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  The Applicability of the International Legal Concept of “Indigenous Peoples” in Asia

  Benedict Kingsbury

  Over a very short period, the few decades since the early 1970s, “indigenous peoples” has been transformed from a prosaic description without much significance in international law and politics into a concept with considerable power as a basis for group mobilization, international standard-setting, transnational networks, and programmatic activity of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Following the pattern of group mobilization established in states dominated by European settlement—in the Americas, Australasia, and the Nordic countries—groups based in different Asian states have more recently begun to participate in international institutions and gatherings of “indigenous peoples,” and transnational networks have been formed in Asia under the rubric “indigenous peoples.” The concept of “indigenous peoples,” or its local cognates, has become an important unifying connection in transnational activist networks, linking groups that were hitherto marginal and politically unorganized to transnational sources of ideas, information, support, legitimacy, and money. International institutions increasingly apply to parts of Asia policies, programs, and specific rules concerning “indigenous peoples.” The World Bank, for example, first adopted a policy on tribal peoples arising out of the dismal experience of projects in Latin America, but as a global organization seeks to apply its current policy on indigenous peoples to some of its projects in Asia; the relevant World Bank policies have also provided an influential model for the Asian Development Bank. The international activity has begun to shape national practice in many states, influencing political discourse, government policy, and some judicial and legislative action. The attitudes of governments in Asia to application to their states of the concept of “indigenous peoples” differ considerably, but strong opposition has been expressed by the governments of China, India, Bangladesh, Burma, and (for the most part) Indonesia. The political salience of debates about the concept of “indigenous peoples,” and much of the legal controversy, has been heightened by conflicts over land, forests, mineral resources, fishing rights, and other valuable natural resources. These conflicts arise in the context of rapid economic change, often precipitated by government-supported “development” projects. If “indigenous peoples” are deemed in international practice to have particular entitlements to land, territory, and resources, based on historical connections, customary practices, and the interdependence of land and culture, the question whether a particular group is an “indigenous people” may take on great political and legal importance. Even where governments do not accept that any of the groups in their states are “indigenous peoples,” international agencies, multinational corporations, and the governments of foreign states may continue to press a particular case on the basis that relevant international standards apply. This chapter will address the important practical problem of whether and how the concept of “indigenous peoples,” formed and shaped in areas of the world dominated by the history and effects of European settlement, might or should be adapted and made applicable in Asia and elsewhere. Both elements of the term—“indigenous” and “peoples”—are contentious, but the discussion here will focus mainly on indigeneity. A caveat must be entered about the scope and generality of this chapter. It focuses on issues arising in Asia, loosely encompassing, without particular distinction, east, southeast, and south Asia. This region is so diverse as to issues pertaining to “indigenous peoples” that generalizations must be treated with the utmost caution.4 There are overlapping themes, as well as considerable variation, between Asia and Africa with respect to these issues and the question of the relevance or irrelevance of the concept of “indigenous peoples” in Africa is of great importance. Although to a lesser extent than Asian groups, representatives of a small number of African groups have become involved in the international indigenous peoples movement, and governments of a few African states have expressed concerns similar to those of Asian governments considered in this chapter. For clarity, specific issues concerning the concept of “indigenous peoples” in Africa are not considered in this chapter.

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  Health, Human Rights, and Lesbian Existence

  Alice M. Miller, AnnJanette Rosga, and Margaret L. Satterthwaite

  This essay briefly examines the intersection of “health and human rights” strategies with two critical international human rights movements: women's rights and gay rights. It concludes that within international frameworks defining a woman's right to health, reproductive health has played a predominant role, and when discussions of health and human rights have addressed issues of homosexuality, they have tended to focus on the explosive conjunction of AIDS and discrimination in the lives of gay men. Nevertheless, despite the fact that strategies for achieving a human right to health have tended to focus on issues less than central to many lesbians' lives, the emerging health and human rights paradigm—by allowing a “whole person” analysis that takes into account the dynamics of individual and social relations as well as basic human needs—may paradoxically offer lesbians the potential to counteract the harms that have evolved within the arenas of health and human rights independently, while avoiding the pitfalls of identity-based claims.

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  Choice of Law as a Precommitment Device

  Geoffrey P. Miller

  Bruce Kobayashi and Larry Ribstein's essay provides an interesting and valuable contribution to the literature on interstate economic relations and the interaction between public and private incentives. The authors propose the optimistic theory that effective party choice of applicable law and/or applicable forum will substantially counteract the problem of in-state interests expropriating wealth from out-of-state counter-parties in a federal system. Thus the ability of the parties to select the governing law and forum can effectively "trivialize" state law. Kobayashi and Ribstein envisage a "multistage" process in which (a) in-state interests obtain favorable legislation, (b) out-of-state interests exit by means of choice-of-Iaw/choice-of-forum clauses, (c) states allow enforcement of these clauses, and (d) the original legislation is effectively nullified. In proposing this theory, Kobayashi and Ribstein present two" competing" hypotheses in the economic debate over the efficiency of a federal system: first, that a state can impose costs on (or provide inadequate benefits to) out-of-state interests because such interests lack influence in the state's political process relative to the influence of in-state interests; and second, that states are limited in their ability to impose such costs because of interstate competition: if a given state attempted to impose excessive costs on an out-of-state interest, that interest could simply flee to a more congenial location at minimal cost. In this comment, I attempt to expand on some of the efficiency considerations set forth in the Kobayashi and Ribstein essay by framing the analysis in terms of the elasticity of demand for a state's legal services, and by considering in detail some efficiency implications of respecting or not respecting privately negotiated choice-of-Iaw or choice-of-forum clauses. I will then address a potential problem with the essay identified by Michael Klausner, namely that choice of law and forum works only when the parties have the ability to set the terms of their relationship by contract, and since the parties can contract, they can simply adjust the payment terms of their contract to reflect the possibility of expropriation by in-state interests. I will try to connect this observation with another difficulty in the Kobayashi-Ribstein essay: the problem of explaining why state legislatures would allow parties to select the law of another state to govern their affairs, given that doing so reduces the ability of politicians in the state to provide valuable benefits to their constituents. I will suggest that state recognition of contractual choice-of-Iaw and choice-of-forum clauses represents a form of precommitment by the state and the affected interest groups, to tie their hands against the temptation to engage in ex post opportunism that is wealth reducing ex ante. Finally, I will suggest some ways in which the Kobayashi-Ribstein theory might be applied in the international context.

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  Deposit Insurance for Economies in Transition

  Geoffrey P. Miller

  Economies in transition present unique problems for institutions designed to prevent banking crises. On the one hand, transitional economies are vulnerable economies. They are prone to financial system problems that, if not handled properly, can spread general havoc. The vulnerability of transitional economies suggests that there may be a special need for programmes designed to prevent banking instability. Thus, it might appear that deposit insurance, a programme specifically intended to prevent runs and panics, is desirable and necessary for transitional economies. On the other hand, transitional economies are prone, not only to banking crises, but also to inflation and poor fiscal discipline. This macro-economic vulnerability suggests that deposit insurance can be positively dangerous for a transitional economy. The guarantee of deposits is often a guarantee of losses, especially when newly privatized banks hold carry-over portfolios of bad loans and lack expertise in private banking. Government losses must be paid for, and the most feasible way of paying for such losses is through inflationary policies such as central bank lending. Deposit insurance may mitigate the dangers of a banking crisis, but only at the cost of macro-economic instability. The case for government-sponsored deposit insurance in transitional economies is thus an uneasy one. In this chapter, some of the pros and cons of deposit insurance for these economies will be explored, and several alternatives that may avoid some of the problems of existing programmes, albeit with costs and dangers of their own, are suggested.

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  External Review of Central Bank Decisions

  Geoffrey P. Miller

  Central banks around the world are vested with enormous powers, for good or evil, over the lives of the countries in which they function. All central banks enjoy authority over monetary policy. Most supervise and monitor banks and the banking system. While a country with an effectively functioning central bank may not necessarily be happy, one with a dysfunctional central bank is decidedly glum. Central banking is a high-stakes game, and it is important that the actions a central bank takes be wise, fair, and grounded in reality. Many features of institutional design can be understood as intended to further this goal. One of the more important such features is the possibility that the central bank’s actions will be reviewed, and potentially vetoed, by some other agency—usually a court, but potentially another entity, such as a finance ministry. This paper discusses the process of “external review” of central bank and bank regulatory decisions, with particular reference to the law of the United States.

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  Davidson's New Cogito

  Thomas Nagel

  Skepticism depends on the claim that one could be in a subjectively indistinguishable state while the objective world outside one's mind was completely different from the way it appears, and not just temporarily, but permanently—past, present, and future. Call this the skeptical possibility. There are two traditional methods of refuting skepticism. One is subjective reductionism—the reduction of the objective to the subjective, in one form or another-so that facts about the objective world are analyzed, in some more or less complicated way, in terms of how things appear to us. This includes various forms of phenomenalism, verificationism, pragmatism, transcendental idealism, and “internal” realism. Reductionism denies that the skeptical possibility is a real possibility. The other response is to leave unchallenged the logical possibility of a gap between appearance and reality, but to argue that we are justified in believing that the world is in fact largely as we take it to be. This response includes arguments as various as Descartes's route to objective knowledge through God's benevolence and Quine's naturalized epistemology. Davidson has produced a third response to skepticism. Like reductionism, it denies the skeptical possibility. But it does not reduce the objective to the subjective; and although in a sense it goes in the opposite direction, it does not proceed by reducing the subjective to something else that is objective, in the fashion of behaviorist philosophies of mind. It is not reductionist at all. Rather, Davidson insists on certain consequences of the fact that thought and subjective experience, the entire domain of appearances, must be regarded as elements of objective reality, and cannot be conceived apart from it. The subjective is in itself objective, and its connections with the objective world as a whole are such that the radical disjunction between appearance and reality that skepticism requires is not a genuine logical possibility. The argument is that our thoughts depend for their content on their relations to things outside us, including other thinkers and speakers. And since we can't doubt that we are thinking, we can't doubt that the world contains our thoughts and that it is of such a character as to be capable of containing those thoughts. Specifically, to have the content which they have, and which we cannot doubt that they have, our thoughts must be largely true of what they are about. Therefore our beliefs must be largely true, and the skeptical possibility is an illusion. Though the argument from thought to the objective world is a little longer, and the conclusion much more comprehensive, the spirit is Cartesian: Not je pense, donc je suis but je pense, donc je sais. It is Cartesian in the sense of the cogito itself, because it depends on the impossibility of doubting that one is thinking the thoughts one thinks one is thinking. This is my interpretation of Davidson's refutation of skepticism, which is most fully set out in “A Coherence theory of Truth and Knowledge,” but whose elements appear in many of his writings. He might not want to put it in quite this way. In particular, he would certainly resist the dramatic structure which makes it an argument from thought to objective reality—on which the parallel with Descartes depends. Davidson's aim is anti-Cartesian: Instead of getting us out of the egocentric predicament, he is trying to show that we can't get into it.

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  Environmental Philanthropy and Public Policy

  Richard L. Revesz

  In recent years, the dominant role of the federal government over environmental regulation has been under attack in the public policy sphere. For example, a recent report commissioned by the Senate and House Appropriations Committee calls for Congress and the EPA to give states, communities, and businesses greater flexibility and autonomy in addressing environmental problems, forging a “new partnership…based on ‘accountable devolution’ of national programs and on a reduction of EPA oversight when it is not needed.” Congress has made some modest movers toward shifting regulatory authority to states, reflected in the Uniform Mandates Reform Act of 1995 and the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Superfund statute. The Environmental Protection Agency is also rethinking the appropriate balance of authority between the federal government and the states. Critics of decentralization paint a gloomy scenario of these recent developments, arguing that decentralization will reduce social welfare. They maintain that a predominant federal role is necessary as a result of a “race to the bottom,” the presence of interstate externalities, and public choice problems resulting in the underrepresentation of environmental interests at the state level. First, the “race to the bottom” rationale for federal environmental regulation posits that states, in an effort to induce geographically mobile firms to locate within their jurisdictions, will offer them suboptimally lax environmental standards so as to benefit from additional jobs and tax revenues. Second, the problem of interstate externalities arises because a state that sends pollution to another state obtains the labor and fiscal benefits of the economic activity that generates the pollution but does not suffer he full costs of the activity. Under these conditions, economic theory maintains that an undesirably large amount of pollution will cross state lines. Third, a public choice claim posits that states political processes will systematically undervalue the benefits of environmental protection or overvalue its costs. This essay, which builds upon much of my prior work in the area, takes issue with these three arguments for centralization, showing that they do not justify the broad role over environmental regulation accorded to the federal government in the United States. The essay then seeks to define an appropriate role for the federal government. This discussion shows that federal intervention is necessary to address certain pathologies that otherwise would result. Importantly, the federal government has not made sufficient efforts with respect to regulatory activities that cannot be effectively carried out at a decentralized level: the control of different kinds of interstate externalities; the provision of scientific information necessary for regulation, such as the preparation of risk assessment; and the guarantee of a minimum level of public health. Thus, there is a mismatch between the areas in which the federal government can have a desirable impact and the focus that federal regulation has taken. The federal government overregulates problems that have only in-state consequences but leave inadequately addressed problems with respect to which federal intervention is necessary. The assessment of the impact of devolution is therefore complex. This analysis giver rise to three important conclusions regarding philanthropic action in the environmental area. First, it casts doubt on the social desirability of supporting the types of categorical claims against devolution made by some of the national public interest groups. Second, it provides a blueprint for focusing attention at the federal level on issues that the federal government has underregulated, and that certain forms of devolution might threaten further. For example, Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, has rightly assailed efforts to devolve responsibility over biodiversity protection: “Some influential members of the U.S. Congress want to turn over major parts of the federal government’s endangered species and other biodiversity conservation programs to the states. But…most states do not earn a passing grad exercising even their current responsibilities for stewardship of their natural ecology.” Third, it refutes the claim, fueled by advocates of centralization, that the funding of groups operating at the state and local level is likely to be ineffective or even futile. For example, one commentator has recently focused extensive energy on casting doubt on “environmentalists’ relative ability to represent their causes effectively at the state level.” A preliminary analysis of the larges grants given by foundations for environmental projects suggests that in recent years the center of gravity has been moving from the national to the state and regional level, both with respect to the identity of the recipient and the purpose of the grant. It would be unfortunate if this trend was halted as a result of unfounded concerns about devolution.

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  Tailored Claims and Governance: The Fit Between Employees and Shareholders

  Edward B. Rock and Michael L. Wachter

  Most scholarship on corporate governance in the last two decades has focused on the relationships between shareholders and managers or directors. Neglected in this vast literature is the role of employees in corporate governance. Yet "human capital," embodied in the employees, is rapidly becoming the most important source of value for corporations, and outside the United States, employees often have a significant formal role in corporate governance. This volume turns the spotlight on the neglected role of employees by analyzing many of the formal and informal ways that employees are actually involved in the governance of corporations, in U.S. firms and in large corporations in Germany and Japan. Examining laws and contexts, the essays focus on the framework for understanding employees’ role in the firm and the implications for corporate governance. They explore how and why the special legal institutions in German and Japanese firms by which employees are formally involved in corporate governance came into being, and the impact these institutions have on firms and on their ability to compete. They also consider theoretical and empirical questions about employee share ownership. The result of a conference at Columbia University, the volume includes essays by Theodor Baums, Margaret M. Blair, David Charny, Greg Dow, Bernd Frick, Ronald J. Gilson, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Nobuhiro Hiwatari, Katharina Pistor, Louis Putterman, Edward B. Rock, Mark J. Roe, and Michael L. Wachter. Margaret M. Blair is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and author of Ownership and Control: Rethinking Corporate Governance for the Twenty-first Century (Brookings, 1995). Mark J. Roe, professor of business regulation and director of the Sloan Project on Corporate Governance at Columbia Law School, is the author of Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance (Princeton, 1996).

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  Commentary on Schultz, Reconceptualizing Sexual Harassment

  Laura Sager

  Professor Vicki Schultz’s article makes an important contribution to the current discussion and understanding of the law of sexual harassment. Based on her analysis of dozens, if not hundreds, of decisions, Professor Schultz has bound a troubling pattern of judicial failure to recognized meritorious claims of sex-based hostile work environment harassment when the harassing conduct is not sexual in nature. Professor Schultz’s article provides important insights both for courts and, perhaps more importantly, for lawyers who litigate such cases. In these remarks, after summarizing Professor Schultz’s critique of the current state of sexual harassment law, I will suggest some concrete steps that plaintiffs’ lawyers can take in response to the problems that she has identified.

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  Electoral Exceptionalism

  Frederick Schauer and Richard H. Pildes

  In Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes, the Supreme Court held that candidate debates are special for First Amendment purposes. Because “candidate debates are of exceptional significance in the electoral process,” the Court concluded that the First Amendment principles that apply to state-sponsored candidate debates are different from those that apply to any other form of broadcasting. The case involved a state-owned television station which decided to exclude a ballot-qualified independent candidate for Congress from a candidate debate it was sponsoring. The public television station allowed two other candidates—a Democrat and a Republican—to participate. But the station concluded that this particular candidate should not appear in the debate, offering as a justification the assertion that the candidate was not sufficiently likely to win the election. The candidate, however, insisted that this was tantamount to being excluded because the station disapproved of his unpopular political viewpoint. At the heart of the case was the difficult question whether state journalism was best seen as the state or as journalism, or some hybrid of the two. The excluded candidate insisted that the public television station was an arm of the state, and hence subject to stringent First Amendment rules prohibiting “viewpoint discrimination”—the purposeful exclusion of certain ideas solely because the excluder disapproves of the message conveyed by those ideas. In contrast, the public station insisted its activities should be treated as journalism, the consequence being that its editorial judgment—including the right to favor some viewpoints over others—was fully protected by the First Amendment. The Court concluded that the state-owned television station should be treated like a private station engaged in journalism, with essentially the same editorial latitude and the same immunity from the First Amendment demands of viewpoint neutrality. But the Court then went on to add an intriguing qualification, holding that candidate debates, because of the special role they serve in democratic politics, were to be treated as an exception to the Court’s newly announced principle. “Deliberation on the positions and qualifications of candidates is integral to our system of government,” the Court observed, “and electoral speech may have its most profound and widespread impact when it is disseminated through televised debates.” In the end, the Court articulated a general rule and an exception. In general, a public television station, like other branches of the press, is permitted to prefer certain viewpoints over others, even when it is engaged in political programming. When the station runs a candidate debate, however, it may not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. Our goal in this chapter is not to deal with the question of state journalism, not even with the surprising claim, which ultimately determined the result in Forbes, that excluding a candidate from the debate based on judgments about the likelihood of his winning the election was not a form of viewpoint-discrimination. Rather, we want to explore the implications of the Court’s holding that candidate debates are special for First Amendment purposes, and that the First Amendment principles that might apply to candidate debates are different from the First Amendment principles that would otherwise have been applied. More broadly, we want to explore a possible extension of this principle. If candidate debates, because of the special role they serve in democratic politics might be subject to special First Amendment principles, then it is possible that the Supreme Court, or at least the six members of the Court who constituted the Forbes majority, might also believe that elections themselves—because of the special role that elections serve in a democracy—should also be the subject of special First Amendment principles?

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  Taxation of S Corporations

  Deborah H. Schenk

  An S corporation is purely a creature of federal tax law; it is a corporation that elects to be taxed under subchapter S of the Internal Revenue Code. Essentially, such an election exempts the corporation from federal income tax and subjects its shareholders to tax on the net corporate income. In theory, an S corporation enjoys the legal benefits of the corporate form with the tax benefits of a partnership. That description more closely characterizes the attributes of a limited liability company, however, because the taxation of an S corporation differs markedly from that of a partnership. While an S corporation, like a partnership, is a pass-through entity, the legal rules under sub- chapter S are much simpler than the rules for partnerships under subchapter K. An S corporation trades flexibility for greater simplicity. Over the past few decades, however, Congress has made the rules for eligibility and operations less stringent. The Small Business Act of 1996 notably contributed to the utility of S corporations. The original purpose of subchapter S was “to minimize the effect of federal income taxes on choices of the form of business operation,” but taxes continue to play an important role in choosing the appropriate entity in which to conduct business. This chapter provides an overview of the taxation of S corporations so the business adviser can determine whether the business is eligible to elect under subchapter S and, if so, the ramifications of that election.

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  Custody Orders Under the Hague Abduction Convention

  Linda J. Silberman

  Chapter of a conference proceeding published as part of the International Association Women Judges. International Conference (4th : 1998 : Ottawa, Ont.).

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  The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction

  Linda J. Silberman

  Chapter of a conference proceeding published as part of the International Association Women Judges. International Conference (4th : 1998 : Ottawa, Ont.).

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  Deliberation, Disagreement, and Voting

  Jeremy Waldron

  In this important collection of writings, leading legal and political thinkers address a wide array of issues that confront societies undergoing a transition to democratic rule. Bridging the gap between theory and practice in international human rights law and policy, the contributors continue discussions that were begun with the late Argentine philosopher-lawyer Carlos Santiago Nino, then extend those conversations in new directions inspired by their own and Nino’s work. The book focuses on some of the key questions that confront the international human rights movement today. What is the moral justification for the concept and content of universal human rights? What is the relationship among nation-building, constitutionalism, and democracy? What are the political implications for a conception of universal human rights? What is the relationship between moral principles and political practice? How should a society confront what Kant called radical evil? And how does a successor regime justly and practically hold a prior regime accountable for gross violations of human rights?

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  Inalienable Rights

  Jeremy Waldron

  Examines the constitutional and moral issues behind community policing, including the measures taken to prevent urban crime and the role of individual rights in a democratic society.

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  The Satanic Verses

  Jeremy Waldron

  Human beings live together in societies which, by their very nature, give rise to institutions governing the behavior and freedom of individuals. This raises important questions about how these institutions ought to function, and the extent to which actual systems of government succeed or fail in meeting these ideals. This Oxford Reader contains 140 key writings on political thought, covering issues about human nature and its relation to society, the extent to which the powers of the State are justified, the tension between liberty and rights, and the way resources should be distributed. Topics such as international relations, minority rights, democracy, socialism, and conservatism are also discussed by contributors ranging from Plato and Aristotle to Foucault, Isaiah Berlin, and Martin Luther King.

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  The Constitution of the Common Market Place: Text and Context in the Evolution of the Free Movement of Goods

  Joseph H. H. Weiler

  The European Community has been in existence for forty years. This period has seen considerable change and development in both the institutional and the substantive las of the EC—and more recently the EU. This is the first work to stand back from the ever growing detail of Community law, and examine its jurisprudence from an evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspective. Every important area of institutional and substantive European law is covered—leading lawyers analyse the evolution of their area of expertise across time, bringing out the major thematic changes which have occurred. These changes are then viewed against the broader political and economic background of the Community as a whole. This book will give readers a clearer understanding of the overall legal picture in Europe, and allow them to gain a richer perspective on the interaction between law and the other forces which have shaped the Community and made it what it is today.

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  Afterword: How Shall We Live As Many?

  Kwame Anthony Appiah

  Pluralist or multiculturalist, proudly ethnic or disappearing into the melting pot, people come in all persuasions. This volume attempts to bridge the gap that has developed between pluralists and multiculturalists, advocates of the academic canon and defenders of diversity, celebrants of ethnic heritage and critics of racial ascription. Contributors explore the nation's pluralistic framework as a historical creation, looking at group relations in the United States and how they have been conceptualized in the past.

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  Citizenship in Theory and Practice: A Response to Charles Kesler

  Kwame Anthony Appiah

  In this important book, a distinguished group of historians, political scientists, and legal experts explore three related issues: the Immigration and Naturalization Service's historic review of its citizenship evaluation, recent proposals to alter the oath of allegiance and the laws governing dual citizenship, and the changing rights and responsibilities of citizens and resident aliens in the United States. How Americans address these issues, the contributors argue, will shape broader debates about multiculturalism, civic virtue and national identity. The response will also determine how many immigrants become citizens and under what conditions, what these new citizens learn and teach about the meaning of American citizenship, and whether Americans regard newcomers as intruders or as fellow citizens with whom they share a common fate.

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  Ethnophilosophy and its Critics

  Kwame Anthony Appiah

  This text includes 25 readings from African thinkers such as Biko, Appiah, Wiredu, Sogolo Gyekye and Senghor. The readings are organized under seven headings: African culture; African epistemology; African metaphysics and religion; rationality and explanation in an African context; African political philosophy; African ethics; and African aesthetics. The book can be used as an introduction for students coming to African philosophy for the first time and should be of interest to those studying literature, religion, anthropology and philosophy courses.

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  Foreword

  Kwame Anthony Appiah

  Saskia Sassen is an internationally recognized expert on globalization whose writings have appeared in journals and magazines worldwide. Globalization and Its Discontents is a collection of Sassen’s essays dealing with topics such as the “global city,” gender and migration (reconceived as the globalization of labor), information technology, and the new dynamics of inequality. Sassen brings together cultural and literary studies, feminist theory, political economics, sociology, and political science, showing how vast the chasm between metropolitan business centers and low-income inner cities has become. Incisive and original, she takes on common political, cultural, and economic misconceptions of globalization and offers a thoughtful, provocative new look at our increasingly global society.

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  Old Gods, New Worlds

  Kwame Anthony Appiah

  This text includes 25 readings from African thinkers such as Biko, Appiah, Wiredu, Sogolo Gyekye and Senghor. The readings are organized under seven headings: African culture; African epistemology; African metaphysics and religion; rationality and explanation in an African context; African political philosophy; African ethics; and African aesthetics. The book can be used as an introduction for students coming to African philosophy for the first time and should be of interest to those studying literature, religion, anthropology and philosophy courses.

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  The Limits of Pluralism

  Kwame Anthony Appiah

  There is an Akan proverb, from my home in Asante in Ghana, that says: Aban begu a, efiri yam. Proverbs are notoriously difficult to interpret, and thus also to translate. But this one means, roughly, that if the state is going to collapse, it will be from the belly. The idea, of course, is that states collapse from within; and the proverb is used to express the sentiment that people suffer as a result of their own weaknesses, not from the attacks of others. It is a rhetoric familiar enough, these days, here in the United States. In the latest episodes of American jeremiad—truly the longest-running series in our history—it is being suggested that having “won the cold war,” we have set out to destroy ourselves from within. American society is being destroyed not by drugs and poverty and political bungling but by multiculturalists intent on schism: here, then, is a society collapsing from the belly. Naturally, I do not believe it. In a world that contains Bosnia-Herzegovina and Belfast and Beirut and East Timor and Sri Lanka, events such as the Los Angeles riots (multicultural riots, if ever there were any) do not convince me that the United States is being destroyed by an excess of ethnicity. I am not of Arthur Schlesinger’s party. Those of us born and raised elsewhere, but happy to be living here in the United States, often find one thing above all odd in our adopted home, a tradition as old in America as American jeremiad, as old in the world as nationalism, namely, this country’s imagination of itself as so new a creature on God’s earth that it cannot learn from others. This exceptionalism flows, in part, from a general ignorance of others that it is the aim of one part of the multicultural movement to correct. So I begin by talking about pluralism and identity in Africa in order to draw some lessons (both positive and negative) about the way we have dealt with our ethno-regional complications.

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  Corporate Crime and Its Control,

  Jennifer H. Arlen

  A great deal of economics is about law—the functioning of markets, property rights and their enforcement, financial obligations, and so forth—yet these legal aspects are almost never addressed in the academic study of economics. Conversely, the study and practice of law entails a significant understanding of economics, yet the drafting and administration of laws often ignore economic principle. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law is uniquely placed by the quality, breadth and depth of its coverage to address this need for building bridges. Drawn from the ranks of academics, professional lawyers, and economists in eight countries, the 340 contributors include world experts in their fields. Among them are Nobel laureates in economics and eminent legal scholars. First published in 1998 and now available in paperback for the first time, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law has established itself as a classic reference work in this important field.

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  Compensation for Takings: An Economic Analysis

  Lawrence Blume and Daniel L. Rubinfeld

  The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from taking private property for public use without just compensation. In situations not involving physical invasion, called regulatory takings, courts have occasionally found that regulation goes too far and constitutes a taking. Support for compensation for regulatory takings has grown among scholars, but relatively little has been written on the role of compensation as a form of insurance against regulatory risks. This article provides such an economic analysis, in the process evaluating the efficiency arguments both for and against compensation. Generally, the risks associated with changes in regulatory policies impose costs on investors. Although one might expect investors to avoid the costs associated with risk by obtaining insurance in the private market, such insurance is often not available because of market failure. Thus, government-provided insurance represents a potentially attractive alternative. However, for reasons related to private market failure, this article argues that government-provided insurance must be offered after the fact in the form of compensation for regulatory takings. The payment of compensation itself is costly, not only in the transfers that arise, but also in the distortions created and administrative cost borne. Therefore, the article suggests that the economic argument for compensation is strongest in situations in which the risk of loss is large relative to individual wealth, or (as a practical alternative) large relative to the magnitude of the loss. The effects of such a proposed change in the granting of compensation could also have a substantial effect on the decisionmaking of the regulatory bodies, since a greater part of the actual cost of regulating would now appear on the budget of the regulatory body. In addition to these issues, we argue that the nature of the compensation made should depend upon the extent to which the measurement of compensation can itself be influenced by the behavior of individual landowners.