Volume 10: Issue | Numéro 2 (2014)
The Role of Substantive Equality in Finding Sustainable Development Pathways in South Africa
Laura Pereira
This article explores how substantive equality, as it has been applied to the realization of socio-economic rights in South Africa, can be employed to shift the sustainable development paradigm from environmentalism to poverty eradication. Making this shift requires alternative pathways that counter the dominant sustainable development discourse. This article discusses how to open up such alternatives by applying the legal rhetoric of substantive equality to issues of sustainable development as presented in cases of socio-economic rights dependent on ecosystem goods and services, referred to here as “socio-ecological rights”. Under the conditions of natural resource scarcity that are projected in the medium- to long-term, it is important to understand the principles governing our resource allocating institutions. Substantive equality provides a useful context in which to start incorporating global environmental discourse on distributive justice into domestic legal frameworks that recognize sustainable development as both environmental stewardship and social justice.
Tax Transparency and the Marketplace: A Pathway to State Sustainability
Montano Cabezas
This article advances the argument that market participants, increasingly concerned about the sustainability of the social benefits and opportunities derived from the state, are interested in how companies contribute to society via taxation. The article advocates that companies should disclose their tax returns for each jurisdiction in which they operate, in order to give market participants a tool to better understand a company’s comprehensive economic contribution to society. It then investigates how more diffuse measurements based on externality assessment could be used to “score” a company’s contribution to society, and how such scoring could affect both the markets and tax policy. The article concludes by reiterating aspirations for tax transparency, and by advocating for a new state-business tax paradigm in order to ensure the continued viability of the state as a provider of social goods.
L’effectivité de l'urbanisme à l'épreuve de la transition énergétique en France
Félix François Lissouck
La protection de l’environnement, plus particulièrement la prise en compte des préoccupations énergétiques, est devenue un défi planétaire porté d’abord par une mobilisation citoyenne, associative et, depuis quelques années, par les États. Pour répondre à ce défi, la France met en œuvre des mesures qui visent l’intégration de la transition énergétique dans le cadre, notamment, du droit de l’urbanisme. Il est donc nécessaire de rendre compte de cette notion et des conditions de son articulation dans le champ d’application de ce droit. Si le droit de l’urbanisme, en raison de la souplesse de son objet, a pu intégrer cette transition, sa mise en œuvre ainsi que les divers enjeux qui y sont liés soulèvent des difficultés diverses qui en limitent l’effectivité. La présente contribution revient sur les conditions de l'énonciation du défi théorique que constitue la transition énergétique afin d’en faciliter l’application par le droit de l’urbanisme.
Alexandre Genest
On May 6, 2013, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) made public its decision in the Canada—Feed-in Tariff Program case. The multitude of observers anticipated a watershed decision regarding renewable energy generation and the application of world trade law to its subsidization. Unfortunately, both the WTO Panel and the Appellate Body irked this constituency with their failure to come to a decisive conclusion under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement). This comment traces this indecisiveness back to an unwarranted complication of the test for demonstrating the existence of a benefit under Article 1.1(b) of the SCM Agreement and to fact-finding failures on the part of the WTO Panel. It will conclude by asking why neither the Panel nor the Appellate Body invoked judicial economy to forego their inconclusive analyses under the SCM Agreement after having found a violation under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures.
