La coopération internationale pour promouvoir la démocratic et les droits de rhomme: principes et programmes

Résumé: Au cours de la décennie écoulée, le monde entier a connu un mouvement général favorable à la démocratie et à la protection des droits de l'homme. Avec I'apparition d'un sens aigu de la co-responsabilité des nations pour les questions humanitaires, il est de plus en plus reconnu que la communauté internationale est moralement chargée d'intervenir en cas d'immenses souffrances humaines ou bien de violation des droits de l'homme de tout un peupe. Malgré la convergence apparente des thèses politiques sur ces questions, il faut néanmoins reconnaître la légitimité des différents systèmes politiques. La communauté internationale devrait donc reconnaître le droit de toute nation ou de tout peuple à disposer de son espace culturel et politique national. Compte tenu du conflit manifeste entre le principe du partage de la responsabilité des nations et celui de l'espace culturel et politique national, il est indispensable de définir clairement les conditions dans lesquelles la communauté internationale doit intervenir. Dans ce document, sont proposés trois principes qui pourront guider de telles interventions. Tout d'abord selon cette thèse, la communauté internationale a moralement le devoir d'exprimer son inquiétude et de prendre toutes les mesures approprées dans le cas d'une évidente violation des droits de l'homme (en cas de menace de génocide par exemple) ainsi que dans le cas de crises humanitaires ayant des dimensions inacceptables. Ensuite la communauté peut intervenir et prendre des mesures répondant aux souhaits exprimés par la population, si par exemple tel ou tel gouvernement répressif fait obstacle à la démocratie. Enfin, I'intervention de la communauté internationale devrait être régie par le principe de la neutralité pour mériter sa légitimité. Dans les cas oú les conditions requises sont réunies pour que la coopération internationale favorise la démocratie et les droits de l'homme, une telle coopération à l'échelon national pourrait comprendre des programmes et activités visant à (i) moderniser l'Etat, (ii) renforcer la société civile (iii) encourager les réformes économiques et la croissance pour contribuer à rendre durables les réformes et ce processus démocratiques. Toutefois, les programmes et activités à l'échelon national, devraient être complétés par la coopération à l'échelon international pour améliorer tant la gouvernance générale par des réformes et par le renforcement du système des Nations Unies, que l'économie mondiale afin de répondre davantage aux besoins de l'humanité toute entière. Abstract: In the course of the last decade, the world has witnessed a movement of global dimensions in support of democracy and the protection of human rights everywhere. With the emergence of a strong sense of “shared humanity”: there is a growing acceptance of the moral responsibility of the international community to intercede in cases of immense human sufferings, or in cases where the human rights of a people are being violated. Despite the seeming convergence of political thinking, there is, however, the need to recognize the legitimacy of different political systems. The international community would thus need to recognize the right of a nation or a people to its own “national political and cultural space.” In the light of the apparent conflict between the principle of “shared humanity”, and the principle of “national political and cultural space”, it is essential to delineate clearly the conditions under which the international community should intervene. Three principles which could guide such interventions are proposed in the paper. First, it is argued that the international community has the moral duty to express its concern and to take appropriate measures in cases where there are egregious violations of human rights-such as attempted genocides-and in cases of humanitarian crises of unacceptable proportions. Second, in situations where a peoples's expressed desire to exercise its democratic rights are being thwarted by a repressive government, it is argued that the international community should take measures in support of a people's expressed wishes. And third, international involvement should be guided by the principle of non-selectivity if it is to garner global legitimacy. In situations where appropriate conditions for international cooperation to promote democracy and human rights exist, such cooperation at the national level could consist of programmes and activities that seek (i) to modernize the state, (ii) to strengthen civil society, and (iii) to promote economic reform and growth, to help ensure the sustainability of democratic reforms and processes. Programmes and activities at the national level should, however, be complemented by cooperation at the international level both to improve global governance through the reform and strengthening of the united Nations System and to improve the international economic system, to make it more responsive to the needs of all humanity.     

Risk Preferences and Environmental Uncertainty: Implications for Crop Diversification Decisions in Ethiopia

To the extent that diversifying income portfolio is used as a strategy for shielding against production risk, both individual risk aversion and weather uncertainty could affect crop diversification decisions. This paper is concerned with empirically assessing the effects of risk aversion and rainfall variability on farm level diversity. Unique panel data from Ethiopia consisting of experimentally generated risk aversion measures combined with rainfall data are employed in the analysis. The major contribution of this study is its explicit treatment of individual risk preferences in the decision to diversify, simultaneously controlling for environmental risk in the form of rainfall variability. Covariate shocks from rainfall variability are found to positively contribute to an increased level of diversity with individual risk aversion having a positive but less significant role. We find that rainfall variability in spring has a greater effect than rainfall variability summer??the major rainy season. This finding is in line with similar agronomic-meteorological studies. These results imply that in situ biodiversity conservation could be effective in areas with high rainfall variability. However, reduction in risk aversion, which is associated with poverty reduction, is likely to reduce in situ conservation.     

Resources, conflict and development choices: public good provision in resource rich economies

Natural resource wealth can be a curse or a blessing for a country. This paper hypothesises that the provision of productive public goods (or lack of it) is a pathway that helps understand these different outcomes when policy choices are made under the threat of conflict inherent in resource-rich countries. Facing potential conflict over resources, a self-interested ruler may choose to invest in either military repression or in productive public goods—physical and social infrastructure. While both measures aim at preventing conflict, we show theoretically that the optimal policy choice depends on the relative effectiveness of the ruler and the population in contesting the resources. Increased resource wealth provides a disincentive to invest in development if the ruler is more effective than the population in appropriating the resources. Conversely, if the ruler is relatively ineffective, more resource wealth induces higher levels of public goods. We present empirical evidence consistent with the predictions of the model for a sample of 57 countries over three decades. Thus, we provide and test empirically a conditional resource curse theory, postulating that the relative effectiveness of the contenders plays a crucial role in determining whether resources are a curse or a blessing.     

Innovation,Diffusion, Growth and the Environment: Taking Stock and Charting New Directions

The objective of this article is to provide a succinct review of the main developments in the field of research on the economics of growth, innovation, diffusion and the environment. We focus on the last fifteen to twenty years of scientific advances in the field as this corresponds to: (i) the consensus on the theoretical side on endogenous economic growth modelling, and (ii) the growing empirical work on innovation and diffusion due to the development of patent data. As very good reviews already exist in the literature, we only provide a brief and non-exhaustive discussion aiming at taking stock of some recent developments and charting new issues for a future research agenda.     

Will Technological Change Save the World? The Rebound Effect in International Transfers of Technology

Technological change and its transfer to developing countries is often portrayed by policy-makers as a critical part of the solution to a resource problem such as climate change, based on the assumption that the transfer of resource-conserving technologies to developing countries will result in reduced use of natural capital by those countries. We demonstrate here, in a capital conversion based model of development, that the free transfer of resource-conserving technologies to developing countries will increase the options available to those countries, but that the way that they expend these options need not be in the direction of conserving resources. This is another example of the potential for a rebound effect to determine ultimate outcomes, here in the context of international technology transfer policy. The transfer of technologies is as likely to simply move developing countries more rapidly down the same development path as it is to alter the choices they make along that path. For this reason, the transfer of resource-conserving technologies, without incentives provided to alter development priorities, may not result in any resource-conservation at all.     

Estimation of the precision matrix of multivariate Pearson type II model

In this paper, the problem of estimating the precision matrix of a multivariate Pearson type II-model is considered. A new class of estimators is proposed. Moreover, the risk functions of the usual and the proposed estimators are explicitly derived. It is shown that the proposed estimator dominates the MLE and the unbiased estimator, under the quadratic loss function. A simulation study is carried out and confirms these results. Improved estimator of tr (Σ ⁻¹) is also obtained.     

What Are the Drivers of Fiscal Performance Gaps between Anglophone and Francophone Africa? A Blinder–Oaxaca Decomposition

In this paper, we make use of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition to examine how the quality of budget institutions affects fiscal performance – primary balance and public debt – in sub‐Saharan Africa. To organise our approach, we categorise sub‐Saharan Africa countries according to the two main systems of budgetary institutions: the English‐based system and the French‐based system. The quality of budget institutions is measured through five criteria: centralisation, comprehensiveness, fiscal and procedural rules, sustainability and credibility, and transparency. Our findings show that, on average, Anglophone Africa countries have better budgetary institutions than their Francophone counterparts, and this difference is the main determinant of the fiscal performance gaps between the two groups. These performance gaps are mostly due to the characteristics effect, meaning that the relative poor fiscal performance of Francophone countries is not due to the French‐based system itself but rather to the environment in which it operates. The budget process and procedures in these countries are relatively less comprehensive, sustainable and transparent and that adversely affects their fiscal performance.