Politics and International Studies, PAIS

This article provides an analysis of governance in cross-border-regions following the implementation of EU CBC programmes, with reference to the border between Italy and Slovenia. First, it offers a brief theoretical background on governance. Second, it investigates whether a transnational type of governance is emerging in CBRs where the regional-local level is being empowered by cross-border activities and is thus able to circumvent/supersede the national level. Or conversely, states are still leading actors in these activities and real interlocutors with the EU level. It concludes by arguing that the EU CBC programmes are transforming the operation of power across the various levels of governance on a local, national and supranational level. The empirical research collected here points to two key developments. On the one hand there is evidence of an empowering of local agents in the case of strong autonomous regions. Conversely, on the other hand there is a strengthening of the national level in the case of small unitary states. Furthermore, CBC programmes appear to act as engines which have the potential to blur the internal distinction between a sovereign nation state and its regional level.

This article assesses the claim that the EU secures basic rights for citizens and migrants because externalization facilitates solidarity between EU states, third countries and migrants (the EFS-argument). However, it is argued that practices like European Commission (EC)-donations to UNHCR, the outsourcing to Private Security Companies (PSCs) like Finmeccanica or the subsidising of EUROSUR-projects do not facilitate solidarity. Rather they place the largest responsibility for refugees on the world’s poorest states, and consolidate the criminalization of irregular migration. Furthermore, Dublin-concepts like “safe third countries” (STCs) and “first country of arrival” are criticized for being instrumentalised by Northern European states’ to deflect responsibility for migrants. The EU border control has thus developed into a transnational regime that systematically creates border-induced displacement of migrants. Consequently, a critical evaluation of the EFS-argument reveals a grave inconsistency between the EU’s stated value and the consequences of externalization.

The chapter suggests that works on forced migration have tended to view border control as a reaction to the movement of already-displaced people, but that externalization in itself should be seen as a cause of displacement and forced migration. This allows us to appraise the overall consequences of the external EU borderscapes’ decentralized functionality instead of particular border control events. Conceptualizing the EU borderscapes’ external dimension as the sequencing of forced flows of migrants makes it possible to identify its production of border-induced displacement and highlights the interrelated functionality of the transnational European borderscape relying on the circulation of equipment, funds, personnel and information, thereby providing a lens through which the extent of its humanitarian consequences can be grasped.

The aim of this article is to provide an analysis of the place and role of “ideas” in the formulation of conditional
cash transfer programs in Brazil and Mexico by adding a comparative dimension and highlighting the factors that can
explain the origin and rise of as well as the disagreements between the ideas that are behind these programs. Thus,
the instrument “cash transfer” seems to be the object of a consensus. However, we must add that this is an ambiguous
consensus, as the factors involved agree on the means but not on the goals. Although the goal of increasing human
capital is predominant, Bolsa-Família and Oportunidades programs have become a tangle of ideas, lacking in agreement
on objectives and principles.


O objetivo deste artigo é fornecer uma análise sobre o lugar e o papel das “ideias” na formulação dos programas de
transferências monetárias condicionadas no Brasil e no México. Trata-se de, acrescentando uma dimensão comparativa,
destacar os fatores que podem explicar a origem, ascensão e desacordos de ideias que estão por trás desses programas.
Esses fatores são explorados à luz das teorias sobre o processo de elaboração de políticas públicas que ressaltam o
papel das coalizões de causa. Assim, o instrumento “transferência monetária” parece ser objeto de um consenso. Mas  devemos acrescentar que este é um consenso ambíguo, porque os atores envolvidos estão de acordo sobre os meios, e
não sobre os objetivos. Embora o objetivo de aumentar o capital humano seja predominante, os programas Bolsa-Família
e Oportunidades tornaram-se um grande emaranhado de ideias, sem um acordo sobre os objetivos e princípios.

Desde el atentado a las Torres Gemelas en los Estados Unidos la venta de satélites se disparó en todo el mundo árabe. Por su precio accesible y por ser el único medio libre del control gubernamental la televisión satelital se convirtió en el sistema de comunicación favorito en Medio Oriente.

The paper analyzes certain intra-European institutitional dynamics underpinning the formulation of EU migration policies, and explain which key issues remain unaddressed in the Commission's Third Annual Report on Immigration and Asylum dealing with 2011. The paper then proceeds to sketch a picture of the the current state of the EU’s border and migration system and the challenges it faces through such developments as the Frontex Agency, EUROSUR, the Arab Spring and ECtHR and ECJ verdicts.

Salud global y derechos humanos: propiedad intelectual, derecho a la salud y acceso a los medicamentos RESUMEN El estudio de la relación entre la propiedad intelectual y los derechos humanos ha ido ganando terreno en los últimos años a la luz de la globalización de las patentes farmacéuticas a través del sistema multilateral de comercio y su impacto en la salud global y los derechos humanos. Este trabajo busca desentrañar el actual régimen de propiedad intelectual, su evolución y su dialéctica, centrándose en su relación con el acceso a las medicinas y el derecho a la salud. La salud es un derecho humano fundamental. Su realización comporta la protección, promoción y materialización, entre otros elementos, de un acceso equitativo a los medicamentos por los Estados en coor dinación con otros actores no estatales y organismos internacionales. El presente trabajo sostiene que el acceso a las medicinas y el derecho a la salud de la mayoría de la población mundial, en particular de sus sectores más vulnerables, están amenazados por el actual sistema de propiedad intelectual orientado al mercado. Avanzar hacia un acceso a los medicamentos con equidad a escala mundial requiere, entre otras medidas, que el derecho a la salud se difunda e incorpore en todas las legislaciones y en los procesos de formación de políticas nacionales e internacionales. De esta forma, los países en desarrollo podrán extraer la base legal y moral para utilizar las fl exibilidades que brinda el sistema global de patentes y asegurar una mayor accesibilidad física y económica a las medicinas, así también como el fundamento para la cooperación internacional que promueva la salud y los derechos humanos a escala global.

Trade policy is currently a hot topic in Uruguay. In January 2007 the Uruguayan left-wing government signed a Trade and Investment Facilitation Agreement (TIFA) with the United States. This rapprochement responds both to the aggressive bilateral strategy pursued by the US in the hemisphere since the stalling of Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, and to Uruguay's increasing discontent with the performance of the South American Common Market (MERCOSUR). Whether the TIFA will lead to a free trade agreement (FTA) is yet to unfold. This essay explores the politics of trade underpinning the negotiation of a bilateral FTA between Uruguay and the US. Drawing from the interplay of systemic-, state-, and societycentred approaches to trade policy-making, this essay argues that doubts regarding the net gains for Uruguay, combined with the threat of being excluded from the subregional project, and the lack of consensus within the Uruguayan state-society complex, render the negotiation of a bilateral FTA unfeasible in the short term. The central explanatory variable to the understanding of trade policy-making in Uruguay is placed on the institutional constraints imposed by Uruguay's full-membership to MERCOSUR.

In the face of rapid global warming and peak oil, agrofuels have been increasingly seen as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport. This dissertation examines the political economy of agrofuels in Brazil. The study of Brazilian agrofuels is paradigmatic as the country has more than thirty years of experience and is one of the world's technological leaders in agrofuels. The Brazilian government has been promoting agrofuels as a path towards sustainable development at home and in other developing countries. In order to assess whether Brazilian agrofuels bring about sustainable development, this work discusses the contested meaning of sustainable development. It draws on principles of intergenerational, intragenerational and international distributive justice as defined by the Brundtland Report to elaborate a working definition of sustainable development as a multidimensional construct comprising six interdependent pillars. Thus, the Brazilian agrofuels strategy is analysed against the environmental, economic, social, political, cultural and spatial dimensions of sustainable development. The study argues that in its current shape and scale, the agrofuels strategy is boosting economic growth and promoting Brazil as a global player, yet it is not bringing about sustainable development.

This paper examines the dynamics and implications of the increasing influence yielded by private security companies on the formulation and practices of EU immigration and asylum policy. The implications of the corporate turn in European immigration politics is exemplified by the detention camps, transport- and deportation-operations of G4S in the UK and Finmecanicca´s intimate collusion with the Libyan authorities under first Gaddafi, and later, the New Libyan authorities. It is argued that the current European trend towards advanced and high tech control of migrant mobility via UAV-drones, satellites surveillance and military robots is not only due to nationalist policies in member states, but also caused by lobbyism by the European military-industrial complex in structures such as the the European Security Research Programme, the ”Group of Personalities” and the Frontex R&D Unit. The paper conceptualizes the commodification of immigration control as a neoliberal reconfiguration of EU border politics meaning that control elements are decentralized and diffused among new actors. Central EU structures emerge as the transnational regulators of this transformation through the subsidising of the security industry. Linking the evolution of the industry for border control with underlying financial actors and dynamics in the political economy of borderscapes, such as debt financing, the European Investment Bank and export credit agencies, the paper argues that this development has vast humanitarian and democratic implications for both immigrants and the population of Europe.

In 1974 following the Greek Junta's coup d'état in Cyprus, Turkey intervened in Cyprus under the pretext of the Treaty of Guarantee which ended with occupation of 37% of the territory and the division of the island. The immediate outcome of the Turkish full military control over the northern area of the island was that about one--third of the island's population became internally displaced. This paper aims to look at refugee labelling of Cypriots during the inter--communal conflict and how these labels were assumed and used differently in the communities. Has refugee labelling been employed as a political tool and what are the implications of refugee labelling on the negotiation process in Cyprus? The paper describes the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot administrations' attempts to handle the displacement of the two community members and the different outcomes and implications of these different approaches. The paper draws on these differences, which are rooted in the communities' social and political perception of the permanence and impermanence of the division.