Regulating excessive speculation: commodity derivatives and the global food crisis

Evidence suggests that commodity derivatives speculation contributed to extraordinary patterns of grain price volatility that led to a global food crisis in 2007–11. People in countries throughout the world are increasingly dependent on international commodity markets for access to food. Almost everywhere, now, the value of food is determined by a single condensed symbol of its worth—its price. Persuaded of the need to ensure that this measure of value is not put at risk of distortion in the pursuit of financial profit, governments in the US and in the EU are now implementing new regulations designed to curb ‘excessive’ levels of speculation in derivative markets. Carrying out an analysis of these regulatory measures, the article demonstrates that both sets of reforms suffer from a critical limitation: They are predicated on an inaccurate understanding of how activity in commodity derivative markets can impact on underlying food prices. If the new regulations for commodity derivative markets are not up to the task, as this article argues that they are not, a more fundamental revision of global economic structures may be required if the basic needs of human beings are not to be subsumed to the interests of financial capital in the years to come

Terrorism and the law: historical contexts, contemporary dilemmas and the end(s) of democracy

Recent proposals by the G7 (and Russia) to clamp down on "terrorists" and "terrorism" do not define that which is prohibited. Instead, a threat is communicated which in turn allows, among other things, greater attention to be paid officially to "camouflage" charities and "terrorist" use of the Internet . Nevertheless, it is somewhat of a truism to note that terrorist violence is ultimately defined or characterized, for purposes of legal prohibition, within a highly politicized atmosphere. Starting with a short summary of "anti-terrorist" codification efforts made this century, this article examines some of the "security interests" cited by governments today in their respective struggles against "terrorism." More specifically, it is argued that individual perceptions of personal and societal threat are heightened unnecessarily not only by a constant stream of governmental "anti -terrorist" rhetoric , but further, by an awareness of official and un official methods of "anti-terrorist" surveillance, and the use to which the information so obtained can be put

A tale of two courts: the 'creation' of a jurisdiction?

Two projects to create the international criminal courts were devised during the 20th century. On 1 July 2002, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court entered into force. On 16 November 1937, the Convention for the Creation of an International Criminal Court was opened for signature at Geneva. The latter never entered into force, an event made contingent on the coming into force of its companion Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism, which also never occurred. The use to be made of law in each court forms the core of this discussion: the Rome Statute Court will rely on both vertical and horizontal approaches to the exercise of jurisdiction, and will utilise a harmonised approach to substantive criminal law; the 1937 court would have utilised domestic criminal law, in that the intent behind the 1937 convention was to make available an alternate forum, should the need arise. It is argued in particular that a horizontal approach to international criminal law may hold more seeds of future discord than a vertical approach, as harmonised law-making and enforcement lack a much-needed critical foundation. Crucially, the new International Criminal Court could greatly disturb the existing distribution of power and authority originally designed into the United Nations Charter, and effect a major shift in power politics, thus upsetting the balance between the principle of non-interference in state domestic affairs and the maintenance of international peace

Secure Directories

This paper describes the mechanisms that are needed in order to provide a secure directory service based on the X.500 data model. A brief introduction to the X.500 data model is given followed by an overview of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. Security can be provided by three functions: an application level firewall, an authentication mechanism, and an access control scheme. A description of the X.500 and LDAP access control models is presented followed by the authentication methods that have been standardised for LDAPv3. A companion paper describes a directory application firewall

Emotional Doubt and Divine Hiddenness

This essay will seek to develop a possible model for addressing the existential problem of divine hiddenness and the emotional doubt that it might cause in the life of a believer. In doing so, it will identify several potential root causes for the experience of the existential problem of divine hiddenness and attempt to guide a hurting individual through dealing with their doubt by applying misbelief therapy

Wind profiler demonstration system

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has started procurement of a 30-station demonstration network of Doppler radar wind profilers to be deployed in the central United States by 1989. The purposes of this demonstration network are: (1) to assess the impact of a large wind profiler network on meteorological forecasting; (2) to test wind profiler hardware designed specifically for commercial production and widespread deployment; and (3) to provide wind data for research programs involving weather phenomena in the central United States