While entities as different as armed groups, multinational corporations, political parties, megacities, labour unions, terrorist organisations, or indigenous peoples are mentioned as non-state actors in the relevant literature, rural communities are never referred to. This book addresses the role of rural communities as non-state actors, lifting this invisibility veil with arguments coming from three theories of/scholarly approaches to international law: positivism, sociolegal realism (the New Haven School), and constitutionalism. It argues, first, that rural communities are recognised by the community of states as derived subjects of international law since they are made bearers of rights and duties in some major multilateral treaties. Second, rural communities have the ability to affect international lawmaking as they acquire the tools to influence decision-making in international arbitration and court litigation. Finally, the book highlights the need to recognise the status of rural communities when seeking global justice, as these are the communities that benefit the least from globalisation, while paying the highest price in terms of damage to the natural and sociocultural environment. Advocating for the existence of some supreme norms above the will of the states and the recognition of rural communities as non-state actors, this book will be of interest to academics, policy-makers, and non-governmental organisations working in the field of public international law and rural social matters.

While entities as different as armed groups, multinational corporations, political parties, megacities, labour unions, terrorist organisations, or indigenous peoples are mentioned as non-state actors in the relevant literature, rural communities are never referred to. This book addresses the role of rural communities as non-state actors, lifting this invisibility veil with arguments coming from three theories of/scholarly approaches to international law: positivism, sociolegal realism (the New Haven School), and constitutionalism. It argues, first, that rural communities are recognised by the community of states as derived subjects of international law since they are made bearers of rights and duties in some major multilateral treaties. Second, rural communities have the ability to affect international lawmaking as they acquire the tools to influence decision-making in international arbitration and court litigation. Finally, the book highlights the need to recognise the status of rural communities when seeking global justice, as these are the communities that benefit the least from globalisation, while paying the highest price in terms of damage to the natural and sociocultural environment. Advocating for the existence of some supreme norms above the will of the states and the recognition of rural communities as non-state actors, this book will be of interest to academics, policy-makers, and non-governmental organisations working in the field of public international law and rural social matters. The Open Access version of this book, available at http: //www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Fuelled by social equity concerns, there have been vigorous debates on the appropriateness of certain non-state actors, particularly those with commercial and entrepreneurial motives, to meet universal education goals. There are further questions on the relative effectiveness of government and private schooling in delivering good learning outcomes for all. Within this debate, several empirical questions abound. Do students from poorer backgrounds achieve as well in private schools as their advantaged peers? What are the relative out-of-pocket costs of accessing private schooling compared to government schooling? Is fee-paying non-state provision ‘affordable’ to the poorest households? What is the nature of the education market at different levels? What are the relationships between different non-state actors and the state, and how should they conduct themselves? The chapters in this volume present new empirical evidence and conduct critical analysis on some of these questions. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Oxford Review of Education.

The role and position of non-state actors in international law is the subject of a long-standing and intensive scholarly debate. This book explores the participation of this new category of actors in an international legal system that has historically been dominated by states. It explores the most important issues, actors and theoretical approaches with respect to these new participants in international law. It provides the reader with a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the most important legal and political developments and perspectives. Relevant non-state actors discussed in this volume include, in particular, international governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisations, multinational companies, investors and armed opposition groups. Their legal position is considered in relation to specific issue-areas, such as humanitarian law, human rights, the use of force and international responsibility. The main legal theories on non-state actors' position in international law – neo-positivism, the policy-oriented approach and transnational law – are covered at the beginning of the book, and the essential political science perspectives – on non-state actors' role in international politics and globalisation, as well as their soft power – are presented at the end.

Concern for achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 has led to a focus on the role that non-state providers (NSPs) can offer in extending access and improving quality of basic services. While NSPs can help to fill a gap in provision to those excluded from state provision, recent growth in both for-profit and not-for-profit providers in developing countries has sometimes resulted in fragmentation of service delivery. To address this, attention is increasingly given in the education sector to developing ‘partnerships’ between governments and NSPs. Partnerships are further driven by the expectation that the state has the moral, social, and legal responsibility for overall education service delivery and so should play a role in facilitating and regulating NSPs. Even where the ultimate aim of both non-state providers and the state is to provide education of acceptable quality to all children, this book provides evidence from diverse contexts across Africa, South Asia, and Latin America to highlight the challenges in them partnering to achieve this. This book was published as a special issue of Development in Practice.

Apart from decolonization and the liquidation of apartheid, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has had three goals - unity, security, and development. In none of these three areas did the OAU live up to its expectation. The transformation of the OAU was designed to inject institutional vim, mainstream its social forces, and keep abreast with challenges of the 21st century. This book explores Pan-Africanism from a perspective of a rapidly changing international system. Key obstacles remain to the leadership conundrum and endemic capacity gaps. (Series: African Politics / Politiques Africaines - Vol. 6)

The inspiration for this book comes from negotiations that are taking place under the auspices of the United Nations by an intergovernmental conference for a new International Legally Binding Instrument (ILBI) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ). The proposed ILBI is attempting to fill existing gaps under international law over marine biodiversity and Marine Genetic Resources (MGR) in ABNJ. One way it is attempting to do this is by having an Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) schema over these resources in ABNJ that the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol (NP) do not currently cover. These existing frameworks that regulate genetic resources are grounded in the notion of sovereignty. Effectively, States have sovereign rights over their biological resources. The ILBI, however, is attempting to regulate marine biodiversity and MGR in ABNJ. Thus, the notion that negotiators representing nation States under the auspices of the United Nations can regulate ABNJ is paradoxical – are these areas beyond nation States’ jurisdiction or not? Implicitly, the negotiators are acting as though they have sovereignty over resources located in what has been historically a sovereign-free space. Thus, the purpose of this book is to investigate this paradox. Essentially, this book critiques the notion that ABNJ can actually be regulated under the auspices of the United Nations by nation-State negotiators.