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Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate forest fires and their relationship to prevention and mitigation strategies based on the empirical problems raised by this study. Public policy implementation (in this case, the policy of forest fire management) is influenced by the role played by government and by the participation of the public and stakeholders (in this case, companies), as well as the effects of good governance. Thus, from the empirical problems associated with theoretical problems and normative problems, this study raises the influence of the role of central and local government on the implementation of forest fire prevention policy in Indonesia, which is moderated by the good governance variable.

This study used a quantitative approach by adopting survey methodology. The study has aimed to assess both large and small population groups, by selecting and reviewing carefully chosen samples of the population to find the incidence, distribution and relative interrelation of the variables considered (Kerlinger and Lee, 2000). The survey was undertaken in areas of Indonesia that have a high level of vulnerability to forest fires. There are currently six provinces – Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan and South Kalimantan – that have the highest intensity of forest fires. The study population was taken from 105 villages in those six major provinces experiencing forest fires. Sample size precision was determined by using Slovin’s formula with a precision of 10 percent and, thus, a sample size of 52 was obtained.

The central government’s activities have no significant effect on regional forest fire prevention. However, the results found that there is a significant effect caused by the interaction between the central and local governments and their governance of forest fire prevention. Even though the direct effect is not significant, the interaction effect significantly influences the forest fire prevention governance variable, which is a pure moderator. This study found that the role of central government has no effect on forest fire prevention. If the role of the central government is high, it will not impact the effectiveness of forest fire prevention, which is reflected in the aspects of prevention and early warning, reward and punishment, the improvement and management of ecosystems by reviewing courts, law enforcement and national and regional synergy.

This is one of the few public administration science studies to have investigated the relationship between good governance and forest fire policy in Indonesia, particularly the combined roles played by central and local governments.

The possibilities for good governance depends on institutional structures and the economic resources available for ensuring governance. In some cases centralised governance structures are inefficient. In other cases, decentralised structures turn out to be inadequate. In India decentralisation of power to village level has not improved the efficiency of rural development. Decentralisation of power, it is said, by facilitating the empowerment of people in local communities can contribute to more sustainable development. On the other hand, in India, the delegation of power to the states in some cases has resulted in the destruction of the environment. Thus centralised and decentralised governance structure have both merits and demerits. Preservation of the environment which is essential for sustainable development cannot be achieved unless the pressure on forest and natural resources is reduced. This cannot happen in the absence of appropriate property rights of local communities and of rural women. In West Bengal as well as in the central Himalayan region in India it has been found that the disappearance of community control and restrictions on the user rights of villagers reduced the incentive and ability of villagers to use forest sustainability. On the other hand, in Russia, pristine forests are being degraded because of lack of resources of the weak central government. Good governance also depends on appropriate institutions. Corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, inefficient and corrupt law enforcement agencies undermine the capacity of institutions to facilitate good governance for sustainable development. Corruption and rent seeking activities can grow even in an economy which has tried to apply outward oriented economic policies if an appropriate institutional environment does not exist. A state which assumes predatory or semi‐predatory status can systematically incapacitate all institutions for good governance and effective implementation of policies. Thus formulation of policies cannot ensure effective implementation in the absence of good governance which in turn cannot be achieved in the absence of appropriate institutions. Hence, sustainable development requires good policies and effective provision of institutions conducive to good governance.

Unsustainable logging and illegal logging for domestic and international trade and trafficking continue to lead to deforestation. It is crucial that Sustainable Development Goal 15 ‘Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss’ is achieved to maintain the livelihoods of people and protect the planet. This is the case in Vietnam as well, where many people, including indigenous groups, rely on the forest for their survival. Drawing on semistructured interviews in Vietnam and a literature review, we investigate how the abuse of forest policies leads to human insecurity. From this, we propose solutions to (1) end unsustainable harvesting and illegal logging (SDG 15.7), (2) integrate the value of forests (culturally and economically) into national and local planning, the development process and poverty elimination strategies (SDG 15.9) and (3) improve the use of forest protection funding provided by international donors.

This chapter provides a legal and theoretical overview of environmental PPMs articulated in private standards. It seeks to expand the debate about environmental PPMs, elucidating important dimensions to the issue from the perspective of global governance and international trade law. One of the arguments advanced in this chapter is that a comprehensive analysis of environmental PPMs should consider not only their role in what is regarded as trade barriers (governmental and market driven) but also their significance in global objectives such as the transition towards a green economy and sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

This chapter is based on an extensive literature review and doctrinal legal research.

This research shows that environmental PPMs represent a key issue in the context of the trade and environment relationship. For decades such measures have been thought of as being trade distortive and thus incompatible with WTO law. Although it seems clear now that they are not unlawful per se, their legal status remains unsettled. PPMs can be regarded as regulatory choices associated with a wide range of environmental concerns. However, in trade disputes, challenged measures involving policy objectives addressing production issues in the conservation of natural resources tend to focus on fishing/harvesting techniques. On the other hand, an important goal of Global Environmental Governance (GEG) is to incentivise sustainable consumption and production in order to achieve the transition to a green economy. In this sense, it can be argued that what are generally denominated as ‘PPMs’ in the WTO terminology can alternatively be regarded ‘SCPs’ in the language of environmental governance. Environmental PPMs are not only limited to state-based measures, such as import bans, tariff preferences, and governmental labelling schemes. Environmental PPMs may also amount to good corporate practices towards environmental protection and provide the rationale for numerous private environmental standards.

Most academic attention afforded to environmental-PPMs has focused on their impacts on trade or their legality under WTO law. Although legal scholars have already referred to the significance of such measures in the context of environmental governance, this issue has remained almost entirely unexplored. This chapter seeks to fill the gap in the literature in this regard. In particular, it addresses the relevance of environmental PPMs in the context of decentralised governance initiatives such as the UN Global Compact and private environmental standards.

Overall, this chapter assists in the understanding of the significance of environmental PPMs in the context of private environmental standards and other governance initiatives involving goals related to sustainable consumption and production. This chapter adds to the existing body of literature on the subject of PPMs in international trade and environmental governance.

Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) offers a framework for open and participatory forest management for forest actors, particularly communities fringing forest reserves. This paper aimed to determine the factors influencing the participation of local communities in the implementation and monitoring of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade-Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT-VPA) activities.

The study was conducted in three communities in Goaso Forest District in the Ahafo Region of Ghana. Based on a cross-sectional design, 105 (n = 105) community members were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify socio-demographic and cultural factors that influence people's participation in FLEGT-VPA activities. Friedman and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were conducted to analyse the influence of the environmental role of the forest and participation in FLEGT-VPA activities.

The study found a significant association between the leadership status of respondents' local customs/taboo days and participation in both implementation and monitoring activities. At the same time, a significant association was found between respondents' participation in previous training programs and FLEGT-VPA monitoring activities. The environmental role of the forest was also found to have a significant association with respondents' participation in FLEGT-VPA activities.

Studies on the factors that influence the participation of forest fringe communities in Ghana in implementing and monitoring FLEGT-VPA activities are non-existent or scarce. This study identified significant socio-demographic and environmental factors contributing to participatory forest conservation modules such as FLEGT-VPA which will guide future forest conservation initiatives that are inclusive of stakeholders’ interests/concerns.

As a typical nature-based solution to climate change, forestry carbon sinks are vital to achieving carbon neutrality in China. However, regulations in China are insufficient to promote the development of carbon offset projects in forestry. This study aims to identify the regulatory obstacles impeding the development of forestry offsets under China’s certified emission reduction (CCER) and explore ways to improve the regulatory system.

This study conducts a qualitative analysis using a normative legal research method. This study conducted a synthetic review of national and local regulatory documents to gain insights into the regulatory landscape of forestry offsets in China. The main contents and characteristics of these documents are illustrated. Furthermore, related secondary literature was reviewed to gain further insight into forestry offset regulations and to identify significant gaps in China’s CCER regulation.

Forestry offset regulations under the CCER are characterized by fragmentation and a relatively lower legally binding force. There is no systematic institutional arrangement for forestry offset development, impeding market expectations and increasing transaction costs. The main challenges in China’s regulation of forestry carbon sinks include entitlement ambiguity, complicated rules for registration and verification, a lack of mechanisms for incentives, risk prevention and biodiversity protection.

Forestry carbon sinks’ multiple environmental and social values necessitate their effective development and utilization. This study assessed forestry offset regulations in China and proposed corresponding institutional arrangements to improve forestry carbon sink regulations under the CCER.

This chapter examines public versus private sector roles in addressing CSR/Sustainability issues in the United States. It provides an historical perspective on the primacy of market-driven corporate practice in the United States and recent moves by the state to “balance” private and public interests through both regulatory and non-regulatory means. A typology of government and business roles, based on “who leads” and “who makes the rules,” illustrates shared governance of CSR/Sustainability in a variety of multisector and public–private partnerships.

Case studies examine how the U.S. government interacts with business and NGOs and its varied roles in the shared governance of sustainability. Examples from field interviews with business leaders in global operator General Electric (Global Business Initiative on Human Rights), apparel maker-and-seller Patagonia (Aquatic “Hitchhikers”), electronics retailer Best Buy (product recycling), IBM (global corporate volunteering), and others illustrate varieties of shared governance between business and the state in operation today.

Depending on “who leads” and “who makes the rules,” there are variations in whether responsible actions by the private sector are regulatory versus voluntary and whether government’s role involves mandating, partnering, facilitating, or endorsing private sector efforts. Successful shared governance depends on business’s “license to cooperate” and the multiple parties’s sharing responsibility for their goals, operations, and results.

There is a substantial literature on multi-business CSR-related networks and on business–NGO partnerships. Less attention has been given to the role of governments in this space, particularly in the United States where, partly for historical reasons, a company’s relationship with and obligations to society have been regarded as discretionary more so than regulatory activity and where government intervention in markets and in the affairs of companies has been sharply resisted, particularly by business interests, and is suspect among the citizenry.

Despite the existence of a variety of approaches to the understanding of behavioral and managerial ethics in organizations and business relationships generally, knowledge of organizing systems for fidelity remains in its infancy. We use halakha, or Jewish law, as a model, together with the literature in sociology, economic anthropology, and economics on what it termed “middleman minorities,” and on what we have termed the Landa Problem, the problem of identifying a trustworthy economic exchange partner, to explore this issue.

The article contrasts the differing explanations for trustworthy behavior in these literatures, focusing on the widely referenced work of Avner Greif on the Jewish Maghribi merchants of the eleventh century. We challenge Greif’s argument that cheating among the Magribi was managed chiefly via a rational, self-interested reputational sanctioning system in the closed group of traders. Greif largely ignores a more compelling if potentially complementary argument, which we believe also finds support among the documentary evidence of the Cairo Geniza as reported by Goitein: that the behavior of the Maghribi reflected their deep beliefs and commitment to Jewish law, halakha.

Applying insights from this analysis, we present an explicit theory of heroic marginality, the production of extreme precautionary behaviors to ensure service to the principal.

Generalizing from the case of halakha, the article proposes the construct of a deep code, identifying five defining characteristics of such a code, and suggests that deep codes may act as facilitators of compliance. We also offer speculation on design features employing deep codes that may increase the likelihood of production of behaviors consistent with terminal values of the community.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of international efforts aimed at reducing illegal logging on bilateral trade of forest products between China and its partner countries.

The analysis is conducted using an extended gravity model, where the regulations enforced in different countries, as well as bilateral agreements between China and its trade partners on combating illegal logging are included as explanatory variables. The impacts of the efforts against illegal logging on bilateral trade of forest products are examined based on the estimated coefficients of these policy variables.

The results show that the regulations have significant and positive effects on the bilateral trade of total forest products between China and its partner countries. The bilateral agreement on combating illegal logging between showed a negative effect on the bilateral trade of forest products. A further study of three types of forest products shows that the regulations have a negative effect for roundwood, but a positive effect for furniture and wood-based panels. The bilateral agreement, on the other hand, affects negatively the trade of all the three forest products.

Since the export of roundwood from China is negligible, the results from this study imply that international efforts to reduce illegal logging have caused reduction of the import of roundwood into China. China’s wood processing industry is to a high degree dependent on imported roundwood. To secure timber supply is therefore an important strategy for sustainable development of the wood processing industry in China.

To the knowledge, this is the first comprehensive assessment of the impacts of international efforts to reduce illegal logging on forest products trade flow between China and its partner countries. The results provide important scientific bases for decisions on reducing international trade of illegally sourced wood products and on promoting sustainable development of the wood processing industry in China.