Showing papers on "Settlement (litigation) published in 2020"

Settlement scaling theory: Bridging the study of ancient and contemporary urban systems:

Abstract: A general explanatory framework for the social processes underpinning urbanisation should account for empirical regularities that are shared among contemporary urban systems and ancient settlement ...

The case for biotech on Mars.

Abstract: The stepwise application of biotechnology will be instrumental to addressing four key challenges of Martian settlement.

Battling the informal settlement challenge through sustainable city framework: experiences and lessons from Harare, Zimbabwe

Abstract: This study examines the efficacy of adopting the sustainable city framework as an urban planning agenda with a view to addressing the dilemma of informal settlements in Harare, Zimbabwe. Data were ...

Australian ‘gayborhoods’ and ‘lesborhoods’: a new method for estimating the number and prevalence of adult gay men and lesbian women living in each Australian postcode

Abstract: Gay men and lesbian women often demonstrate unique settlement patterns, forming what have been referred to as ‘gayborhoods’. This study sought to provide the first postcode-level estimates of popul...

“A Good Place for the Poor!” Counternarratives to territorial stigmatisation from two informal settlements in Dhaka

Abstract: With many cities in the Global South experiencing immense growth in informal settlements, city authorities frequently try to assert control over these settlements and their inhabitants through coercive measures such as threats of eviction, exclusion, blocked access to services and other forms of structural violence. Such coercive control is legitimized through the discursive formation of informal settlements as criminal and unsanitary, and of the residents as migrants and as temporary and illegitimate settlers. Using findings from ethnographic research carried out in two informal settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh, this article explores how informal settlement residents engage with and resist territorial stigma in a rapidly growing Southern megacity. Findings show residents resist stigmatising narratives of neighbourhood blame by constructing counternarratives that frame informal settlements as a “good place for the poor.” These place-based narratives emerge from shared experiences of informality and associational life in a city where such populations are needed yet unwanted. While residents of these neighbourhoods are acutely aware of the temporariness and illegality of unauthorised settlements, these narratives produce solidarities to resist eviction and serve to legitimise their claim to the city.

Bilateral swap agreement and Renminbi settlement in cross-border trade

Abstract: This research empirically examines the impact of China’s renminbi (RMB) Bilateral Swap Agreements (BSAs) on the usage of the currency in cross-border trade transactions. By using a unique dataset f...

The Social Network: How People with Visual Impairment use Mobile Phones in Kibera, Kenya

Abstract: Living in an informal settlement with a visual impairment can be very challenging resulting in social exclusion. Mobile phones have been shown to be hugely beneficial to people with sight loss in formal and high-income settings. However, little is known about whether these results hold true for people with visual impairment (VIPs) in informal settlements. We present the findings of a case study of mobile technology use by VIPs in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi. We used contextual interviews, ethnographic observations and a co-design workshop to explore how VIPs use mobile phones in their daily lives, and how this use influences the social infrastructure of VIPs. Our findings suggest that mobile technology supports and shapes the creation of social infrastructure. However, this is only made possible through the existing support networks of the VIPs, which are mediated through four types of interaction: direct, supported, dependent and restricted.

Two Novel Blockchain-Based Market Settlement Mechanisms Embedded Into Smart Contracts for Securely Trading Renewable Energy

Abstract: The progress of ICT technologies, day-ahead forecast, home energy management systems, implementation of smart meters, and Distributed Energy Sources (DER) enables new business opportunities for prosumers to locally trade the surplus via blockchain platforms leading to considerable advantages at the community level. The current research handles settlement similar to a centralized market that it is not necessarily the best solution for blockchain. Nonetheless, the settlement is essential as sellers and buyers perceive the attractiveness of the local trading through the market results. In this paper, we propose two novel and efficient settlement mechanisms (Global Balancing Settlement GBS and Splitting Settlement SS) for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) electricity exchange enhancing the performance of the classic Pairwise Settlement PS. These will be written as stored procedures embedded into the smart contracts along with auctioning procedures. The simulations are performed using a small residential community with 30% of the electricity that can be locally traded to lower the bills and unstress the public grid. The performance of the two proposed settlement methods is proved by the 14 scenarios that thoroughly indicate that GBS and SS provide better results for both sellers and buyers than PS. In the reference scenario, with GBS, sellers have the highest encashments with almost 4% more, whereas buyers encounter the lowest payments with almost 5% less than in case of the classic settlement. Starting from reference scenario, alternative scenarios are envisioned to extend the analyses and assess the performance of the settlement mechanisms. The highest gain is recorded with GBS mechanism: almost 8.8% for sellers and 6.5% for buyers. Another interesting outcome is that GBS is providing better results than SS. When deviations are small, SS provides almost 6% gain for both sellers and buyers, but when they increase, the gain is exceedingly small or none.

Through attachment to settlement: social and psychological determinants of migrants’ intentions to stay

Abstract: Previous research shows that structural, cultural and social integration determine migrants’ settlement intentions. We move beyond such explanations, and consider whether psychological integration ...

Resettlement of Syrian Refugees in Canada

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to understand the subjective resettlement experiences of Syrian refugees to Canada. The Canadian government committed to accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees between November 2015 and February 2016. Since that time, increased pressure has been placed on settlement agencies to find suitable housing for these families in a shorter time-span than usual. This study assessed the settlement experiences of 17 Syrian refugee families in a mid-sized city with a particular focus on housing and landlord relations and the overall settlement experience. Data collection involved in-depth interviews with one or more family members from each family, facilitated by an interpreter. These interviews were then analysed using thematic analysis to produce qualitative descriptive results. The themes speak to barriers to housing stability, including housing quality/safety/cost, balancing the needs of children versus the family as a whole, gaps to community integration, and downplaying the need for assistance.

“Can Someone Help Me?” Refugee Women’s Experiences of Using Settlement Agencies to Find Work in Canada

Abstract: This article examines refugee women’s experience with settlement agencies and their employment outcomes in Canada. Based on qualitative data, we found that employment was not a priority to settlement agencies with many counselors referring the women to low-skilled, low-waged positions with companies with whom they had pre-existing ties. Meanwhile, counselors found themselves burdened with large workloads and felt inadequately equipped to serve the needs of refugees. Through this study, we propose policy recommendations that address women’s disproportional barriers that can be integrated within programs and services offered by settlement agencies to improve employment integration.

A Crisis‐Driven Migration? Aspirations and Experiences of the Post‐2008 South European Migrants in London

Abstract: Since the 1990s young South Europeans have been attracted to London by the dynamic labourmarket and cultural radiance of the city, but also pushed by unfavourable conditions in thelabour markets of their origin countries. Subsequently, the Eurozone crisis, austerity politicsand their socio-political consequences have markedly intensified migration rates. But did theyalso signify a rupture in terms of the motivations, experiences and aspirations of the migrants?Drawing on in-depth interviews with Greek, Italian and Spanish migrants of different educa-tional levels, wefind that post-materialist motivations and pro-migration dispositions prevailamong the“crisis-migrants”. Migration is seen and experienced as a step forward, rather thana disruptive force, signalling a positive message in defence of intra-EU free mobility. Yet attimes of neoliberal deregulation and economic and political uncertainty, aspirations for socio-economic stability and settlement are also of growing importance, questioning mobility as thenormative way of contemporary life.

City economic development, housing availability, and migrants' settlement intentions: Evidence from China

Abstract: The slow growth of the permanently settled migrants in host cities poses new challenges for the sustainability of China's future urbanization. Given the growing importance of homeownership, this paper clarifies migrants' settlement intentions into three mutually exclusive patterns, including de facto permanent settlement intention through homeownership, long‐term temporary settlement intention and short‐term temporary settlement intention. Based on matched micro‐ and macro‐level data, this paper examines the influence of city economic development and housing prices on these three patterns. The results suggest that economic development exhibits an attractive effect on migrants' settlement intentions for both earning money and for making a life while housing price weakens rural migrants' de facto permanent settlement intention. We also highlight the effect of the Housing Provident Fund (HPF), the most important housing financial policy in China, on settlement intention, and the results suggest that the HPF serves as an option to help migrants achieve permanent settlement through housing availability. The findings can explain the mixed results of previous research and provide policy references for sustainable urbanization in China.

Living in an Emerging Settlement: the Story of Hopley Farm Settlement, Harare Zimbabwe

Abstract: A phenomenological research design guided the study that documented the daily lives of citizens living in emerging settlements Hopley Farm Settlement in Harare, Zimbabwe, was used as a point of reference The study argued that emerging settlements are neglected spaces in which residents improvise in their daily life activities to enhance the livability of the settlements The theory of desperation, which puts into perspective issues of spatial (in) justice, exclusion, power, and oppression, formed the theoretical foundation of the study Findings spotlight some of the dilemmas experienced by residents living in emerging settlements These citizens experience multiple shocks and stresses, which include lack of basic services, disconnection from formal services and the urban core, political exclusion, and violation of their human rights In this regard, households engage in various activities that fall between resilience and desperation as they try to navigate their way in claiming the right to the city The study recommends politicians and the government to put aside political differences and consider the welfare of the people instead of advancing political agendas

What’s in a Fraud? The Many Worlds of Gregor MacGregor, 1817–1824

Abstract: This article revisits the story of one the greatest financial frauds in history: Poyais. In the 1820s, Gregor MacGregor issued bonds for this alleged fictitious Central American state on the London capital market. Putting together scattered evidence reveals a complex, multifaceted experiment undertaken by a private adventurer hoping to politically and economically position himself in a changing world. Poyais was a failed project to establish a settlement on a territory granted by an Indigenous leader and financed through British capital markets. Studying a financial failure provides nuanced insights into the political and legal frameworks defining origination processes of early nineteenth-century foreign loans. Following MacGregor’s actions entails drawing a story with contours that extend well beyond the City of London, revealing a rich set of transatlantic actors and spaces not known to be traditionally linked to the London-based capital market. The story of Poyais constitutes a window into the early financial dynamics of private colonialism and how these contributed to British imperial expansion. The Poyais loan appears as constituting a financial endeavor born from the encounter of different “worlds,” with MacGregor mediating these together but ultimately failing to legally and politically guarantee their lasting encounter.

Decolonizing the Boundaries between the ‘Planner’ and the ‘Planned’: Implications of Indigenous Property Development

Abstract: This paper examines Indigenous property development, drawing on research into the development of treaty settlement lands in Manitoba, Canada, and Canterbury, New Zealand. It highlights two contradi...

From Mother’s Ruin to Ginaissance: Emergence, settlement and resettlement of the gin category:

Abstract: This article provides a historically grounded explanation of category emergence and change by using the gin category as an example. Formerly a standardized spirit produced by a narrow group of larg...

Certainty and Uncertainty in Tax Law: Do Opposites Attract?

Abstract: The principle of certainty of taxation is the dimension of a general requirement of certainty in the legal system. The purpose of this article is to argue the thesis that uncertainty in tax law is not always an absolute evil, sometimes it acts as a means of the most optimal (and in some cases the only possible) settlement of relations in the field of taxes. On the contrary, uncertainty and fragmentation in tax law are colossal problems subject to overcome by the efforts of scientists, legislators, judges, and practicing lawyers. Uncertainty in tax law is manifested in two ways: on the one hand, negatively—as a defect (omission) of the legislator and, on the other hand, positively—as a set of specific legal means and technologies that are purposefully used in lawmaking and law enforcement. In this context, relatively determined legal tools are an effective channel for transition from uncertainty to certainty in the field of taxation. A tendency towards increased use of relatively determined legal tools in lawmaking processes (for example, principles, evaluative concepts, judicial doctrines, standards of good faith and reasonableness, discretion, open-ended lists, recommendations, framework laws, silence of the law, presumptive taxation, analogy, etc.), and involving various actors (courts, law enforcement agencies and officials, international organizations, citizens, organizations and their associations) allow making tax laws more dynamic flexible, and adequate to changing realities of everyday life.

Varieties of Indigenous Experience: Diasporas, Homelands, Sovereignties

Abstract: "Indigenous experience" is difficult to contain: the senses of beXlonging evoked by the phrase are integral to many, and diverse, localisms, and nationalisms. This chapter argues that indigenous claims to “sovereignty” contain analogous contradictions, and possibilities. Confronting the actual diversity of indigenous societies, one works with a series of contexts and scales, new terms of political mobilization and expanded social maps. The varieties of indigenous experience proliferate between the poles of autochthony and diaspora. Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act stabilized land holdings in a state where indigenous populations, while dispossessed of much territory, had never been subjected to the forced localization of a reservation system. New leaders, culture brokers, and economic elites, new dependencies on governmental, corporate, academic, and philanthropic resources are inextricably part of the processes by which extended indigenous connections are being made. Indigenous movements take advantage of interstitial possibilities, failures and openings within national–transnational governmental structures of “graduated sovereignty”.

Political Settlements and the Implementation of Maternal Health Policy in the Developing World: A Comparative Case Study of Rwanda, Ghana, Uganda and Bangladesh

Abstract: Maternal health, and in particular the issue of reducing maternal mortality, has been a prominent feature of the global health policy agenda for the past three decades. However, maternal health has rarely become a political priority at national levels, with policy uptake and implementation proving relatively disappointing. In this paper, we compare the experience of Rwanda, Bangladesh, Uganda and Ghana in reducing maternal mortality, relating policy uptake and, in particular, implementation to the underlying balance of power and institutions, or political settlement, on which these countries’ politics is based. Rwanda’s ‘dominant-developmental’ political settlement has enabled a vigorous, joined-up approach to maternal mortality reduction, while, at the other end of the spectrum, Ghana’s inclusive-competitive settlement has been less effective in matching policy commitment with implementation. Uganda and Bangladesh’s more intermediate settlements present a more mixed experience. The paper argues that policy reformers should try to optimise their maternal mortality reduction strategies within the context of the political settlement in which they operate. That implies a government-supporting strategy in more dominant developmental settlements, while engaging non-state actors or building out from pockets of effectiveness in other types.

The LiguSTAR Project: Archaeological Survey Techniques as Applied to the Study of Roman Settlement on the Riverbanks of the Lacus Ligustinus (Southwest Spain)

Abstract: The LiguSTAR project studies a transformed watery environment, the ancient lacus Ligustinus. The Ligustinus was the paleo-estuary of the Baetis flumen, currently named the Guadalquivir River (Southern Spain). At present, it is a radically transformed landscape due to intensive sedimentation and other geomorphological dynamics. Yet the estuary banks were highly populated during the Roman period. Important urban sites controlled the surrounding rural settlements, which were dedicated to farming activities. In addition, the lacus enabled connections with maritime routes for the export of surplus goods. Nowadays this spatial configuration is difficult to reconstruct, especially the settlement patterns related to the villae exploitation system. The LiguSTAR has devised a methodology applicable to the study of the paleo-banks by combining geomorphological, archaeological, and other historical information data with geophysical survey and UAV flight applications. In this paper, we present the state of the art, the hypotheses, the methodology, and the initial fieldwork results from the LiguSTAR Project.

The World Trade Organization

Abstract: The following sections are included:IntroductionKey Provisions of GATT/WTODispute Settlement MechanismConcluding Remarks

Revisiting Settlement Contemporaneity and Exploring Stability and Instability: Case Studies from the Indus Civilization.

Abstract: "Map overestimation," or "the contemporaneity problem," derives from the assumption that settlements identified during surface surveys were occupied throughout individual periods. Inductive and simulation analysis have been used to ascertain the degree of contemporaneity in surface survey data sets, as variation in settlement location is critical for understanding population density and demography, which inform social, economic and political interpretations. This paper revisits the inductive approach to interrogating survey data developed by W. M. Sumner and the simulation model approach developed by R. E. Dewar to explore the survey data from two regions within South Asia's Indus civilization. This analysis demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches. It also highlights the variability in settlement systems in different areas within the Indus civilization and shows that consideration of stability and instability within settlement systems is an important factor when considering dynamics of resilience and sustainability.

Diplomacy and the Settlement of International Trade Disputes

Abstract: How do countries settle disputes in the shadow of the law? Even in the presence of legalized dispute settlement, countries still rely on diplomatic channels to resolve conflicts. But it can be diff...

Forging a Resilient Social Contract in South Africa: States and Societies Sustaining Peace in the Post-Apartheid Era

Abstract: Since the advent of democracy in the 1990s, the South African political settlement has ushered into policy a progressive framework for the realization of socio-economic rights, enshrined by the Con...

Early Neolithic Settlement of the Po Plain (Northern Italy)

Abstract: Around the mid-19th century, several groups of archaeologists active in northern Italy discovered a few sites characterized by the presence of ‘hut-floors’ or ‘pit-dwellings’ (fondi di capanna), which they attributed to a well-defined period of their Stone Age sequence. Research in the central Po Plain of Lombardy was resumed in the 1970s, allowing one to attribute some of the older discoveries to the Early Neolithic Vhò cultural aspect. The scope of the excavations, which started on one of the Vhò di Piadena sites in 1974, was to interpret the function of the previously discovered features, establish their radiocarbon chronology, and compare the finds with those of the Fiorano culture distributed across the eastern regions of the Po Plain. The main goal of this paper is to provide an international audience with novel information about one of the still poorly known Early Neolithic cultural aspects of northern Italy, namely that of the Vhò. IZVLE∞EK – V sredini 19. stoletja so ∏tevilne skupine arheologov, ki so delovale v severni Italiji, odkrile nekaj najdi∏≠, za katere so bile zna≠ilne zemljanke (it. fondi di capanna), ki so jih pripisali dobro definiranemu obdobju njihove sekvence v kameni dobi. Raziskave so se na obmo≠ju osrednje Padske ni∫ine v Lombardiji nadaljevale v 70. letih 20. stoletja in so pokazale, da lahko starej∏a odkritja pripi∏emo zgodnje neolitski kulturi Vhò. Namen izkopavanj, ki so se za≠ela na enem od najdi∏≠ na obmo≠ju Vhò di Piadena leta 1974, je bil razlo∫iti namen teh struktur, dolo≠iti njihovo radiokarbonsko kronologijo in primerjati najdbe s kulturo Fiorano, ki je razprostranjena na vzhodnih obmo≠jih Padske ni∫ine. Glavni namen na∏ega ≠lanka je, da mednarodnemu ob≠instvu predstavimo najnovej∏e podatke o tej sicer slab∏e poznani zgodnje neolitski kulturi Vhò iz obmo≠ja severne Italije.