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The strategies of Portuguese civil society organizations in the field of the environment

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Brígida Rocha Brito

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Lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa - UAL (Environment and International Relations, International Cooperation, Contemporary World). Researcher at OBSERVARE (UAL) and Deputy Director of JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations. Collaborated with the Sociology Department of the University of Évora as Guest Assistant Lecturer and with the Higher College of Agriculture (Escola Superior Agrária) of Coimbra as Assistant Lecturer. Has worked as a consultant, diagnosing and evaluating development projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries for civil society organizations (Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr, Artissal, Acção para o Desenvolvimento) and international organizations (The World Bank Group; International Organization for Migrations and Labour International Bureau, Programme STEP-Portugal). Worked for the Ministry of Environment of Brazil in preparing a strategic document on environmental education to be used in all Portuguese- speaking countries (CPLP), "Passo a Passo" (Step by Step), and has been involved in cooperation activities between the Portuguese government and Sao Tomé and Príncipe in the field of training. She has carried out research on the following African countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe.

Abstract

“The strategies of civil society organizations in the field of the environment” is the result of research conducted as part of the Project “strategies of international players in the area of the environment” carried out at OBSERVARE, the Observatory for External Relations of Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. The objective of the study was to understand and characterize the involvement of Portuguese NGOs, or of those based in Portugal, in the field of the environment, identifying and evaluating the relationships they have established with external partners, namely with regard to the following: privileged countries; types of partners; intervention areas; methodologies and tools. The study was based on the concepts of development cooperation, including players and tools, partnership in international relations, and social and environmental sustainability, taking also into account the Millennium Development Goals, in particular as regards the Seventh Target: Guaranteeing Environmental Sustainability. Given the broad scope of the study, a short questionnaire was built following the principle of guaranteed anonymity and made available online. After making a list of NGOs (ENGOs and DNGOs), the questionnaire was sent to many of these organizations, requesting them to respond to the questionnaire (N=43). From the data analysis and by confronting it with the concepts previously explored, it emerged that the majority undertake joint activity in Portugal and in partner countries, mostly with other similar organizations after the establishment of partnerships. The activity focuses on social and environmental projects of local relevance, with mixed funding that is mostly international in nature, and has clear objectives for promoting development.

Keywords

Environment, Conservation, Non-Governmental Organizations, Partnership

How to cite this article

Brito, Brígida (2012). "The strategies of Portuguese civil society organizations in the field of the environment”.JANUS.NET e-journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2012. Accessed [online] on (date of last viewing), observare.ual.pt/janus.net/en_vol3_n1_art5

Article received on December 2011 and accepted for publication on May 2012

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Humanitarian law: the controversial historical construction of a universal moral

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Soraya Nour Sckell

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Soraya NOUR SCKELL is researcher at the Sophiapol, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense, and at Observare, Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. She has made research at the Universities of Saint Louis (SLU), Nanterre, Frankfurt a.M. and Berlin (HU) and taugh at the Universities of Sao Paulo, Munich, Metz and Lille. She is the vice-president of the Association Humboldt France and received the German-French Friendship Prize. Her main areas of research are the philosophy of international law, international relations and the peace movement. Her main publications are: À Paz Perpétua de Kant. Filosofia do Direito Internacional e das Relações Internacionais (São Paulo, 2004); (ed.) The Minority Issue. Law and the Crisis of Representation (Berlin 2009); (ed. with Christian Lazzeri) Reconnaissance, identité et intégration sociale (Nanterre 2009); (ed. with Olivier Remaud) War and Peace. The role of science and art (Berlin 2010); (ed. with Damien Ehrhardt) La Fascination de la Planète. L’éthique de la diversité (Berlin, 2012); (ed. with Damien Ehrhardt) Interculturalité et Transfert (Berlin 2012).

Abstract

Humanitarian law was conceived by legal and moral normativism founded on universal principles. Despite its undeniable universal moral content, its formulations and application methods are however the result of historical conflicts. This article aims to analyze how the universality of humanitarian law is produced by highly controversial conflicts. It is necessary to overcome the antagonism between an analysis that focuses on the moral undeniable value of humanitarian law by ignoring its controversies and an analysis that focuses on social antagonism questioning the achievability of the moral and universal value of humanitarian law. For this, we must consider that humanitarian law is a construction. It appears as autonomous and independent of power relationships, as based on the rationality of morality and thus worthy of universal recognition. Yet its development is only possible when one considers the historical roots of reason. It is only through political struggle that humanitarian law is realized in history. The aim of this paper is to analyze how the universal nature of humanitarian law is produced by highly controversial conflicts. Firstly, an analysis is offered on the universal but at the same controversial character in the codification of humanitarian law, recalling controversies around the creation of the Additional Protocols of 1977 (Section 1). Next, an analysis is given on the conflictual character of organizations supporting humanitarian law, taking in account conflicts between the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders and controversies around the ambitions to pass from an humanitarian law to a right of humanitarian intervention (Section 2). Finally, a reflection is offered on how the theories of international relations that most appropriately grasp the universal nature of humanitarian law must be complemented by a "historical sociology of the universal" that embraces the conflicting historical dimension in the construction of the universal (Section 3).

Keywords

Humanitarian law; law of war; the Geneva Conventions; Red Cross; Doctors without Borders

How to cite this article

Sckell, Soraya Nour (2012). "Humanitarian law: the controversial historical construction of a universal moral”.JANUS.NET e-journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2012. Accessed [online] on (date of last viewing), observare.ual.pt/janus.net/en_vol3_n1_art4

Article received on March and accepted for publication on April

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Portugal: participation in peace missions as a factor of external credibility

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Maria do Céu Pinto

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Department of International Relations and AP, School of Economics and Management School (EMS), University of Minho.

Abstract

In per capita terms, Portugal is one of the most significant European contributors to international peacekeeping operations around the world. It presently ranks 45th in a list of 115 countries contributing to the United Nations (UN) peace operations and 7th in the European Union (EU). The multiplicity of forces used, as well as the diversity of the locations of deployment, reflect the ambition and effort made by the Portuguese governments in the last 20 years. Portuguese participation in peacekeeping missions has been seen as a vehicle for strengthening Portugal’s position in the world: the involvement under the flag of international organisations raises the profile of Portuguese foreign policy and diplomacy. In this paper, we argue that Portuguese involvement in peace missions reflects Portugal’s pursuit of its national interest and foreign policy. The aim is to bolster Portugal’s capacity to influence the decision-making process in major international fora, such as the UN, NATO and the EU. The goal established since the late 1980s aims to strengthen the visibility and specific weight of Portugal in the multilateral framework. The country´s contribution to peacekeeping operations has increased the bargaining power of Portugal, which has become an active partner with a more audible voice within those organisations. That voice led to gaining a better position when it came to negotiating major international posts and policies.

Keywords

Peace support operations; Portugal; peacekeeping; Armed Forces; United Nations

How to cite this article

Pinto, Maria do Céu (2012). "Portugal: participation in peace missions as a factor of external credibility”. JANUS.NET e-journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2012. Accessed [online] on (date of last viewing), observare.ual.pt/janus.net/en_vol3_n1_art3

Article received on December 2011 and accepted for publication on April 2012

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Global cosmopolitan economics, the euro and the Portuguese economy

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Manuel Farto

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Associate Professor in the School of Economics and Management Studies (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon (UTL). He holds a Degree in Economics from ISEG, UTL, and a Ph.D. in Economics from UTL, per equivalence awarded to the Ph.D. in Histoire de la Pensée Économique obtained at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Orléans (France) and at the Federal University of Paraíba (Brazil), and Deputy Director of the magazine JANUS (UAL/Público). He has held several public positions, including that of Chief of Staff of the Minister of Public Works, Transport and Communications, Deputy Director-General of Higher Education and Academic Affairs, and Vice Chairman of the Board of ISEG. He participated in several national and international conferences and published several articles in magazines and books. His main research interests are Macroeconomics, International Economics, History of Economic Thought, and Economic Policy.

Abstract

Despite favourable external circumstances, in the last decade the Portuguese economy developed a model of imbalance and dependence based on the disparity between production and consumption, which was financed from the outside and led to anaemic growth, severe deficits and explosive debt, much similar to the Latin American populist models of the past. The restrictions related to the adoption of the euro and inadequate economic policies are the determinants of this process, and, simultaneously, the barriers that need to be overcome. The internal devaluation/recessionary policy, wrongly presented as a close replacement for external devaluation/expansionary policy, underestimates the recessive effects on demand and the way it gets aggravated amidst strong indebtedness, fostering a deflationary spiral that tends to undermine the policy of austerity that is essential to reduce the imbalances. Doubts about the benefits of the abatement of all obstacles (including those of a monetary nature) to free trade among countries of very unequal development, long expressed by Friedrich List, are intensifying. In the absence of own currency, sovereignty and discretionary budgetary policy will be reduced in favour of prescribed rules, limiting economic policies to microeconomic and mesoeconomic frameworks. Due to the lack of an independent exchange rate mechanism, the exports sector sets the pace for the growth of the economy and of wages in the long term, while the impossibility to devaluate tends to lead to cumulative imbalances that are only offset by the occurrence of crises. Avoiding the latter requires paced wage and social policies, and increasing the rate of growth of the product and wages requires the development of an exports sector with high added value. This is the policy and strategy narrow path that Portuguese economy needs to tread.

Keywords

Cosmopolitan economics; euro; Portuguese economy; crisis; imbalance; wage deflation; devaluation; macroeconomic policy; microeconomic policy; demand; debt sustainability; growth

How to cite this article

Farto, Manuel (2012). "Global cosmopolitan economics, the euro and the Portuguese economy”.JANUS.NET e-journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2012. Accessed [online] on (date of last viewing), observare.ual.pt/janus.net/en_vol3_n1_art2

Article received on April 2012 and accepted for publication on May 2012