the reader to make his own judgments regarding the   battle between nature and industrialization and he allows the reader to decide how the battle between the classes will end. The novel allows the reader to take as much or as little from it as they desire and as such it is a classic of English literature.