Making spaces: The ethnic Brao people and the international border between Laos and Cambodia

On December 6, 1904 the present international border between Laos and Cambodia was unilaterally established when the French colonial government extracted Stung Treng Province from Laos and transferred it to Cambodia. The ethnic Brao people living in the border region were not well known to the French, and in any case, their views were not deemed important. But since then the Brao have utilised this state administrative boundary in ways not intended by its designers, or governments since then, to give them more power to create new spaces. When conditions in Cambodia have been deemed unfavourable, the Brao have often crossed into Laos, and similarly, when circumstances have been less advantageous in Laos they have moved to Cambodia.This paper traces the history of the Brao as it specifically relates to the international border between Laos and Cambodia. While this administrative boundary was created to help national governments keep populations confined within nation-states, Brao human agency has sometimes confounded these efforts, through transforming its significance and role. The boundary has separated Brao populations in ways that are sometimes upsetting to them, but it has also allowed the Brao to position themselves at the margins of different nation-states, in spaces where they have been able to, at least temporarily, avoid or reduce state control over them. These are not non-state spaces; they are fundamentally constituted by a state-established boundary, even if the Brao have been able to mobilise this resource to empower themselves, and sometimes to resist the state itself.     

合肥新桥国际机场膨胀土工程性质的试验研究

本文通过大量室内试验,对合肥新桥国际机场膨胀土的工程性质进行研究,从试验所得一系列试验参数对研究区内的膨胀土进行分类,并采用掺石灰处理方法对研究区的石灰改性膨胀土进行研究,提出地基处理方案。     

海洋地球工程的研究进展与相关国际法探析

全球气候变化及其引发的负面影响是当今人类面临的最大挑战之一,地球工程因被认为是减缓甚至扭转气候变化的切实可行的方案之一而备受关注。为推动地球工程技术的发展和相关国际法的完善,文章分析海洋施肥、人工上升流、人工海洋碱化、海洋云增白和海底造墙5种海洋地球工程的技术原理、研究进展及其在具体实施中对现行国际法的挑战。研究结果表明:无论是处于理论模拟阶段还是处于实验阶段,上述海洋地球工程技术都显示其减缓气候变化的潜力,同时也存在对海洋环境和人类生活的潜在风险;由于科学的不确定性和国际法的模糊性,各项技术在实际应用中都存在与国际法的冲突或适用问题,但目前从科研实践角度分析具体技术涉及的相关国际法问题的研究较少;虽然应在国际法框架下进行探索性研究,然而目前有关地球工程技术的国际法在理论研究和实践应用中仍存在很多争议。因此,必须加强对地球工程技术的研究,将技术风险降到最低,并在科学探索中做好环境基线研究,完善技术探索的环境影响评估方法;随着旨在减缓气候变化的小规模地球工程研究得到越来越多的支持,更应明确地球工程技术在国际法中的地位,建立合理的法律框架,推进国际法的改进。     

基于SOA云服务的济宁市电子政务服务平台研究

基于政务网的政府各部门横向与纵向信息共享及业务协同的需求十分迫切,传统的单向共享模式的应用瓶颈日益突出,结合济宁市政务信息平台建设的实际环境及需求,设计了基于SOA云服务的政府部门间信息资源共享及在线业务协同平台的框架,实现了政府各部门之间数据有序交换和资源共享,建立了数据建设规范和业务协同机制,极大地提升了政务办公自动化水平。     

The economics of boldness: equity,action, and hope

Equity is usually interpreted in terms of the concept of justice, such that an equitable share of the atmospheric space is understood in terms of past emissions. This emphasizes the collective nature of sharing the burden of mitigation and the duty to act for those who have emitted the most. An alternative is considered: the aggregate costs and benefits to all Parties that could result from both increasing the level of collective ambition and implementing a climate regime that supports bold actions across all Parties. The regional impacts and carbon flow costs across differentiated scenarios are assessed and it is argued that the majority of developing-country Parties would be better off if a high ambition outcome to which all contributed, but some more than others. Moreover, those with middle or low emissions would have proportionally more to gain (or lose) relative to the level of ambition compared to those that have had higher emissions. The climate regime should be built on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities (CBDR&RC), in which all act early even if some do much more; one that accounts for justice but does not forget hope.

Policy relevance

Differing interpretations of equity and the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are discussed, with a focus on how these can enhance or hinder collective action. Whilst the climate change negotiations are usually taken as games in which one party gains and another loses, and interactions are dogged by continuous conflict, it is explored instead how negotiation responses can be framed in terms of cooperation. This would emphasize the gains that could be achieved by common but differentiated collective action, which could result in a collective avoidance of impacts. The possibilities that this shift of perspective could bring are explored by comparing costs under global cooperation (or lack of it). It is found that cooperation reduces the total costs for these regions. Thus, thinking in terms of cooperation focuses the options for negotiation on the means and interpretations of the UNFCCC principles that spur action and avoid climate impacts through collective action.     

Multilateralism in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore

This paper analyzes International Maritime Organization (IMO) involvement in maritime cooperation regime in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore through multilateralism. It begins by introducing the maritime cooperation regime prior to 2001, which was mainly trilateral in nature through Tripartite Technical Expert Group on the Safety of Navigation (TTEG). Although TTEG managed to increase the level of safety of navigation in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore through the implementation of the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) in 1981 and Mandatory Ship Reporting System (STRAITREP) in 1998, such cooperation was beset by financial strain and conflict of interests. Subsequently, there was a change in the cooperation regime after 9/11 incident. This paper identifies that the change was contributed by the IMO through a methodology called multilateralism. Three important principles were adopted by IMO in implementing multilateralism in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, namely generalized principles of conduct (respect for sovereignty and compliance with burden sharing principle under Article 43 of UNCLOS 1982), diffuse reciprocity, and indivisibility. This paper concludes that multilateralism by IMO has transformed trilateral cooperation into multilateral cooperation in the Straits of Malacca, combining state actors (littoral states and user states) and non-state actors (non-governmental organizations and international shipping industries).     

Sometimes you cannot make it on your own; drivers and scenarios for regional cooperation in implementing the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive

Implementing the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive explicitly calls for regional cooperation between the EU Member States in the different regional seas. This regional cooperation, although set in a general framework of EU Member States and non-EU states utilising existing Regional Sea Conventions as focal point, develops along different tracks. Based on a series of interviews with different stakeholder groups in the different regional seas the drivers for this regional cooperation were determined. These drivers were used to develop a set of scenarios to depict possible ways and structures for cooperation at the different regional seas. In this paper the result of this analysis and the different scenarios developed are presented. The five scenarios developed were very helpful in elaborating alternative governance models for regional cooperation. From the validation by the stakeholders it became clear that both the drivers used, as the scenarios developed were found to be relevant. There is no single solution that is going to fit all regional seas, or that is going to appeal to all stakeholders within a regional sea. Especially in this setting the scenario approach does help people to explore the full range of possibilities that exists for the development of alternative governance models that address two issues raised but not detailed in the MSFD: cooperation and participation.     

Constructed peer groups and path dependence in international organizations: The case of the international climate change negotiations

International organizations sometimes institutionalize country groupings by specifying differentiated commitments that may, in turn, affect negotiation dynamics. Drawing on incentive-based and socialization arguments, we develop a “constructed peer group” hypothesis suggesting that by creating these groups those organizations may actually construct new lines of confrontation over and above the substance-based disagreements existing between countries. This generates a particular type of path dependence, rendering broad-based international agreements more difficult in the future.We analyze this question at the example of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's increasingly politicized split between Annex I and non-Annex I countries. Using a self-coded dataset of country oral statements during the negotiations between December 2007 and December 2009 we assess whether Annex I membership influences a country's stance toward other countries’ arguments, while controlling for country characteristics that may drive their preferences and the affiliation to Annex I. We find that the split between Annex I and non-Annex I has indeed influenced negotiation behavior and amplified the divide between developing and industrialized countries in the climate negotiations.     

基于 SOA 云服务的济宁市电子政务服务平台研究

基于政务网的政府各部门横向与纵向信息共享及业务协同的需求十分迫切,传统的单向共享模式的应用瓶颈日益突出,结合济宁市政务信息平台建设的实际环境及需求,设计了基于 SOA 云服务的政府部门间信息资源共享及在线业务协同平台的框架,实现了政府各部门之间数据有序交换和资源共享,建立了数据建设规范和业务协同机制,极大地提升了政务办公自动化水平。     

The educational space of global online higher education

This article explores how standards and codes for collaboration in international higher education influence the educational space of global online education and the way it functions within the context of international development aid. Firstly the article discusses the educational space of higher education and the geography of education whereby the aim is to situate global online education within the on-going discourse on standards in higher education, international development aid, and the knowledge economy. The article then examines a qualitative case study of an Internet-based masters programme attended by students from Europe and Africa. A main focus of the empirical analysis is the students’ experience of being geographically immobile while collaborating online internationally, including how this circumstance affected their motivation and participation and the benefits of the programme. In the concluding discussion it is argued that even though online collaboration among students and educational institutions is not entirely equal, common standards created a space in which positions were challenged and practices were changed over the course of online participation.