Volume 9 Spring 2008
Taking Sustainable Development Seriously: The Case for
an Effective Environmental Enterprise Liability Regime in China
By Zachary Kamykowski
University of California, San Diego
This paper begins from the premise that China's environmental situation is dire, and likely to worsen as China continues to develop. In addition, as the Chinese government seeks to maintain stability and legitimacy through continued economic growth, it has failed to seriously implement environmental protection into its development strategy. Moreover, whatever attempts it has made have been frustrated by China's poor regulatory effectiveness. Finally, as China develops, it bears not only the "nominal" environmental costs of modernization, but also endures the environmental costs of becoming a manufacturing hub for the developed world's current extraordinary consumption levels.
Coping with Chaos: The National and Internation Security
Aspects of Global Climate Change
By John Chin
University of Michigan
The U.S. Department of Defense currently has no overarching policy guidance directing DoD organizations or combatant commanders to plan for the national and internation security aspects of climate change, to mitigate its effects, or engage partner countries in adaptive capacity building. This paper offers options and recommendations for policy and institutional changes the DOD should consider in order to make the revolution in military affairs a revolution in environmental security as well.
Managing China's Sovereign Wealth Fund Development:
An American Strategy for Setting Rules and Norms
By Alex Cree
University of California, San Diego
The China Investment Corporation, launched in October 2007, is the Chinese government's new vehicle for reinvesting its massive holding of foreign exchange assets, currently the world's largest at $1.5 trillion. While sovereign wealth funds are nothing new to global financial markets, the CIC's development is part of a recent increase in both the number and size of sovereign wealth funds worldwide. The CIC's growing influence presents potential hazards for companies, governments, lenders, consumers, and global economic health in general, especially given China's less-developed governance structures and institutional controls, in conjunction with the sheer enormity of foreign reserves held by China's central bank.
Transitional Justice: Responding to Victims of Wartime
Sexual Violence in Africa
By Cybele Cochran
Tufts University
Transitional justice refers to the wide range of activities, judicial and otherwise, that address human rights abuses and mass atrocities perpetrated on societies in transition from conflict to peace. In many war-torn countries of Africa, these mechanisms include prosecution, truth and reconciliation commissions, hybrid tribunals, and local customs and rituals. Trasitional justice mechanisms have had difficulties in achieving justice for African victims of sexual violence because of the personal nature of rape and the conservative nature of the African societies in which it often takes place.
Testing the Snake Head Strategy: Does Killing or Capturing
its Leaders Reduce a Terrorist Group's Activity?
By Aaron Mannes
University of Maryland
Since the attacks of 9/11 the search for effective counter-terror strategies has become an urgent priority for policy makers. Quantitative tests on databases of terrorist activity can help us examine the effects of various strategies in order to determine their degree of impact. One strategy that is considered to be effective by conventional wisdom is "decaptitation" - the tactic of removing the leadership of terrorist organizations. Besides its presumed efficacy, the decapitation strategy is also pursued as a matter of justice and in order to reassure the society targeted by terrorists that its government is taking action on its behalf. This paper tests the effectiveness of the decapitation strategy in terms of the reduction of terrorist activity.
The Scramble for Energy: China's Oil Investment in Africa
By Mike Hodel
University of California, San Diego
China faces fast-growing demands on energy in order to fuel the double-digit growth rates that it has seen over the past two decades. According to the US Energy Information Administration, "China has accounted for 40% of total growth in global demand for oil" during the last four years. Chinese insecurity about its ability to provide enough energy for its projected needs, coupled with the unique importance of oil as a transportation fuel, has pushed Chinese interests to look for energy investments outside of its domestic supply. In order to meet their future energy needs, Chinese national oil companies have aggresively forged foreign partnerships. While these partnerships have garnered much international attention, they neither assist China in cornering world petroleum supplies, nor do they serve as the economic miracle that Africa has long anticipated.
