David Lea

Corporate and public responsibility, stakeholder theory and the developing world

It is often argued that multinational companies and other foreign developers have a responsibility to improve the material conditions of the people in whose territories they operate. As a matter of distributive justice it is thought that these companies should be sharing the acquired wealth with these people through the creation of ‘collective goods’ (like schools and aid posts), infrastructure development and compensation disbursements aimed at their benefit. Recently “stakeholder theory” and even legislative changes in the first world (especially in the US) have sought to impress on the corporate world the necessity to share the profits with affected “non-shareholder” groups. Many see these developments as possible advancements for indigenous peoples, indigenous rights and the cause of distributive justice for aboriginal groups. However, it can be shown that the attribution of such ‘imperfect’ duties to corporations results in the generation of excessive costs and of unrealistic expectations on the part of stakeholders. Distributive justice is more efficiently achieved by public sector involvement at the level of policy and project management.

The Managerial University and the Decline of Modern Thought

In this paper I discuss the managerial template that has become the normative model for the organization of the university. In the first part of the paper I explain the corporatization of academic life in terms of the functional relationships that make up the organizational components of the commercial enterprise and their inappropriateness for the life of the academy. Although there is at present a significant body of literature devoted to this issue, the goal of this paper is to explain the genesis of this phenomenon through a reference to the ideology that characterizes our modern secular age. This is the subject of the second part of the paper. Most texts seek to explain this ideological development either through the ever increasing dominance of economic rationalism, perceived conservatism of collegial forms of governance, the necessity to transfer fiscal responsibility in tight budgetary periods, the decline of the Keynesian ‘welfare consensus’, or the legacy of the power regimes that began to take shape in the liberal societies of the 19th century. I trace this development to the beginnings of Modernity and the Cartesian bifurcation that separated the material world from its spiritual and intellectual source and thereby overthrew the hierarchy of related values that informed both nature and human organization. In articulating this argument I make reference to the thought of Jacques Maritain, Charles Taylor and René Guénon.

Property rights, indigenous people and the developing world : issues from aboriginal entitlement to intellectual ownership rights

This work offers an analysis of the Western formal system of private property and its moral justification and explains the relevance of the institution to particular current issues that face aboriginal peoples and the developing world. The subjects under study include broadly: aboriginal land claims; third world development; intellectual property rights and the relatively recent TRIPs agreement (Trade related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). Within these broad areas we highlight the following concerns: the maintenance of cultural integrity; group autonomy; economic benefit; access to health care; biodiversity; biopiracy and even the independence of the recently emerged third world nation states. Despite certain apparent advantages from embracing the Western institution of private ownership, the text explains that the Western institution of private property is undergoing a fundamental redefinition through the expansion.

Melanesian axiology, communal land tenure, and the prospect of sustainable development within Papua New Guinea

It is the contention of this paper that some progress in alleviating the social and environmental problems which are beginning to face Papua New Guinea can be achieved by supporting traditional Melanesian values through maintaining the customary system of communal land tenure. In accordance with this aim, I will proceed to contrast certain Western attitudes towards “individual freedom”, “selfinterested behaviour”, “individual and communal interests” and “private ownership” with attitudes and values expressed in the traditional Melanesian approach. In order to demonstrate the latter, I will briefly touch upon the phenomenon of “wantokism” and indicate how the Melanesian values associated with this concept find their locus in the system of “customary communal ownership”. Subsequently, I will describe how the emergence of a cash economy and the attachment to Western gadgetry and products have effected injury to the environment and undermined values which have previously maintained Melanesian social cohesion. While admitting that little can be done to eradicate the desire for cash and the products it can buy, I suggest that Melanesian communities and the environment itself would receive more protection if future development in Papua New Guinea embraced a system which incorporated certain of the traditional Melanesian values through the preservation of the communal form of land tenure. Ultimately, I suggest a way in which customary communal land tenure can be integrated into the established Anglo-Australian legal system.

Christianity and western attitudes towards the natural environment

Abstract Apologists for Christianity and Judaism have argued that their religions do not support an exploitative attitude towards the environment. L.H. Steffen, in particular, argues that it is the Hellenic rather than the (Judaeo-Christian tradition which promotes the instrumentalist view of nature. In contrast, I argue that Christianity is and has been an amalgam of the Hellenic and Hebrew traditions. In the course of this paper I indicate certain salient Hellenic influences which were prominent in medieval Christianity. I subsequently point out that, contrary to Steffens allegations, these influences originally contributed to a non-exploitative attitude to the natural world by the very nature of their anti-materialist prescriptions. However, with the Renaissance and the Reformation, religious attitudes shifted and a new religious morality was generated, one which associated morality and spiritual achievement with intense engagement in the material world and the exploitation of this world in the end of personal prosperity. In part I demonstrate this alteration in perspective by reference to the shifting religious attitudes towards ownership and property.

Tully and de Soto on Uniformity and Diversity

James Tully sees the emergence of modern constitutionalism as the intellectual legacy of writers such as Hobbes, Bodin and Locke. For Tully, modern constitutionalism not only centralizes authority, it also excludes diversity. Tully’s work represents a significant part of the growing antipathy towards uniformity and the universalising tendencies of the modern organization, which, he believes, underwrite a loss of local empowerment. In this respect his thinking and that of the communitarians is consistent with contemporary disenchantment with, not to mention resistance to globalization. Globalization, or the tendency to inter-national uniformity in culture and increasing integration into a global system of economics and power, appears to promote an analogous universalising conformity across borders, while centralizing economic if not political power and control in certain trans-national corporations. Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, gives us a very different perspective on the motley of overlapping jurisdictions and argues that diversity of systems, customs and rules with respect to property has conspired to maintain the entrenched poverty of the developing world. He argues that it is the unified, codified and integrated systems of the West that have allowed these societies to mobilize capital to escape the endemic widespread poverty of the pre-capitalist age. In the course of this paper I seek to compare and evaluate the competing claims of Tully and de Soto.

Aboriginal Entitlement and Conservative Theory

It is noteworthy that much of recent liberal scholarship aimed at empowering aboriginal peoples, and supporting their land rights, has often unwittingly embraced the conservative Lockean-Nozickian tradition rather than the tradition of left-leaning thinkers. Many of the supporters of aboriginal land rights tend to view property rights as contingently determined historical entitlements which are established independently of the state’s authority, thereby creating structures which morally bind the authority of the state. This, in fact, also represents the view of the conservative supporters of untrammelled capitalism. Secondly, there is often little discussion of the bundle of rights which are derived from these acts of original acquisition. This may lead one to the assumption that these supporters of aboriginal land rights agree with the conservative view that all the recognised components of modern liberal ownership, from the right to use, to the right to income, are acquired in the initial events associated with historical entitlement. It is my argument in this paper that basing aboriginal land claims solely on customary historical entitlement results in too close an alignment with a conservative ideology which has been used to support unrestrained capitalism.

Do communitarian values justify Papua New Guinean and/or Fijian systems of land tenure?

Communitarians have alleged a connection between according specialrights to community groupings and preserving the indigenous cultureand the social cohesion of the original community. This paperconcentrates upon special group rights associated with land tenurenow maintained by Fijian Mataqali and traditional land owninggroups in Papua New Guinea. The first section of the paper assessesand compares the social consequences of each of these systems withspecial attention to the preservation of traditional culture.However, in the case of Fiji, it is undeniable that the mataqaliland tenure system has given indigenous Fijians politicaladvantages over non-indigenous Fijians, most specifically theFijian Indians. Though special land rights can possibly bejustified on the grounds of cultural preservation, their existencedoes raise this further issue of fairness. Moral considerations basedupon the territorial sovereignty of indigenous nations, rather thancommunitarian arguments, may offer a more convincing justificationof the advantages of indigenous Fijians.

IP Rights and Genetic Material in Agriculture and Human Research: Two Forms of Biopiracy?

This chapter focuses on the application of intellectual property rights to genetic material. It specifically considers the use of such rights in fields of agricultural and human research. The chapter describes how intellectual property over germplasm has been given a global reach through international pressure and the TRIPS agreement, as highlighted by recent legal developments in Indian and Iraq. These shifts underline issues associated with ?biopiracy?, but also include: the vitiation of publicly funded research institutions; monopoly control of the food system by giant agribusiness; loss of biodiversity; ecological risks of genetically engineered seeds, and ultimately loss of autonomy not only for the local farming community but also loss of sovereignty for the developing nation itself. The chapter discusses the human genome project and the human genome diversity project and issues related to the patenting of human genes.Keywords: agricultural research; biopiracy; genetic material; human genome diversity project; human research; intellectual property rights; TRIPS agreement

Customary Land Tenure and Communal Holdings

This chapter discusses the meaning of customary land tenure and communal holdings. Customary rights and liabilities, it is claimed, are accessed through oral traditions just as property rights in modern Western countries are understood through codified laws. The chapter discusses the issues that are raised by James Fingleton. The issue is one of a subject matter, which often eludes a precise definition. R.J. Fisher explains that his observations do not address issues relating to agricultural land but apply to various types of group arrangements which have been quite effective in forest and pasture management. The chapter highlights that the significant difference between customary versus private ownership relates not to simpleminded opposition between group and individually exercised rights but rather to the presence or addition of income rights in Western systems of ownership. Moreover, income rights presuppose the cash economy in which values are determined by aggregate demand and relative scarcity.Keywords: agricultural land; communal holdings; customary land tenure; customary ownership; forest management; income rights; pasture management; private ownership