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A Disaster-Resilient, “Frugal” Information System

September 26, 2014
By 19642

In March 2011, the Tohoku region of Japan suffered the worst earthquake and tsunami disaster to ever hit the country. Hampering rescue and relief activities in the immediate aftermath of the quake was the serious damage to the communications infrastructure. How can an information system be built that is more resilient to major disasters? Mihoko Sakurai, a Sylff fellow at Keio University, believes that the key to such a system is “frugality.”

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The Arch, the university’s academic symbol.

The Arch, the university’s academic symbol.

My current research on disaster-resilient information systems (IS) was prompted by the March 11, 2011, earthquake in northern Japan—the largest quake the country ever experienced. The Great East Japan Earthquake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale, making it one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history. The tsunami caused by the quake reached 40 meters in height and hit Tohoku’s eastern coastline, severely damaging a very wide area and triggering great confusion. Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency reports that 18,958 people died, 6,219 were injured, and 2,655 are missing as of March 2014; 127,291 houses were totally lost, and more than 1,000,000 were partially destroyed.

Field Survey in Japan

The earthquake and tsunami exposed the vulnerability of Japan’s information communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, as the loss of communication greatly hampered rescue and relief efforts and more than likely increased the death toll.

From November 2011 to February 2012, eight months after the earthquake, I and other members of our research team conducted structured interviews with 13 municipal governments in the areas hardest hit by the earthquake. The objective of the survey was to ascertain how ICT systems inside municipal offices were affected by the earthquake. We visited Miyako, Otsuchi, Kamaishi, Rikuzentakata, Kesennuma, Minamisanriku, Ishinomaki, Higashimatsushima, Sendai, Minamisoma, and Iwaki, as well as evacuation centers in Namie and Futaba.

These municipalities are located in the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima. Under the administrative structure of the Japanese government, municipalities occupy the third rung. At the top of the ladder is the national government; this is followed by the 47 prefectural governments and 1,742 municipal governments (as of May 1, 2013) at the local level. The size of municipal governments varies enormously; while big cities like Osaka and Yokohama have a few million residents, some small villages have a population of less than 1,000.

There are several types of municipalities in Japan, namely, shi (cities with a population of over 50,000), cho or machi (towns variously defined by each prefecture), son or mura (villages), and tokubetu-ku (the 23 special wards of Tokyo). The populations of the municipalities we visited varied from 2,000 to 70,000. Almost all of them were small cities. Legally speaking, the role of municipal governments is to provide public services to citizens and, perhaps most importantly, to maintain a registry of all residents—the data that serves as the foundation of government. Prefectures are defined more loosely as wide-area governments.

Our survey included questions on preparedness, the level of damage, and the recovery process of ICT equipment, including power supply, network connectivity, information systems, and related facilities.

Need for Disaster-Resilient Systems

Analyses of these cases led us to conclude that building a robust system that never fails is impossible and to recognize that creative field responses are of crucial importance. The immediate problem after the March 2011 earthquake was the failure of the supporting infrastructure needed to run the information systems. The physical destruction of servers also meant that residential records were lost in some areas. The survey also revealed that a uniform plan across all municipalities would not have been appropriate, since the situation in various towns and cities—and the necessary responses—were continually changing. Government buildings were generally sturdy, and most survived the tsunami. But this did not mean that the ICT system survived intact. Some municipal offices did not recover their information systems for four months.

This should prompt a rethinking of ICT system design to ensure that communication can be maintained, especially in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster. Resilient systems are needed that can maintain or recover their core functions flexibly and quickly. Flexibility is required to enable creative responses in a disaster situation using minimal resources. Such systems are particularly important for municipal governments, which need to embark on rescue and life-saving activities immediately after a disaster.

This is a totally different approach from that required during normal times. The national government has tried to create robust and special systems for disaster situations, but they have not always had the required resilience in the face of actual severe situations. Once they are destroyed, moreover, they cannot be restored quickly.

“Frugality” as an Essential Concept

The “frugal information system” concept can be useful in building such a resilient system. This is an information system that is “developed and deployed with minimal resources to meet the preeminent goal of the client.” Such a system would be important under disaster situations, when people have limited access to resources. A frugal system is characterized by the four U’s: “universality,” the drive to overcome the friction of information systems’ incompatibilities; “ubiquity,” the drive to access information unconstrained by time and space; “uniqueness,” the drive to know precisely the characteristics and location of a person or entity; and “unison,” the drive for information consistency.

Mobile devices can serve as a standard platform to meet these “4U” requirements.

They were indeed the most widely used means of communication by individuals in the wake of the 3.11 disaster. The mobile infrastructure was restored with greater ease than other systems (ubiquitous network). They have open interfaces (universality). The phone number or SIM ID can be used for the identification of individuals (uniqueness). And as soon as the networks are restored, data can be backed up on cloud data storage (unison). There is the additional benefit that power can be easily supplied to the handsets.

Smartphones can be particularly useful devices in a disaster situation. People are gaining familiarity with these phones through daily use, which is very important under panic situations. Following a disaster, people are unlikely to use tools with which they are unfamiliar.

Future Research

I am currently working on a project to build a prototype smartphone application that employs the principles of resilient design. A test will be conducted in October 2014 at Tome, Miyagi, which was one of the cities heavily affected by the disaster. The initial test will involve the use of smartphones as part of an evacuation center’s operations during the first week. Three key functions will be tested, namely, (1) the identification and registration of people at the center using their phone numbers or SIM IDs, (2) recording people’s arrival and departure, and (3) creating an evacuee database. Using the smartphone’s number, the application can enable the transmission of information on such required items as medicine and milk for infants.

Smartphone applications designed to support disaster victims already exist. But none are suitable for municipal disaster relief operations. If municipal officials use the same applications as residents, the sharing of information can be greatly facilitated, enabling a smoother delivery of relief supplies. What we need to do is to make sure such applications are operational and widely used before they are needed and are quickly made available after a disaster.

The Great East Japan Earthquake posed what might have been the biggest possible challenge to an information society, making us acutely aware that our daily life—as well as government operations to help people in need—rely heavily on the ICT infrastructure. The performance of nearly all activities in advanced economies has become dependent on ICT, and disasters illustrate the fragility of this dependence. The earthquake shook our confidence in technology, and a study of its effects indicates the importance of designing systems with a recovery model in mind.

The University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

The University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

Massive disasters are likely to become more common around the world in the years to come 1, as suggested by the fact that there were three times as many natural disasters between 2000 and 2009 as between 1980 and 19892. I believe that a correct understanding of resilience and the development of information systems designed to withstand severe conditions can make the world a safer plain which to live. This research is certainly not over.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the Tokyo Foundation for supporting my research abroad. Thanks to an SRA award, I was able to conduct research at the University of Georgia, where my ideas were greatly enhanced under the supervision Dr. Richard Watson—regents professor and J. Rex Fuqua distinguished chair for Internet strategy in the Department of Management Information Systems at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business—who advocates the notion of a frugal information system.

1http://www.emdat.be/natural-disasters-trends, last accessed June 8 2014.
2http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange/steady-increase-in-climate-rel/19974069, last accessed June 8 2014.

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The Arts in Crisis and their Survival in the Twenty First Century:
A View from Sociolinguistics

March 27, 2014
By 19604

Can the liberal arts maintain its value in society despite losing both popularity and funding to such practical disciplines as the sciences, engineering, and business administration? Christopher Lees, a Sylff fellow while at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, offers steps that can be taken by arts scholars to maintain the relevance of their discipline in society, using examples from Greece and sociolinguistics.

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Introduction

The author deilvering a speech at Sylff ceremony at the University of Athens

The author deilvering a speech at Sylff ceremony at the University of Athens

At last year’s anniversary marking Sylff’s 20-year presence at the University of Athens in Greece, I was given the opportunity to speak about the crisis the liberal arts face today in the context of the economic crisis. Ever increasingly, the arts are brushed to the sidelines, considered of secondary importance compared to the sciences, technology, and business studies. This is apparent the world over with numerous departments being merged, reduced, or even threatened with closure. In Greece too, the infamous and narrowly averted Athina Plan proposed by the Ministry of Education saw it fit to heap foreign language departments together so as to create one giant “Department of Foreign Languages,” apparently with no regard for the academic integrity and significance of each department’s work and research as a separate entity.

In part, this stance towards the arts and their subjects is borne out of today’s predominant philosophy that only visibly practical things are worth people’s time, money and investment. As far as degree courses are concerned, this is often translated to mean that students tend to select a course that they see to be directly linked to the job market. This perhaps explains the popularity of business management and finance-related courses, which, according to David Williams (n.d.), are the most popular among Greek students (but not only Greek students) pursuing postgraduate education.

While students themselves cannot be blamed for choosing a degree course that they envisage will provide them with good employment prospects, this devaluation of arts subjects runs the risk of creating a sense that they are simply not worth studying. I myself, as a former undergraduate student in the UK, was frequently met with bewildered expressions on the faces of those who learned of my intention to study foreign languages at university.

Furthermore, this ever increasing lack of appreciation for the arts also poses the threat of subjects not being given the funding they deserve to carry out important research projects, and this is something which is being increasingly felt on an international level, where students find it difficult to get scholarships, and academic staff face increasing hurdles in publishing their work.

Arts subjects cannot, however, be entirely absolved from blame in relation to the regard in which they are held in society. While a doctor may not need to convince society about the importance of medicine and medical research, and an economist may not need to validate his work by highlighting the significance of sound finance, the arts scholar needs to and should take it upon him- or herself to inform society of the relevance of his/her subject. Quite often, knowledge generated by the arts subjects is confined and recycled within the academic circles of universities, which in turn are often treated as monasteries of knowledge and, indeed, even referred to as not being “the real world.”

Arts subjects and their scholars should, therefore, make the extra effort to share the knowledge they generate with the wider circles of society so that they too may benefit from what these subjects have to teach and offer us. This, I believe, is a general principle by which universities should operate: not to exclude nonmembers of what sometimes resembles the academic elite but to involve them in the work being carried out and to show them how this work is relevant to our lives. In this article, I intend to show how the arts are relevant to society and how scholars may make their work more accessible. I shall do this from the perspective of my own field, sociolinguistics, and then show how the arts can be made more accessible to ordinary members of society.

Sociolinguistics and Society

The relationship between language and society is well documented in linguistics. Just as language reflects social structures, ideologies, and stances, so too does language have the ability to influence and shape society, its structures, and its perceptions (Dittmar 1976, Lucy 1992, Wardhaugh 1992). That is to say that, while the speakers of a language coin or adopt phrases to express themselves linguistically, these same linguistic expressions, through repeated contextualized instances of usage, subsequently contribute to the way speakers think and view the world around them, evidenced by the fact that many linguistic expressions, proverbs, and idioms are unique to specific languages and reflect and form the mentalities of their speakers. Consequently, it is possible for us to refer to the relationship between language and society as being a two-way one: society depends on language to express itself, and language depends on society in order to develop and lexically reflect social structures and values.

According to Kakridi-Ferrari (2005: 53), many sociolinguists feel the need to use their specialized knowledge in order to offer something of practical use to society. As such, one of the main aims of sociolinguistic scholarship is to highlight what language can show us about society, its issues and problems, and how this can then be applied for practical purposes in various areas, from solving issues of inequality and prejudice to better understanding social norms and improving education.

Linguistic sexism, for instance, is an example of how social inequality is mirrored and redistributed linguistically. Sociolinguistic researchers, especially during the US feminist movement of the 1970s, have attempted to highlight some of the features of language that undermine or even exclude the role of women in society. In inflected languages such as Greek, where gender is morphologically marked, this is a particularly problematic issue, especially apparent in nouns denoting professions, for which many still only use a masculine noun ending.

In addition to this, generic references to groups comprising more than one person also, by and large, use exclusively masculine noun endings, thus linguistically excluding women from many sectors of society and creating a sense of a need to adopt male values and practices imposed on them by society and reflected and redistributed linguistically (see Pavlidou 2002). Sociolinguistics is therefore in a position to use its findings to highlight aspects of how language demonstrates sexism in society and to attempt to suggest, at least from a linguistic point of view, how this may be resolved. Once this has been done, both findings and suggestions can be forwarded to the relevant government departments, who may in turn make changes to the existing legislation.

Another area of social inequality visible through language is that of racism. Van Dijk’s (1993) seminal study of how elite discourse, notably that of the press, constructs and disseminates racial prejudice, shows us both how language mirrors a society’s mindset and also how this is then negotiated and propagated though a process of social cognition, that is to say, repeated exposure to expressions of racial sentiment, which then becomes etched in the minds of speakers.

I myself have researched the ways in which Greek newspapers make use of intricate linguistic strategies so as, on the one hand, to represent what they view as mainstream Greek public opinion and, on the other, to fuel feelings of racial tension (Lees 2012). This latter instance serves as a very good example of how the two-way relationship between language and society can be viewed in action against the background of political change in Greece, where older perceptions are being constantly challenged, thus creating a dynamic mix of opinion represented in the language of the press.

As was the case for linguistic sexism, sociolinguistics can again here uncover the linguistic practices of journalists and raise awareness of how these may not always be as objective as one might be inclined to think but are directly related to political and social ideology. Again, by highlighting this, pressure can be brought to bear on the government of the day to make changes to policies concerning racism.

Another important area to which sociolinguistics can contribute is that of education. The foundations of how the social aspects of language interact with education were laid by Basil Bernstein (1971) and his theory of restricted and elaborated codes. Despite the criticism he received, Bernstein was the first to draw attention to the fact that a child’s success at school is directly linked to the linguistic interaction he or she engages in at home. The logical consequence of this is that those children who engage in linguistic interaction at home that closely resembles that of the language taught in schools will be in a better position to do well in education.

It is worth noting that there is often a marked difference between the language taught in schools and the varieties spoken in even a small local community. The emphasis in education should, therefore, be placed on assisting speakers of regional and social varieties to adapt to the standardized language used in schools for the purpose of education, while acknowledging and respecting language rights. This was clearly shown by Labov (1972) in his influential work on the language of the African American community, known then as BEV (Black English Vernacular) and now called African American Vernacular English (AAVE). He concluded that schools should not treat AAVE as substandard, as was often the case, thus placing its speakers at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to those who at home speak the standard form of English taught in schools, but as a distinct social variety of English with its own grammatical rules.

Due to the fact that sociolinguistics, by nature of its subject, is in a position to research and highlight social aspects of language and because language is a social phenomenon, its role in education is particularly crucial. Just as is the case with social prejudice reflected and propagated through language, so is there linguistic prejudice against language varieties. Sociolinguists can work with education policymakers to assure that—while a standard language form is necessary for education and indeed for communication purposes—regional and social varieties of a language are respected and even taught, especially when used by pupils.

A case in point is the research I am currently involved in regarding the language used by Greek teenagers on Facebook (Lees et al. 2014). Since computer mediated language practices have become an inseparable part of teenagers’ lives, and since these computer mediated language practices have their own unique features, we feel that they needed to be treated as a variety of Greek and incorporated into the school curriculum. This is not to say that computer mediated language practices should be taught as standard, merely that it can be used to increase pupils’ critical awareness of the social aspects of language and how, why, and in which contexts these differ from the language taught as standard in schools.

A group of Greek teenagers the author works with.

A group of Greek teenagers the author works with.

In sum, the role that sociolinguistics does and can play in society is apparent and the benefits clear. As previously noted, these benefits need not (and should not) be confined to within the walls of universities and research centers but practically applied to all areas of society where language has an impact. This will ensure that the values and significance of sociolinguistics are known on a much wider scale. The same logic can and, in my opinion, must be applied to all arts subjects so that they may regain some of the prestige and deference lost in the wake of the economic crisis and so that the notion that the arts are not practical subjects and, therefore, not worth investing in can be dismissed. In the next section, some ways in which this can be done are briefly outlined and discussed.

Bringing the Arts Home

There are several ways in which the significance of the arts can be shared with the wider community. For example, scholars may choose to write their research findings in popular newspapers and magazines. Quite different from an academic journal, such mediums allow the scholar to target a much wider audience with various interests. Of course, the style of writing and content must be simplified and even, perhaps, popularized. However, publishing through the popular media allows the scholar to present, discuss, and share their research with a variety of people, many of whom may not even know that fields like sociolinguistics exist, let alone what they do.

Aside from showcasing research, the arts scholar may also use the media of newspapers and magazines to highlight, even on a regular basis by means of a column, the relevance of their topic. For the sociolinguist, this could involve the social aspects of language, including anything from language minority issues to language policy and even street art and graffiti, much of which, especially in Greece, is of a highly political nature. Writing in newspapers and magazines also serves the purpose of dispelling many of the myths concerning language that are often written by nonlinguists who lack the appropriate background to offer academically informed opinions.

Another area in which the arts can be promoted is through the organization of talks in local communities. This can be done either through local community centers or local education authorities. Informal in nature, such talks provide a good opportunity for local community members to come together and learn of the work and research being carried out in any given field. As with the use of the media, talks also allow disadvantaged members of the community to participate in learning in ways that may have previously been inaccessible to them.

Depending on the research interests of the scholar, it may even be possible for local members of the community to actively participate in a research project. In terms of sociolinguistics, a valuable aspect of having community members participate in such projects is that it will enable them to better understand the value of their cultural and linguistic attributes, which in many cases are highly stigmatized.

Finally, another way in which the arts and their subjects can be shared with the local community is through reading groups and free seminars. More formal in nature compared with local talks, such groups generally target people with an academic interest in the field. They may be offered on a volunteer basis and could be integrated into a wider context of volunteer work to provide free education for disadvantaged members of the public or anyone with an interest in the areas discussed. Such groups have been recently introduced in Greece and have so far proved to be a great success.

In conclusion, the fate of the arts and the prestige and respect they deserve largely depends on what we, as scholars, make of them ourselves. It would seem apparent that knowledge and research carried out at universities around the world should be made more transparent and accessible to all members of society, rather than belonging to a select few, especially since such members are the ones who, more often than not, fund such research.

In this article, I have outlined several ways in which this can happen. As opposed to merely complaining about the diminishing regard for arts subjects, those of us in these disciplines should first ask ourselves why this is the case and what we can do both individually and collectively to reverse this trend.

References

Bernstein, Βasil. 1971. Class, Codes and Control (Vol. 1). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Dittmar, Norbert. 1976. Sociolinguistics. A Critical Survey of Theory and Application. London: E. Arnold.

Kakridi-Ferrari, Maria. 2005. Glossa kai koinoniko perivallon: Zitimata koinonioglossologias (A Meros) [Language and Social Environment: Issues in Sociolinguistics: Part 1]. Contribution 64: Parousia Journal. Athens.

Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lees, Christopher. 2012. Glossikos ratsismos: mia kritiki analisi arthron apo ellinikes efimerides. [Linguistic Racism: A Critical Analysis of Articles in Greek Newspapers]. Master’s thesis. University of Athens.

Lees, Christopher (In press: 2014) “Psifiakes glossikes praktikes kai topoi koinonikis diktiosis: mia proti parousiasi” [Digital Language Practices and Social Networking Sites: An Initial Presentation] Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Greek Linguistics. Rhodes: University of the Aegean.

Lucy, John. 1992. Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformation of the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula. 2002. “Glossa-Genos-Fylo: Provlimata, Anazitiseis kai Elliniki Glossa” [Language-Gender-Sex: Problems, Questions and Greek Language] in Pavlidou, T.S. (2002) (ed.) Glossa-Genos-Fylo [Language-Gender-Sex].15–64. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies: Manolis Triantafillidis.

Van Dijk, Teun. 1993. Elite Discourse and Racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Williams, David. n.d. “Study Choice: A Look at the Most Popular Subjects for Greek Graduate Students.” Web article available at: http://www.look4studies.com/default.asp?pid=19&langID=1&nwid=249 (accessed on February 20, 2014).

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From Promise to Reality: Kisumu Leadership and Development Conference

October 25, 2013
By null

In August 2013 Sylff fellow Otieno Aluoka (read his report)—the first recipient of the Tokyo Foundation’s recently overhauled Sylff Leadership Initiatives program—used his SLI award to organize a groundbreaking seminar in Kenya on ways to build a government that works for the people. Mari Suzuki, the Tokyo Foundation’s director for leadership development, offers a first-hand report on this seminal conference, which attracted over 150 civic leaders and public officials from Kisumu County, one of the semi-autonomous entities established under the country’s new democratic constitution.

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Kism7

Kenya today is in the midst of a historic transition, the most important change the nation has experienced since achieving independence from Britain 1963. In 2010, Kenya adopted a new constitution centered on democracy and devolution of power. In 2013, the nation’s newly established semi-autonomous counties held their first-ever elections to select representatives to the national legislature under the new constitution.

For such democratic institutions to function as they were intended, however, it is vital that voters and officials understand the principles of the new system and their role within it. This was the aim of the Kisumu Leadership and Development Conference, held on August 26–27 with funding from the Tokyo Foundation’s Sylff Leadership Initiatives support program, administered in conjunction with the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund. The following is a report on the background and outcomes of the conference, which I attended as a representative of the Tokyo Foundation.

Sylff and the Kisumu Initiative

Sylff is a fellowship program established by the Nippon Foundation and administered by the Tokyo Foundation with the aim of “nurturing future leaders who will contribute to the common good of humanity, transcending the confines of nationality, religion, and ethnicity, even while respecting differences in culture and values.” Since its establishment in 1987, Sylff has grown into a fellowship program encompassing 69 institutions of higher education in 44 countries, benefiting more than 15,000 students.

Sugarcane is transported to a mill for processing

Sugarcane is transported to a mill for processing

One key feature of Sylff is that it follows through with fellowship recipients even after graduation. The Tokyo Foundation’s Sylff support programs provide ongoing assistance designed to help former Sylff fellows grow into effective leaders who can make a positive contribution to their own societies at the local or national level. One such program is Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI), which supports various social action projects initiated by current or former Sylff fellows. The Kisumu Leadership and Development Conference was the first project selected for an SLI award since the program was relaunched in modified form in February this year.

The Kisumu conference was organized at the initiative of Otieno Aluoka, a 1999 Sylff fellow at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. Since graduating, Aluoka has worked as a governance consultant to international organizations and foreign governments in Nairobi. At the same time, he has been deeply involved in community action in his native Kisumu, to the west of Nairobi. The networks Aluoka built in both regions helped make the Kisumu leadership conference possible.

Village women walk with baskets balanced on their heads.

Village women walk with baskets balanced on their heads.

Kenya’s new constitution is a groundbreaking charter that seeks a wholesale reform of the political process. The aim is to move the nation from a system oriented toward preserving a balance of power among Kenya’s 40-odd ethnic groups to one focused on long-term problem solving via democratic processes. Yet the majority of Kenyans continue to vote along strictly ethnic lines. Aluoka realized that Kenyans had to begin casting their votes on the basis of the candidates’ policies, rather than their ethnicity, if democracy was to function properly in Kenya. And for this to happen, elected politicians had to begin rewarding their constituents in undeveloped areas by representing their interests at the national level and working on their behalf to promote development.

With this in mind, Aluoka decided that the best way to contribute to the development of Kenyan democracy was to organize a conference of county-level politicians (all of whom are new on the job), local officials, and community leaders to enhance their understanding of the new constitution, and the role of local leaders within the new system. It was the first such conference ever held in Kisumu—located far from the capital in Nairobi—where democratic reforms have been slow to take hold.

Historical and Political Context

To better appreciate the significance of the Kisumu conference, we should take a moment to establish its historical and political context. The chronology below lists the major historical milestones leading up to the promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution. Brief Political Chronology

1963
Kenya gains independence from Great Britain; early constitution provides for multi-party parliamentary system and elected provincial assemblies.
1966
Kenya become de facto one-party state; provincial assemblies abolished.
1982
After attempted coup d’état, National Assembly officially declares Kenya a one-party state. Country is divided into eight provinces under provincial commissioners, who are appointed by the president.
1991
Constitution revised to permit multi-party elections and limit presidents to two terms.
2002
President Daniel arap Moi steps down after 24 years in office; movement for constitutional reform picks up steam.
2007
Presidential election held under new election law. In post-election violence, some 1,500 Kenyans are killed and tens of thousands are forced to flee their homes.
2010
New constitution enacted with the aim of preventing further violence, devolving political power to local districts, protecting the rights of minorities, and solving long-term problems.

Government under the New Constitution

Previously, Kenya was divided into eight provinces, which were under the direct control of the central government. The new constitution (specifically, Article 11) provides for the devolution of power to the local level. It divides the country into 47 counties, each of which has a locally elected governor and deputy governor. (Governors are typically male, while deputy governors are most often female.) Elections and lawmaking are governed by the rules of multi-party parliamentary democracy. The constitution also features special provisions designed to guarantee that marginalized groups, such as women, disabled persons, and youth, have representation at the local and national levels.

Kenya’s 47 counties are each divided into anywhere from 2 to 12 constituencies, depending on their population, and each constituency is further divided into 5 wards. Each ward elects a representative to serve on the county assembly, which works with the governor to govern the county. In addition to ward representatives, each county assembly has six nominated members chosen to represent marginalized groups. Members are also selected as necessary to ensure that neither male nor female members control more than two-thirds of the seats in any given county assembly.

Figure 1. Kenya’s Bicameral Parliament

Figure 1. Kenya’s Bicameral Parliament

At the national level, Kenya has a bicameral Parliament made up of the Senate and the National Assembly. The Senate consists of 67 members. Of these, 47 are elected from each county by direct ballot. In addition, 20 seats are reserved for marginalized groups: 16 for women, 2 for youth, and 2 for the disabled. These are filled by party nomination according to each party’s share of the vote.

The National Assembly consists of 349 members. Of these, 290 are elected by popular vote, one from each constituency. Another 47 seats are filled by women elected from each county. Finally, 12 members are selected by party nomination to represent the disabled and other marginalized groups.

The legislators elected from counties and constituencies around the country gather for parliamentary sessions in Nairobi, where they represent the interests of their respective districts while participating in important decisions regarding budget allocations. Kenya’s least developed counties are entitled to allocations from an “equalization fund” amounting to 0.5% of state revenues, but only on request. How much a county receives hinges largely on the efforts of its representatives in Parliament.

Kisumu and the Leadership Conference

Kisumu County is located in western Kenya, far from the nation’s capital. (To the southwest, in neighboring Siaya County, lies the village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, birthplace of Barack Obama senior.) The city of Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria, has historically functioned as a major center of East African commerce. Because of its location along Africa’s largest lake, the area is ideally situated for fishing and fish processing, but the central government has long controlled key concessions on the lake, and economic development has left many of the inhabitants behind. Fishing, sugarcane farming, and rice farming are the county’s principal industries. Kisumu has long been riven by a fierce political rivalry between the Luo and Kikuyu peoples, and these ethnic tensions erupted into deadly violence following the controversial outcome of the December 2007 presidential election. SLI_Kism3

The Kisumu Leadership and Development Conference was held on August 26 and 27 at a community complex in Chemelil ward in Muhoroni, one of Kisumu County’s seven constituencies. The conference drew more than 150 participants, including members of the Kisumu County Assembly, various community leaders from each constituency (including representatives from the farming and fishing industries, business, nonprofit and civic organizations, research entities, the legal profession, the teaching profession, women’s groups, and so forth), and members of the Kisumu County Executive Committee, as well as a number of legal experts and civil rights experts from Nairobi. The region’s ethnic plurality was also on display at the conference: Along with the Luo, who make up the majority of the district’s population, the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Nandi, and other ethnic groups were well represented.

The plenary sessions featured talks by scholars, members of the Kisumu County Executive Committee, a National Assembly member (from neighboring Siaya County to ensure neutrality), and others regarding the principles of the new constitution and the political and administrative systems it established. Each of the speakers fielded numerous questions from the audience. In breakout sessions devoted to healthcare, education, transportation, water, and law and order, participants discussed the issues facing Kisumu and what must be done to resolve them.

By the end of the two-day conference, the groundwork had been laid for future meetings by citizens interested in formulating concrete proposals in each area and submitting them to the county government. Equally significant was the bonds newly forged among the county’s civic and economic leaders, many of whom met for the first time. Participants from diverse sectors pledged to work together to make the new constitution’s promise a reality.

A number of the conference participants provided positive feedback regarding the event and its significance. The following is a sampling.

Teresa Okiyo, a research officer at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, noted that very little information had reached Kisumu regarding the new constitution and the process of devolution, and she praised the conference for helping participants see what they needed to do to make their voices heard in government. (Okiyo has studied paddy farming in Yamagata Prefecture under a Japan International Cooperation Agency training program.)

Dr. Rose Kisia, Kisumu County Executive Committee member in charge of commerce, tourism and heritage, called the conference an important first step that had made Kisumu a model for other counties to follow.

Legal Resources Foundation Trust director Janet Munywoki, who arrived early in the morning on the first flight out of Nairobi, noted that she had traveled to Kisumu at her own expense, convinced of the importance of such a ground-breaking conference. She stressed the need to hold similar gatherings throughout Kenya.

Significance and Impact

Returning to Nairobi after the conference, I had the opportunity to speak with John Smith-Sreen, director of democracy, rights, and governance for USAID (US Agency for International Development) in Kenya. Noting that the new constitution had been 10 years in the making, Smith-Sreen stressed the importance of the next three to five years in laying the groundwork for a functioning democracy.

Political instability, corruption, and inefficiency have long stunted Kenya’s growth and development. Fair democratic elections and the devolution of power to the counties are critical to the nation’s future economic growth. This is why American, British, Canadian, European, and UN agencies are actively involved in supporting Kenya’s reforms. USAID has placed special emphasis on promoting effective coordination between the state and the counties. But another key task is to ensure that civil-society organizations are informed about the new constitution and to encourage their political participation at the local level.

By promoting public understanding of devolution and helping to forge linkages between the county government and the local citizens, the Kisumu leadership conference has made an important contribution to the local community and Kenyan society as a whole. It is a contribution made all the more significant by the fact that it occurred when it was most needed. In this period of sweeping change for Kenya’s government, society, and economy, the nation has scant resources to spare for such consciousness-raising efforts. This is why Otieno Aluoka’s initiative was such an effective use of SLI funds.

A Role Model for Young Leaders

Otieno Aluoka at the Kisumu leadership conference.

Otieno Aluoka at the Kisumu leadership conference.

Otieno Aluoka, who successfully organized the Kisumu leadership conference using a Sylff Leadership Initiatives grant from the Tokyo Foundation, has an excellent understanding of the Sylff mission to “nurture future leaders who will contribute to the common good of humankind.” Aluoka has been actively involved in the Sylff network for 14 years, ever since receiving a fellowship at the University of Nairobi. In March 2008, in the wake of the violence precipitated by the December 2007 election, Aluoka submitted an article titled “Kenya’s Post-Election Violence” to the Sylff website, in which he argued eloquently for the need for stronger legal and judicial institutions to create a just society in Kenya.

An anthropology major at the time he received his fellowship, Aluoka put his education to good use, subsequently devoting himself to law studies at the University of Nairobi. More important, he has used the fruits of these academic labors not merely to lift himself up but to build a better society. This is precisely the outcome envisioned by the Sylff program, and it is this impulse that SLI and other Sylff support programs were designed to encourage. Listening to the lively and passionate discussion among participants at the Kisumu conference—described by Aluoka as the starting point for the devolution of power in Kisumu County—I was struck by how closely his initiative dovetailed with the purpose of the Foundation’s Sylff support programs. This was truly money well spent.

By supporting the activities of Sylff fellows after they go out into society, SLI complements the fellowship program in an important way, defining Sylff’s long-term aims and expectations and encouraging concrete social action. As the program continues, the success stories of people like Otieno Aluoka will provide inspiration for other Sylff fellows and contribute further to leadership development around the world.

Leadership development is a long-term undertaking. But the young leaders that the Sylff program has nurtured over the years have continued to grow, and last August I was able to watch as one of those leaders made an important and timely contribution to his nation’s development during a period of political and social transformation. I am hopeful that Otieno Aluoka’s example will serve as a stimulus and encouragement to young leaders in Kenya and around the world.

Postscript

Following the conference, Otieno Aluoka compiled a list of proposals based on the discussions held at the conference and submitted them to the Kisumu County Executive Committee on September 9, with the cooperation of Chemelil ward representative Joseph Osano, who has pledged to push for their adoption. Issues and ideas raised at the conference received coverage in three of Kenya’s national newspapers, and they are already beginning to influence policy makers at various levels.

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Voicing Violence: Constructing Meaning from Narratives by Children in Red-Light Districts of South Kolkata

August 21, 2013
By 19594

Anindita Roy received her Sylff fellowship from Jadavpur University in India in 2012 and conducted research in the United Kingdom using a Sylff Research Abroad grant from April to June 2013. In this article, she writes of children’s psychological development under adverse conditions in India, based on an analysis conducted in the UK of the field data she gathered over a year of research in Kolkata, India.

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kolkata.map

Interests drive passion. Sometimes, they also help to shape paths that lead one to journeys of exploration. In my case, an interest in children and their development have led me into landscapes of the mind and how it constructs meaning. Specifically, mine has been an academic endeavor to understand the meaning-making process and its relation to identity formation, especially in children living in adverse environments. My research was carried out in two red-light districts of Southern Kolkata, and its participants were girls and boys aged between 8 and 14. During this year-long research, I was often asked about my choice of research site: “But, why the red-light district?”

Empowering Children in Economically Deprived Areas

Through a community involvement project I undertook at Jadavpur University, I had the opportunity to access the red-light neighborhoods of Kalighat and Khidderpore (which are the sites I chose in my research for a master of philosophy degree). The project was designed to empower children in economically and socially deprived areas whose needs and concerns, it was felt, were largely under-represented and often misrepresented. The participants of this project were trained to become radio reporters so they could express themselves on the platform of a community radio station located on the Jadavpur University campus.

There was one young and promising participant from Kalighat who suddenly stopped attending the training sessions after an enthusiastic involvement over half a year. We were informed by the institution that introduced us to the children in this sensitive area that the participant had left the city and returned to the village and would no longer be able to join the project. It was some weeks later that this participant was seen (by several members of our project) standing with a couple of young girls on the lanes of Kalighat, trying to get clients. We assumed from what we saw that the child, who was still a minor, had become part of the flesh trade. Over the course of the project, a few more children left to “go back to their villages.” (This is not to suggest, though, that they, too, entered the same profession, for unlike the first participant, they were never seen again.) I was less troubled about the truth of what we were told and why than about the kinds of thoughts that must have run through the children’s minds as they made their choices.

How did they make their choices? This was my chief concern: How do these children perceive their lives and the environments in which they live, as well as the meaning and consequences of the choices they make? The current research is part of an organic work in progress—an attempt to understand some of the questions that had seized my mind a long time ago.

Narratives of Abuse, Violence, and Suffering

Coming back to this work, made possible when my proposal was selected for a Sylff Research Abroad award, gave me an opportunity to carry out advanced research in the United Kingdom, where I was guided by scientists and teachers in the fields of psychology and childhood studies. A significant objective of my SRA project was to identify patterns from narratives created by children to understand their psychological development. For my fieldwork, participants were asked to take part in semi-structured interviews and story-telling sessions based on pictures that were presented to them.

Whether in reconstructing narratives from memories of lived experiences or in creating new tales for characters in their stories, the participants selected and conveyed narratives that were indicative of abuse, violence, and suffering. This repetition of certain information emanating from the participants’ memories defined and described their narratives. Understanding such field texts required a co-construction process based on familiarity with the field of research. Understanding violence starts from reading between the lines of what appears on tape in interviews and stories. The facts that are explicitly stated, though, helped me to categorize various expressions of violence. These categories may help lend meaning to the violence the participants recreate for their characters and elucidate the way they understand it in their own experiences.

Violence renders characters helpless. They protest but without support often succumb to the adversities in their environment. It entraps them:

“He started to hit his son, saying that he should work. The son protested, since his sister was studying, and said that he wanted to study too. He did not want to go to work. But the father hits him again and forces him to work. The son is frustrated and sad. He isn’t being allowed to do what he likes. He is not being allowed to gain an education or obtain a sense of security. The parents are forcing the son to do what they want. The boy weeps and cannot communicate.” (Participant A, story, excerpt)

The voice of the protestor surfaces but is silenced by authority—the father in this case. The “son is frustrated and sad” but has no resources that might extend support to him. In another story, the narrator finds his character equally distressed.

“One day, the boy was sent home from school for not being able to pay the fees. He went to his father and requested that he pay the fees. The father said that he had no money and that all the money was gone. The boy had to leave school. The boy requested that the father take up a job and help support the family. The father slapped the boy and said, “Why should I work? You will work.” And he sent the boy to a brick factory. The boy got 1000 or 2000 rupees a month. The father would snatch all the money from the boy and not even let him eat properly. The father would eat first and then give the leftovers to the son. The son was falling ill from not eating.” (Participant B, story, excerpt)

Death of Aspirations

In the face of discouragement, constant pressure, and abuse, the protestor’s voice is silenced. There is not only a metaphorical annihilation in terms of communication but also a physical extinction in certain cases. This reiterates the sense of seclusion, isolation, and neglect that the participants often mention in the process of their interviews, too. Not many are willing to listen or interact, and possibly the protestor may stop protesting altogether.

In the case of the first example, the narrator ends the story by saying, “He cries and declares finally that he will work, for his sister’s sake. He goes to work.” (Participant A, interview, excerpt). The voice of the character of the child in the story—the protestor—is dead. Their voice is possibly just as dead as their aspirations to study. The lack of voice eventually becomes the loss of voice.

“My parents have a fight between themselves. My mother works even in the night. My father comes in the morning and fights with her for money. He gambles and is unemployed. He comes home, eats, gambles, snatches money from my mother, and goes away. He does not let my mother sleep and hits her. I have tried so much to explain to him, but he will only beat me up. When I was seven, he hit my mother so badly that her skull cracked and was bleeding. I tried to stop him, but he slapped me so hard that I fear him from that day.” (Participant B, interview, excerpt)

Reconstructing the experience, the participant mentions the atrocities and the efforts made to check them by trying to convince the father against torturing the mother but is beaten up in response. It seems that there is no one to whom the participant can reach out for support, none that is consciously available in the participant’s mind at least. In the lack of support and a sense of helplessness, there arises the emotion of fear, which eventually swallows the participant’s voice in expression.

Perpetuation of Violence

Children celebrating Durga Puja, the biggest festival of West Bengal, where the author conducted interviews for her research

Children celebrating Durga Puja, the biggest festival of West Bengal, where the author conducted interviews for her research

In some cases, the expression of violence as a ‘should’ is also prevalent. This norm is in keeping with a social code of disciplining the child, for example: “If I were to choose between the father and the son, I would want to play the role of the father. I will have to become a father once I get married. I am hitting the boy because he doesn’t listen to me. I asked him to get a bucket from the market but he ran away.” (Participant C, story, excerpt)

It is as if, just like the character who feels he “will have to become a father” once he gets married, he will “have to” hit his children to help them learn. Another participant tells in a story, “If I were to play the role of the father, I would hit my son, too. I would hit him, if there is a need, to get things done. Sometimes it is important to hit, or else children become disobedient.”

Very few cases look at violence through the lens of characters that resort to violence for the sake of it or for the fun of it. “There are some people who only need a trivial reason to pick up fights. They are always ready to fight.” (Participant D, interview, excerpt) The readiness to fight seems to be reason enough for a fight as well. Another participant says in a story, “And this older boy is now hitting the younger boy. The older boy just feels like it. The reason could be anything—he just feels like beating up this boy, or he may just feel like creating trouble. If he creates trouble, he will have fun.” Few in number, but qualitatively significant, is the concept of characters deriving pleasure from the troubles they create (usually for others). “We might wonder why the man should hit the boy at all; but the man might be enjoying this act of hitting a boy.” (Participant E, story, excerpt).

Succumbing to violence, whether as oppressor or oppressed, is the dominant pattern in most plots. The characters suffer physically through beatings, psychologically through trauma, and emotionally through frustration and anxiety. The characters’ sufferings could be reflective of the participants’ own suffering, including from the inability to choose more positive alternatives, even in the realm of imagination. I do not present these patterns as predictions about individual development or social adaptation. I only propose that these constructions be regarded as voices that demand understanding and keen attention. There must be an attempt to understand what the narratives mean to the ones making them. In the case of my research, an attempt has been made to understand the meaning of violence as a first step in understanding the environments within which these children live and grow.

Is Schooling Synonymous with Learning?

In the recent past, the field of child development has been focusing on approaches to promote sustainable growth. While social theories and large-scale data have been constructively prevalent in India, so far, very little attention has been paid to children’s development from the perspective of understanding the child’s mind, emotions, and imagination. Well-meaning programs and policies have been formulated to accelerate growth in adverse conditions. In education, for example, programs have been introduced aimed at improving learning, such as a mid-day meal and free schooling until a certain age to promote education, especially for families in economically deprived conditions.

However, children may not necessarily equate schooling with learning. For example, in the course of data collection, some of my participants said that they would like to go to school, knowing that education is important, but also admitted that they are more interested in either the mid-day meal or in playing on the large school grounds from a lack of space in their own homes or their neighborhoods. The mid-day meal might thus help improve attendance at school but may not help improve learning. If school for these children means food and a place to play, then education will not be their first synonym for school. This is the dimension I hope to elucidate.

Such meanings will become clearer and more audible when the children are allowed to express and speak their minds. But sometimes, their realities are too difficult to share, even if they want to share them. In other parts of my research I have, therefore, analyzed the techniques of narrative construction as a means of expression and as clues to the understanding of the child. Henceforth, it would be interesting to explore and analyze the realm of the imagination and the use of it by children to renegotiate with their realities (or, maybe, to chance upon a completely new understanding).

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Japan’s Ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

May 20, 2013
By 19657

Salla Garský,1 a Sylff fellow at the University of Helsinki, used her Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) award to research the process of Japan’s ratification of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She presents an objective explanation of why Japan’s ratification was prolonged until 2007 after voting for the Statue in 1998.

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Salla Garský, in front of the Okuma Auditorium at Waseda University’s main campus.

Salla Garský, in front of the Okuma Auditorium at Waseda University’s main campus.

The Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted in 1998 by 120 countries, including Japan. Since 2002, when the Rome Statue came into force, the ICC has been a permanent and independent institution. Its establishment was a historical achievement that permanently conferred jurisdiction to punish the masterminds behind heinous crimes, including genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. No one who commits these crimes will thus be able to escape the consequences.

However, the power of the ICC depends entirely on member states because it has no resources of its own to make arrests and is financed by the state parties. Therefore, it is important to study the ratification process of the Rome Statute and explore potential obstacles for states’ decision to join the ICC.

Japan acceded to the Statute fairly late. While most ICC member states had ratified it by 2003, Japanese ratification did not come until July 20072. The objective of my research in Japan was to gather empirical evidence to answer the question: Why did it take almost 10 years for Japan to join an institution that it presumably supported from the beginning? Literature on Japan’s accession to the ICC has thus far focused on the legal aspects3. My research is aimed at contributing a political aspect to this literature by analyzing different political motivations behind the ratification process. This short article discusses some of the findings of my research in Japan.

Although I am interested in the political aspects of the ratification process, it is impossible to deny the role of the legal aspects. When countries consider joining the ICC, amendments to national laws are usually necessary. The Japanese legal system is a mix of civil and common law, with civil law characteristics, adopted from the German legal system, dominating the system4. Japan’s ratification of the Rome Statute required the deliberation of three main legal issues.

The Peace Bell, which Salla rang on her trip to Hiroshima.

The Peace Bell, which Salla rang on her trip to Hiroshima.

First, Japan had to consider whether and how to accommodate the crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC with the national Criminal Code, which is very specific and, as such, takes time to amend. As Arai et al. point out, Japan decided not to amend the Criminal Code because almost all crimes under the ICC’s jurisdiction, with a few, rather irrelevant exceptions, are already covered by Japanese laws.5

As Meierhenrich and Ko elaborate, another legal issue, related to the jurisdiction of the ICC, was Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution:

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”6

Because of this paragraph, legislating war-related laws was initially complicated, as this would imply the hypothetical possibility of Japan engaging in war-related activities. This obstacle, however, was overcome in 2004, when the Diet adopted a package of emergency legislation that enabled Japan to ratify the 1977 Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions.7

The last important legal issue was cooperation with the ICC, which Japan resolved by adopting the ICC Cooperation Law, consisting of 65 articles8. Altogether, the elaborate legal review of national laws and the Rome Statute, as well as the preparation of the ICC Cooperation Law, slowed down Japan’s accession to the ICC.

Besides legal questions, according to the interviews I conducted in Japan, the US policy on the ICC also delayed ratification. While the Bill Clinton administration was not enthusiastic about the ICC, the George W. Bush administration was openly opposed, starting a global campaign against the ICC and not hesitating to voice its dismay about the institution in bilateral and multilateral forums9. Since the United States is Japan’s most important ally, this US policy affected Japan’s willingness to join the ICC. The US opposition against the ICC started to ease after 2005, though, when the UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC. Shortly thereafter, Japan started to consider ratifying the Rome Statute.10

Another aspect that delayed Japan’s ratification of the Rome Statute was money. Due to its high gross domestic income, Japan was slated to become the main contributor to the ICC. Article 117 of the Rome Statute, defining the assessment of the contribution, left some room for interpretation, and Japan initially calculated that its contribution to the ICC would be 28% of the total budget.

Japan wanted to apply the UN ceiling of 22% to its ICC contribution, but the European Union hesitated to accept the proposal. Eventually, the ICC Assembly of States Parties approved the 22% ceiling, and ratification began to materialize.11

Words of Pope John Paul II to the people of Hiroshima, which have been the beacon guiding Salla's research.

Words of Pope John Paul II to the people of Hiroshima, which have been the beacon guiding Salla's research.

To conclude, unlike the European countries, most of which wanted to join the ICC quickly in order to show their support for the new Court, Japan was not in a hurry to ratify the Rome Statute. Rather, Japan wanted to wait and see how the newly established ICC would develop before it joined. In general, there was not much political pressure in Japan to join the ICC, but the UN Security Council’s referral of the Darfur case to the ICC clearly had a positive influence on Japan’s decision.

The impact of the Jun’ichiro Koizumi administration on the ratification process has not yet been researched in depth, and this will be the subject of my future research. Tentatively, the delay in ratification can be explained in terms of the Japanese way of dealing with international treaties, which was described in many of the interviews I conducted.

Today, Japan is an active member of the ICC, and one of the Judges, Kuniko Ozaki, is Japanese. I hope that in the future, Japan will start to actively promote the ICC in Asia, as the region is clearly underrepresented in the organization.

 

1 I want to thank the Tokyo Foundation for making my research in Japan possible. I also wholeheartedly thank my Japanese advisor, Professor Mariko Kawano of the Waseda University’s School of Law, for allowing me to visit her institution and for her warm and most helpful guidance with my research in Japan. I am also grateful to Professors Shuichi Furuya (Waseda University), Akira Mayama (Osaka University), Osamu Niikura (Ayoama Gakuin University), and Hideaki Shinoda (Hiroshima University) for discussing and sharing their experiences regarding Japanese policy on the ICC with me and Keita Sugai (Tokyo Foundation) for his helpfulness. Furthermore, I am indebted to the Embassy of Finland in Tokyo, in particular Ambassador Jari Gustafsson and First Secretary Jukka Pajarinen, and the Delegation of the European Union to Japan. Lastly, I want to thank Juha Hopia, Suvi Huikuri, Sergey Kryukov, Riikka Rantala, and Asaka Taniyama for making my stay in Japan unforgettable. Unless otherwise mentioned, the opinions expressed in this paper are solely my own.
2 United Nations Treaty Collection, “Status of Treaties,” Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General, 2012. Available at: <http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ParticipationStatus.aspx> (visited March 8, 2013).
3 Kyo Arai, Akira Mayama, and Osamu Yoshida, “Accession of Japan to the International Criminal Court: Japan’s Accession to the ICC Statute and the ICC Cooperation Law,” Japanese Yearbook of International Law, 51 (2008): 359–383; Kanako Takayama, “Participation in the ICC and the National Criminal Law of Japan,” Japanese Yearbook of International Law, 51 (2008): 348–408; Yasushi Masaki, “Japan’s Entry to the International Criminal Court and the Legal Challenges It Faced,” Japanese Yearbook of International Law, 51 (2008): 409–426; Jens Meierhenrich and Keiko Ko, “How Do States Join the International Criminal Court? The Implementation of the Rome Statute in Japan,” Journal of International Criminal Justice, 7/2 (2009): 233–256.
4 Veronica Taylor, Robert R. Britt, Kyoko Ishida, and John Chaffee, “Introduction: Nature of the Japanese Legal System,” Business Law in Japan, 1 (2008): 3–8; CIA, The World Factbook: Legal System, March 5, 2013. Available at: <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2100.html> (visited March 8, 2013).
5 Arai, Mayama, and Yoshida, “Japan’s Accession,” p. 365ff.
6 The Constitution of Japan, November 3, 1946. Available at: <http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/constitution_and_government_of_japan/constitution_e.html> (visited March 8, 2013).
7 Meierhenrich and Ko, “Rome Statue in Japan,” p. 237ff.
8 Takayama, “Participation in the ICC,” p. 388.
9 John R. Bolton, “Letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan,” Digest of United States Practice in International Law 2002, Sally J. Cummins and David P. Stewart, eds., 148–149, Office of the Legal Adviser, United States Department of State (Washington, D.C.: International Law Institute, 2002); H.R. 4775, Title II, American Service-Members’ Protection Act (Washington D.C.: Congress of the United States of America, January 23, 2002); H.R. 4818, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005. Washington D.C.: Congress of the United States of America, January 20, 2004; Human Rights First, “U.S. Threatens to Cut Aid to Countries That Support the ICC,” December 7, 2004. Available at: <http://www.iccnow.org/documents/HRF_Nethercutt_07Dec04.pdf> (visited March 8, 2013); John R. Bolton, “American Justice and the International Criminal Court: Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute,” Washington, D.C., November 3, 2003; Philip T. Reeker, “Press Statement: U.S. Initiative on the International Criminal Court,” U.S. Department of State, June 13, 2000.
10 Masaki, “Japan’s Entry to the ICC,” p. 418ff.
11 Ibid., p. 415ff.

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Qualitative Research as a Collaborative Enterprise

April 15, 2013
By 19651

Paulina Berrios, a doctoral candidate at the State University of New York, Albany, and a Sylff fellowship recipient at the University of Chile, shares the experiences of her field research (conducted with a Sylff Research Abroad award), during which she interviewed a number of part-time professors at Chilean universities to understand what they do inside and outside the classroom.

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Qualitative Research as a Collaborative Enterprise:How I Learned from Other People’s Experience and Developed as an Interviewer

The research process is itself a learning process. You discover new facts, identify new relationships among variables, and realize the many implications that the focus of your study can have on reality. On the other hand, you also come to master research skills that will be long lasting. As a research project usually involves many people and often multiple institutions, you also have an opportunity to network, which is an important skill to develop over time. My experience researching abroad fits this learning process too.

Paulina at the library of the State University of New York, Albany.

Currently pursuing my PhD in educational administration and policy studies with a concentration in higher education at the State University of New York at Albany, I went to Chile—my native country—to collect data for my dissertation. This research project deals with the academic work of part-time professors at universities in Santiago, Chile, and how institutions treat, value, and regulate their academic work.

The purpose of my research abroad was to conduct in-depth interviews with both part-time professors and university administrators. Having to conduct at least 60 interviews taught me many lessons. Among the most important were that qualitative research is a collaborative enterprise and that the skill of interviewing develops during the research process.

Focus of My Research

The research for my dissertation pays special attention to what part-timers do inside and outside the classroom in Chile, a country where part-time professors have a predominant presence at both public and private institutions of higher education. In addition, my study asks the question: What is the academic work of part-time professors? Because this is conditioned by many variables, an exploration of the academic work of part-time professors needs to be seen through multiple perspectives. By bringing together sociological, historical, and organizational perspectives into the analysis of part-time professors, research can be conducted that will help elucidate how institutions, organizational arrangements, national contexts of higher education, and individual dimensions like gender and age condition the academic work of part-time professors.

Research Hypothesis

Researchers have found that US part-time professors engage mostly in teaching activities (NCES 2002; Kezar 2012) and that they teach an average of 1.6 undergraduate classes and 0.2 graduate courses (NCES, 2002). So, I started by assuming that even though the data is for the United States, the Chilean case will not be dramatically different. In other words, I hypothesized that teaching, and more specifically, undergraduate teaching, would represent the main chunk of the academic work of the part-time professors at sampled Chilean universities. However, given the literature on differentiation in higher education, I expected that patterns would vary by both system factors, such as academic discipline and professional field, and individual factors like gender and age.

Selection of Cases

Regarding the selection of institutions for the fieldwork, geographical location and range of academic programs were the two main criteria. As a result, nine academic programs at five universities were selected. Specifically, these five universities were of three different types: research universities (Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Santiago, and Pontificia Universidad Catolica), a selective, large private university (Universidad Nacional Andres Bello), and a nonselective, large private university (Universidad San Sebastian). The nine academic and professional programs selected were mathematics, chemistry, sociology, history, education, engineering, nursing, odontology, and architecture.

Andrés Bello National University

Preliminary Findings

As for the major findings, to a certain degree, the academic work of part-time professors in Chilean universities matched the literature on this topic worldwide: Generally, part-time professors focused on teaching, but the teaching was executed differently, depending on the academic or professional program. Their work was also treated very differently by the various academic departments and schools. One manifestation of this differential treatment was the salaries offered to part-time professors; another was the institutional mechanisms introduced as incentives to retain part-time professors.

My research at Chilean universities revealed that some academic departments and professional schools were highly dependent on their part-time professors. Although their employment was not secured, part-time professors at these universities were offered very good salaries and incentives for their teaching services. As this study was not intended to be representative of the Chilean higher education system as a whole, these findings pertain only to the types of institution that were selected for this study, namely, public research universities and both elite and serious private universities.

The Researcher and the Fieldwork

In a qualitative study such as mine, collaboration proved to be critical. This is not to say that other types of research (e.g., quantitative) do not engage in collaboration, but in my case I could not have achieved all I did in the field without having both institutional support and good advice from relevant actors.

Good Advice Makes a Difference

Reality is not always what you expect. When engaged in the field, I found that what I learned about my research topic—that part-time professors are invisible to many—had a practical manifestation: When trying to contact part-time professors for interviews, I realized that they were hard to reach, since their contact information was not easily available. Information for full-time professors could be found by just navigating a university’s or department’s website, but this was not always the case for part-time professors. While I had some initial success in making connections with part-time professors, I realized that I would not reach my goal if I continued trying to contact them on my own.

Paulina attended a higher education seminar at the Center for Research on Educational Policy and Practice

So I asked a Chilean professor, who is a member of my dissertation committee, for advice. He suggested that in order to deal with the logistics issue, I should change my strategy and consider a top-down approach. I thus decided to establish contacts first with department chairs and deans at the selected universities and academic programs to not only learn how institutions manage, evaluate, and monitor the academic work of part-time professors but also obtain a list of potential interviewees. This turned out to be very good advice, as I was able to interview department chairs and deans for my study and, at the same time, gain their trust. This also enabled me to receive additional information, such as institutional documents that facilitated access to additional participants. The good advice made a big difference, turning potentially discouraging and unsuccessful fieldwork into a very positive experience. In the end, I was able to conduct not 60 but 70 interviews!

Support Is Critical

Carrying out qualitative research is costly in terms of time and economic resources. As the process of collecting data is time consuming, and in my case, I had to travel to another country in which meant I had to invest significant resources and get support from others. Thanks to the Tokyo foundation’s SRA program that provides support for academic research related to doctoral dissertation in a foreign country, I was able to plan a 13-weeks stay to conduct my fieldwork in Chile.

However, after engaging in my fieldwork, it became obvious that the original allotted time of 13 weeks was too ambitious, which led me to extend my time in the field to 35 weeks. Because of this unexpected turn, I had to talk with the many people who were supporting my research and get from them not only their consent but also their support to keep moving forward in my research despite the hardships encountered along the way. Fortunately, at the end of the process, I was able to achieve successfully my field work’s goals thanks to the institutional support given by the SRA program, my sponsor and fieldwork supervisor –Dr. Rosa Deves- at Universidad de Chile, my committee member professor –Dr. Andres Bernasconi- at Pontificia Universidad Catolica, my institutional liaison at Universidad San Sebastian –Vicerector Gonzalo Puentes-, and my academic advisor –Dr. Daniel Levy- from the State University of New York at Albany.

San Sebastian University

The Interviewing Experience

Learning from others can be a priceless and unforgettable experience. As I traveled far to explore what Chilean part-time professors do inside and outside the university classroom, I gained a deeper understanding of what these professors do and what motivates them to work part-time in higher education. And while interviewing university administrators, it became clear why they were employing these part-time professors and how much they relied on them. In some cases, part-time professors were regarded with such high esteem that I wondered if this was the case in other countries as well.

My research also helped me to master the skill of interviewing. Can you imagine trying to interview someone who does not know anything about you but just the topic of your research? Even more, how would it feel when your interviewee sits down in front of his or her computer and does not pay any attention to you? It can be very hard to get started indeed! During my first interviews, it was difficult to deal with people I did not know, not to mention how nervous I was! But as I kept interviewing, I learned how to grab the attention of the interviewee from the outset and, more importantly, how to gain their trust about the seriousness of my research.

People are often very busy, and they want to know immediately how they were chosen for the interview; sometimes it is hard to break the ice. So, in some ways an interview is a performance from the very first moment you greet your interviewee to the minute you end the conversation. Moreover, the performance needs to be executed in a transparent manner so that you gain the trust of your interviewee and makes him or her willing to collaborate with your research and respond with valuable information to your questions. People are curious about you, so sometimes you have to talk about yourself as well. It is a two-way exchange, and as an interviewer you have to be open to the needs of the participants too.

Finally, the fieldwork evolved from being almost impossible to achieve and highly exhausting to execute (interviewing 70 people meant I had to contact many more people!) to a completely satisfying endeavor with a strong sense of accomplishment. Without doubt, it was an experience that I would recommend to anyone planning to conduct qualitative research. If you are one of them, good luck with your future endeavors! As for me, I now have to start writing and analyzing all the rich data I have managed to collect in the field.

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Armed State-Response to Internal Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

March 7, 2013
By 19662

Sreya Maitra Roychoudhury, a Sylff fellow at Jadavpur University in India, conducted research in Sri Lanka using a Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) award. The purpose of her research was to observe the realities in Sri Lanka and deepen her insights into the “securitization” of two armed states—India and Sri Lanka—which is the central theme of her dissertation. Her report below makes clear that the purpose of her research was fulfilled and that the visit to Sri Lanka has become an important asset in writing her dissertation.

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I arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on November 1, 2012, for a field trip essential for my doctoral dissertation, which examines the historical causes and the implications of armed state responses to select internal ethnic conflict situations in India and Sri Lanka and critically analyses their efficacy.

The University of Colombo , which hosted Sreya during her field research

The University of Colombo , which hosted Sreya during her field research

 

I have been fortunate to receive mentoring and support at Jadavpur University, India, where I also had the opportunity to apply and be selected for a Sylff Research Abroad award from the Tokyo Foundation at a very opportune moment of my PhD research. This was not only because my nascent ideas on state approaches to insurgency very much demanded the filling in of ground-level realities but also because Sri Lanka is currently at a very critical juncture of its political history.

National security and socio-political stability can be significantly undermined by violent internal conflict or insurgency in any country. While authoritarian regimes unilaterally use their military to combat such challenges, modern democracies have historically sanctioned the deployment of armed forces on a short-term basis only by declaring them as ”emergencies.” Within the purview of international relations, the latter approach has been delineated by the “securitization theory” à la the constructivist paradigm founded by the Copenhagen school.

India and Sri Lanka have labored to establish consolidated democracies in South Asia, never experiencing any spell of total military rule or a civil-military regime, unlike some of their neighbors. Multi-ethnic democracies are expected to handle internal conflicts with the structural norms and practices of a democratic order. India and Sri Lanka have behaved exceptionally and tackled these by active securitization through much of the post-independence period.

Existing literature does not highlight the reasons for the continuance of conflict zones, and there is hardly any comparative empirical work on the subject. Moreover, insecurities and rebellions persist in most cases, like in India’s Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, and, until 2009, in Sri Lanka. Additionally, due to India and Sri Lanka’s geographic contiguity and ethnic overlap, the impact of Sri Lanka’s internal conflict has been deeply left by India.

The deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1987 and its subsequent failures, together with the cross-border operations of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, have created mistrust, inducing excessive caution in bilateral interactions.

During my month-long stay and extensive interaction with the intelligentsia, activists, and local population in Colombo, I came across a society that has suffered deep scars in its socio-political and economic fabric due to the prolonged war of the state against an ethnic community. However, it was also stated by many quite unequivocally that any challenge to the sovereignty of the state—democratic or authoritarian—must be legitimately resisted with the sanction of force and the armed machinery of the government. Detailed studies and opinions have revealed that the unyielding stance of the leaders of the separatist group precluded any scope for meaningful, peaceful reconciliation.

In the present situation, Sri Lanka has transcended war but not the conflict situation, as underlying grievances of the Tamil community continue to simmer. While ground-level opinions, observations, and reports substantiate the argument that the heavy-handed securitization approach of the state has combated militancy and terrorism with unprecedented success, it is quite clear that it also has further fragmented the already linguistically divided society, alienating the minority Tamils and establishing a ”Sinhala state.”

The field trip was significant in enabling me to collect primary data to corroborate the historical-sociological approach I had chosen for my study to gain an in-depth, comprehensive understanding of a seemingly terrorist-political problem in Sri Lanka. The instrumental role played by the monopoly of the Sinhala language in consolidating ethnic fissures is a much observed phenomenon in Sri Lanka’s history and politics.

The field trip rendered an unmediated exposition into the incremental unfolding of this phenomenon by the ruling political leaders through the turbulent decades (especially the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s) and the subsequent, almost obvious deepening of the majority-minority ethnic divide, the virulent manifestation of which was the Tamil demand for secession and autonomy espoused by violent outfits like the LTTE.

The sole documentation of much of the parliamentary debates and official proceedings under the presidency (since 1976) in Sinhala and the conspicuous absence of their translation in English and Tamil languages at the National Archives of Colombo was, to my mind, a significant indicator of the calculated steps taken by the ruling elite to use “language hegemony” in asserting Sri Lanka as a Sinhala state, thereby fuelling the ongoing ethnic politics of the times.

At the National Archives of Colombo

At the National Archives of Colombo

Moreover, the informal and formal interactions at the local level rendered it quite evident that even in postwar Sri Lanka, the most sympathetic Sinhala vis-à-vis the Tamil autonomy movement would not voice any explicit statement against the present process of increasing the geographic isolation of the Tamils in the northern and eastern provinces and the conscious effort to maintain the presidency’s direct control over them by abstaining from establishing functional Provincial Councils.

To my mind, the potential for renewed conflict between communities cannot be ruled out, much less so because of a strong Tamil diaspora that continually foments a sense of marginalization. Any meaningful resolution of the internal conflict situation thus requires fundamental changes in the constitution to include greater accountability of the president, the devolution of power to Tamil representatives at the local level, and the rebuilding of a sense of trust between the ethnic communities that have been brutally eroded and lost in the ravages of the war and the unilateral, authoritarian style of governance.

While the operational political systems of India and Sri Lanka differ (parliamentary versus presidential system), they could actively engage through common multilateral forums like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to articulate state responses beyond securitization measures that can be implemented to resolve their respective insurgencies on a sustainable basis.

Even though Sri Lanka is a consolidated, democratic nation in South Asia, my field trip rendered stark the realities and nuances of administrative functioning that transpires in a presidential system, as compared to the parliamentary model of India. Divergences in the operational political realities of Sri Lanka, issues in the functions of the constitution, and aspirations of the people were rendered clear only in the course of my studies at the local level. Other interesting and related facets of society like education, community development, and the changing role of the military in postwar Sri Lanka also became vivid, providing a comprehensive overview.

Being an endowed fellow, the credibility of my research was instantly recognized by the interviewees and interested researchers and students.

My research is focused on providing a systematic explanation for the war that prevailed, prescribe ways to avoid the military option on a prolonged basis, and guarantee basic human rights and security to citizens. The insights I gained on the Tamil separatist movement in Sri Lanka also helped me to build a comparative study of armed approaches to insurgency in two democracies, keeping in mind the differences in their operational dynamics.

I also seek to explore possible state responses beyond the military option that can be implemented by the democratic, multi-ethnic countries of India and Sri Lanka to resolve their respective insurgency issues on a sustainable basis. This would hopefully enhance bilateral ties and move regional peace keeping initiatives in South Asia a step forward.

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Japanese Language Education at Chinese Universities

November 14, 2012
By 19690

Of the approximately 3.65 million students of the Japanese language outside Japan, the highest numbers are in South Korea (960,000) and China (830,000). China, though, claims more students at the tertiary level, at 530,000. How are Chinese university students learning the Japanese language and gaining an understanding of the country’s culture?

Yusuke Tanaka, a 2009 recipient of a Sylff fellowship as a student at the Waseda University Graduate School of Japanese Applied Linguistics and a research fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, conducted a detailed study and analysis of Japanese language education at Chinese universities. He examined textbooks and curricula and interviewed both teachers and students. His research revealed features quite distinct from those seen in South Korea and Taiwan.

The following are excerpts from his report:

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Japanese Language Students at Institutions of Higher Education in Each Country as a Percentage of the Total

Japanese Language Students at Institutions of Higher Education in Each Country as a Percentage of the Total

Of the 1,170 universities in China, there are 466 that offer majors in the Japanese language. The figure is a threefold jump from 1999, when the Chinese government introduced a policy to expand the number of university students in the country.

The aim of this report is to examine how students of the Japanese language at Chinese institutions of higher learning—which today enjoy a growing global presence—are learning the language. Specifically, the analysis focuses on classes in jingdu (Comprehensive Japanese), the chief course taken by Japanese majors at universities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Dalian, examining and analyzing the Japanese text found in course textbooks.

The examination revealed three major characteristics. (1) The jingdu textbooks widely used today frequently quote the same passages and authors as those appearing in kokugo (Japanese language) textbooks used at schools in Japan. An extremely high percentage of Chinese students are thus exposed to the same materials as Japanese schoolchildren. (2) When creating Japanese language textbooks in China, kokugo textbooks are considered one of most reliable sources for quoting passages. (3) Inasmuch as teachers, students, textbook publishers, and researchers, as well as the instruction guidelines all concur that the aim of Japanese language instruction is be to gain an “accurate understanding of the Japanese language, Japanese culture, and the Japanese mind,” many believe it is only natural and logical for materials appearing in Japanese high school kokugo textbooks to overlap with textbooks for Chinese learners of the Japanese language.

The study revealed that the teaching materials and methods used in Japan had a definite influence on the way Japanese was taught to Chinese university students, suggesting that domestic teaching methods have a role in Japanese language education abroad. Both learners and instructors pointed to biases and deficiencies in Japanese textbooks, however; one researcher noted that the grammatical system adopted in the textbooks was designed for native speakers of Japanese, making it unsuitable for Chinese students of the language. Others voiced the need to make a clear distinction between native and foreign learners, adjusting the content and methods of Japanese language instruction accordingly to meet fundamentally contrasting needs and aims.

There was also a perceived need to be vigilant for normative elements and assumptions about universality that, by nature, are part of language instruction for native speakers. And there may be a danger in referencing textbooks that are designed for domestic use and contain—as some claim—biased content as sources for the “accurate understanding of the Japanese language, Japanese culture, and the Japanese mind.”

Nevertheless, making a mechanical distinction between Japanese language instruction for native and foreign speakers and simplistically assuming them to be isolated concerns will only hinder efforts to gain a true grasp of Japanese language teaching in China. Rather, there is a need to broaden our perspective and fully acknowledge the intertwining of the two approaches to language teaching that now exist in China. This, I believe, is an extremely important consideration in understanding the diverse and fluid nature of foreign languages and cultures and in reexamining what Japanese language education in China should seek to achieve and how it should be structured. I thus hope to conduct further research and analysis into this topic.

This study focused on an analysis of textbooks used in Japanese language instruction at Chinese universities. I would be most happy if the findings of this report—that the methods used to teach Japanese to native speakers deeply influence how the language is learned by nonnatives—would become more broadly known to Japanese language educators both in Japan and other countries.

Read the full Japanese report at: www.tkfd.or.jp/fellowship/program/news.php?id=130

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Why Regulate Hedge Funds? : Comments on the Brazilian Experience

August 20, 2012
By 19674

In June 2007, two hedge funds linked to Bear Stearns, a major American investment bank, announced losses of US$16 billion, forcing the bank to inject that amount to prevent the collapse of both funds. These funds operated with a high degree of leverage, based on derivatives financed with funds borrowed from large banks, guaranteed with securities backed by mortgages and other debts: the Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO). The funds together accounted for approximately US$18 billion in bonds (of which US$16.2 billion had been purchased with borrowed funds), which led Bear Stearns Asset Management to play a prominent role in the CDO market.

The losses represented the first signs of the serious financial crisis that would reach its peak the following year, in 2008, when Bear Stearns itself was bought by JP Morgan Chase in a deal for only US$236 million, aimed at avoiding bankruptcy.

Despite its seriousness, this was not the first time that the failure of a hedge fund triggered panic on international financial markets and weakened them. Ten years earlier, in 1998, the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) forced the Fed, along with 14 financial institutions, to orchestrate a recapitalization of US$0.6 billion. Like Bear Stearns, LTCM had borrowed large amounts from the banking sector, allowing it to take bets that exceeded the notional value of US$1.5 trillion, while shareholders capital was no more than US$4.8 billion. This fund was, arguably, the most active user of interest rate swaps in the world, with contracts that totaled US$750 billion. The magnitude of the two events and the similarity of strategies used to obtain high returns—high degree of leverage and loans from banks—have raised questions about the effectiveness of regulatory initiatives to avoid the recurrence of systemic crisis.

Debate on Regulation

Traditionally, supporters of “laissez faire” argue that hedge funds increase the efficiency and liquidity of the financial system, either by spreading risk among a large number of investors or by improving the pricing of the traded assets, thus removing any space for more restrictive regulations. Not coincidentally, in the last 10 years, mainly in the United States and Europe, the notion that financial regulatory institutions should interfere minimally and only in situations involving the general public has preponderated. Along this line, the hedge funds, as private investment structures targeting high-income investors—and treated in a different way from regular investors—were placed outside the direct jurisdiction of regulators.

Following this line of thinking, regulatory efforts in the period focused on improving the ability of banks and other financial institutions to monitor and manage risks by individually managing exposure to these funds. The promotion of transparency about the risks assumed by those investment companies would be sufficient, it was argued, to enforce an adequate market discipline, with no need for a more direct regulation.

The predominance of this view has hindered the adoption of a more restrictive regulatory framework, especially with regard to the systemic aspects of these funds in financial markets. Even in the context of the last global crisis, the belief that hedge funds played a limited role in the genesis of the systemic turmoil has prevailed, in spite of the substantial losses they have suffered.

In this scenario, hedge funds have fed paradoxes with serious implications for the dynamics of the international financial system. First, they present themselves as managers of large private fortunes, mainly for large institutional investors; however, they usually take loans with the formal banking system, and thus they naturally transfer the risk of their positions to the entire credit system, that is, they transform the operations of private funds into operations throughout the investing public. Second, they claim to be able to deliver high absolute returns, in any condition, exploiting price anomalies in the market; however, they often suffer significant losses in situations of turbulence, as seen in the last global crisis. Third, while they remain largely outside the scope of regulations, they are undoubtedly channels of transmission of systemic risk. Fourth, despite the large number of these agents and the diversity in their investment strategies and objectives, they present a noticeable similarity in their risk exposures and the securities they trade, which tends to cancel any eventually positive effect of a possible heterogeneity of these agents.

The recent, post-crisis initiatives on the regulation of hedge funds, both in United States and Europe, have exhibited superficial and still timid proposals to effectively counter the contradictions listed above. On the other hand, unlike most countries that are still discussing and trying to adopt their laws, in Brazil it has already become a reality. Interestingly, most of the claims for stricter rules on the behavior of hedge funds are particularly familiar to the Brazilian financial markets, and Brazil may be able to make a significant contributions to the design of a more effective regulatory framework at the international level.

The Example of the Brazilian Experience

Traditionally, the Brazilian capital market has been marked by the presence of restrictive regulatory and supervisory structures. Particularly in the segment of investment funds, while the offshore vehicles enjoy wide freedom in conducting its operations, onshore funds must conform to strict standards of regulation and supervision. These standards, although targets of criticism by those who advocate a more flexible market, recently have received worldwide attention because of the low vulnerability demonstrated by domestic financial institutions during the unfolding of the international financial crisis, initiated in the subprime mortgage market in the United States.

Among the major domestic requirements, all investment funds based in Brazil must be registered with the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM, or the Securities Commission) that acts as the primary regulator and supervisor of funds and investment firms in the country. In accordance with CVM instructions, all funds, including hedge funds, must provide daily liquidity reports and disclose, also daily, the value of their quotas and assets to the general public. Moreover, managers must monthly deliver to CVM statements with the composition and diversification of the portfolio, as well as a summary trial balance of their funds. Additionally, every year they have to send to CVM a consolidated balance sheet approved by an independent auditor. At the same time, the Associação Brasileira das Entidades dos Mercados Financeiros e de Capitais (ANBIMA, or the Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Markets Entities), which pools the institutions that manage funds in Brazil, also plays an important self-policing role.

In addition to these requirements that provide more transparency to the public, an important restriction applied to the funds in Brazil is that these entities are prohibited from contracting and receiving loans from financial institutions. This limitation establishes an important difference between domestic and offshore funds, since it reduces the possibility of highly leveraged funds being supported by third parties and eliminates a disturbing channel of exposure of the formal banking system to hedge funds, which proved to be particularly disruptive to the international financial market in the last crisis.

On this point, it is important to note that Brazilian authorities do not officially consider hedge funds to be a different family of investment funds and usually subject them to the same regulatory rules that are applied to other funds. Another specificity of the Brazilian financial sector involves the over-the-counter market, in which all financial derivative instruments and securities traded are recorded with the Central de Custódia e de Liquidação Financeira de Títulos (CETIP, or the Central Securities Depository), an agency supervised by the Central Bank of Brazil and whose activities are regulated by CVM. Thus, all securities exchanged between private investors outside the regulated market (São Paulo Stock Exchange) are subject anyway to observation by national regulatory authorities. Again, in the context of both the international financial crisis and the collapse of LTCM in the United States, the absence of such information was particularly harmful in assessing the real extent of risk exposure between different financial institutions.

All these restrictions have been relatively successful in preventing and avoiding the propagation of systemic risk within the domestic financial market, although they are not fully able to prevent the contagion of crisis in the unregulated global markets. Amid the recent turmoil, the defense of more direct, coordinated, and continuous supervision of financial institutions in different countries has gained importance in international forums, making it increasingly more urgent. In this scenario, the Brazilian experience on the regulation of the investment fund industry can be a relevant reference in guiding these discussions at the international level.

The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization with which she is or has been affiliated.

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Japan’s Lay Judges and Implications for Democratic Governance

May 11, 2012
By 19600

On a sunny January morning in 2010, I sat high above the bustling streets of Tokyo in the central offices of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA), speaking with a professor and noted scholar of Japan’s newest judicial incarnation, the saiban-in seido, or “lay judge system.” As I listened and learned more about the Japanese lay judge system that January morning, I found it amazing that it was my position as a Sylff fellow that had led me here.

The sign in front of the Supreme Court of Japan.

The sign in front of the Supreme Court of Japan.

In May of 2009, Japan began formal operations of the saiban-in seido, a quasi-jury method of trial adjudication that blends elements of the Anglo-American jury and the European lay assessor adjudicatory systems. Mandated by the Lay Judge Act of 2004, this system represents the first time that Japanese citizens have been asked to formally participate in the criminal adjudicatory processes of the state since 1943. At its core, the Lay Judge Act established a form of criminal trial adjudication where citizen jurists serve with and work alongside their professional counterparts on trials where the offense falls within a limited range of high crimes.

Under the saiban-in seido, in cases where the defendant contests his or her guilt, the judicial bench is composed of three professional judges and six lay civilians chosen from the population at random. These mixed tribunals are charged with not only determining the guilt of the defendant but also the sentence to be imposed. Decisions and judgments by the lay judge panel are based on majority vote, although any valid verdict is required to include the votes of at least one professional judge and at least one lay jurist. On a sunny January morning in 2010, I sat high above the bustling streets of Tokyo in the central offices of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA), speaking with a professor Continue reading →