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Independent children’s rights institutions as guardians of children’s rights contribute to the implementation and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) in several ways. This chapter focuses on their engagement with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) during the country-specific monitoring of the Convention: they can provide reliable, precise and up-to-date information about the situation of children’s rights in the field. While considering the state reports, the CRC Committee welcomes submission from any independent children’s rights institutions, but which institutions have taken this opportunity in the past? Based on the public database of reports submitted by national human rights institutions, without looking into the content of their submissions and the impact of their engagement, this chapter intends to draw the profile of the independent children’s rights institutions that actively engage with the monitoring body of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Across the world, the number of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) has increased significantly over the last 40 years. NHRIs play an important role in the promotion and implementation of human rights, and since 2002 the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has supported the establishment of such bodies in Member States who have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC). In 2004, the State Party Germany received the recommendation to establish a permanent national mechanism to coordinate the implementation of the UN CRC. This recommendation was put into effect in 2015 with the mandate of the German Human Rights Institute to independently monitor the implementation of the UN CRC in Germany.

This chapter focuses on the role that the German National CRC Monitoring Mechanism plays in the promotion and advancement of children’s rights in Germany. In particular, it examines the documents published by this body, including shadow reports, position papers and other reports. The author concludes that the cooperation between local, Länder (German federal states), and Federal governmental level has room for improvement, as it reflects the demands for change in the legislation to include children’s rights at a constitutional level and other non-legal measures, which would elevate children’s participation beyond consultancy and toward real political influence.

Although the reform of solitary confinement is underway in many jurisdictions around world, isolation remains in widespread use in many jails and prisons. The purpose of this paper is to discuss opportunities for reform in the USA that could also be applied globally.

A review of the evidence on solitary confinement policies and practices in the USA to develop recommendations for reform with global application.

Focusing on this evidence, the authors argue that solitary confinement is overused and recommend a multi-level approach available to correctional systems worldwide including: immediately limiting solitary confinement to only those cases in which a violent behavioral infraction has been committed for which safety cannot otherwise be achieved, ensuring the briefest terms of isolation needed to achieve legitimate and immediate correctional goals, prohibiting its use entirely for some populations, regularly reviewing all isolated prisoners for as-soon-as-possible return to general population, including the immediate return of those showing mental and physical health risk factors, assisting individuals who are transitioning out of isolation (either to the general population or to the community), and partnering with medical, public health, and criminal justice experts to develop evidence-based alternatives to solitary confinement for nearly all prisoners.

This paper provides an overview of the evidence supporting an overhaul of solitary confinement policy in the USA and globally where solitary confinement remains in wide use and offers recommendations for immediate steps that can be taken toward achieving evidence-based solitary confinement reform.

Researchers continue to seek understanding of industrialization as a state managed process. How to create and implement new industries based on advanced knowledge is on the policy agenda of many advanced nations. Measures that promote these developments include national capacity building in science and technology, the formation of technology transfer systems, and the establishment of industrial clusters. What these templates often overlook is an analysis of use. This chapter aims to increase the understanding of the processes that embed new solutions in structures from an industrial network perspective. The chapter describes an empirical study of high-technology industrialization in Taiwan that the researcher conducts to this end. The study shows that the Taiwanese industrial model is oversimplified and omits several important factors in the development of new industries. This study bases its findings on the notions that resource combination occurs in different time and space, the new always builds on existing resource structures, and the users are important as active participants in development processes.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to investigate one core research question: How can health information technology (HIT) be assessed in a national health care system context?

Design/methodology – We examine this question by taking a systematic approach within a national care system, in which the purpose of HIT is to contribute to a common national health care system's goal: to promote population health in an efficient way. Based on this approach we first develop a framework and our criteria of assessment, and then using Taiwan as a case study, demonstrate how one can apply this framework to assess a national system's HIT. The five criteria we developed are how well does the HIT (1) provide accessible and accurate public health and health care information to the population; (2) collect and provide population health and health care data for government and researchers to analyze population health and processes and outcomes of health care services; (3) provide accessible and timely information that helps to improve provision of cost-effective health care at an institutional level and promotes system-wide efficiency; (4) minimize transaction and administrative costs of the health care system; and (5) establish channels for population participation in governance while also protecting individual privacy.

Findings – The results indicate that Taiwan has high levels of achievement in two criteria while falling short in the other three. Major lessons we learned from this study are that HIT exists to serve a health care system, and the national health care system context dictates how one assesses its HIT.

Originality/value – There is a large body of literature published on the implementation of HIT and its impact on the quality and cost of health care delivery. The vast majority of the literature, however, is focused on a micro institutional level such as a hospital or a bit higher up, on an HMO or health insurance firm. Few have gone further to evaluate the implementation of HIT and its impact on a national health care system. The lack of such research motivated this study. The major contributions of this study are (i) to develop a framework that follows systems thinking principles and (ii) propose a process through which a nation can identify its objectives for HIT and systematically assess its national HIT system. Using Taiwan's national health care system as a case study, this paper demonstrated how it can be done.

This chapter concentrates on child rights institutions’ founding or organic laws that provide independence and powers to the national or local child rights institutions. This chapter analyzes the National Commission on the Rights of the Child Act (NCRCA, 2017) of Pakistan as a case. It employs the Paris Principles of 1993 and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 2 as a yardstick. This chapter also compares the NCRCA with the National Commission on Human Rights Act (NCHRA, 2012). It presents results from interviews of three Child Rights Movement Pakistan (CRM) members and a member of the National Commission on the Rights of the Child (NCRC). The analysis finds that the NCRC faces serious challenges in performing its duties and functions, which were already limited within the organic law. The NCRC is an advisory body whose only role is to suggest the federal bureaucracy when and if required. The NCRC has not been provided with funds and adequate resources. Even the NCRC members were not paid their salaries for many months. The analysis finds that the NCRC’s affairs are governed through the bureaucracy¹ (senior officials) within the Ministry of Human Rights, and the Human Rights Division. Rather than direct responsibility to the Parliament, the NCRC’s independence is undermined as its legislation directs. In the future, the NCRC will face challenges in advancing and protecting children’s rights because it does not have suo-motu (on its own) powers to intervene in matters affecting children. Therefore, it is indispensable to amend the NCRCA in consideration of the GC2 and the Paris Principles to bolster the institution’s independence and functions. These changes are essential to addressing violations of children’s rights and bringing about changes in the structures that affect children.

In Hungary, soon after the democratic transition in 1989/1990, the institution of the general ombudsman was established, based on the Swedish model, possessing broad oversight. Since 2012, with the Fundamental Law (new constitution) and a new ombudsman act entering into force, the defense of children’s rights has become one of the legal obligations of the general ombudsman. In this chapter, the author examines the historical background of this “hybrid” institution¹ and the performance of the last three commissioners based on the child rights approach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC).

The UN CRC represents the “whole child” approach, a holistic view of a child which also informs the work of independent children’s rights institutions (ICRIs). Hence, the four guiding principles of the UN CRC² (the right to non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and the right to participation) can be seen as analyzable elements of an ICRI’s performance. There are also “informal” factors that can influence the performance of an ICRI – even a stand-alone – for example, social and political recognition of the institution, the societal and legal regard of children (are their rights widely recognized or not, etc.), the personal motivation and drive of the ombudsman, the ombudsman’s own interests and background, the financial constraints of the office and the overall political atmosphere and various political influences around. These factors can play a vital role, but their existence can only be assumed in cases where the institution’s more exact outputs based on the UN CRC guiding principles can be seen: the appearance of children in its work, attention to vulnerable groups and cases related to non-discrimination, the number of complaints submitted to the commissioner (including those by children) and the appearance of best interests of children in cases. The author has found differences between the last three commissioners’ performances based on the guiding principles, which are also not independent from informal factors too.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a statistical-based model to forecast future domestic water demand in the context of climate change, population growth and technological development in Yellow River.

The model is developed through the analysis of the effects of climate variables and population on domestic water use in eight sub-basins of the Yellow River. The model is then used to forecast water demand under different environment change scenarios.

The model projected an increase in domestic water demand in the Yellow River basin in the range of 67.85 × 10⁸ to 62.20 × 10⁸ m³ in year 2020 and between 73.32 × 10⁸ and 89.27 × 10⁸ m³ in year 2030. The general circulation model Beijing Normal University-Earth System Model (BNU-ESM) predicted the highest increase in water demand in both 2020 and 2030, while Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Climate Model v.5 (CNRM-CM5) and Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate- Earth System (MIROC-ESM) projected the lowest increase in demand in 2020 and 2030, respectively. The fastest growth in water demand is found in the region where water demand is already very high, which may cause serious water shortage and conflicts among water users.

The simple regression-based domestic water demand model proposed in the study can be used for rapid evaluation of possible changes in domestic water demand due to environmental changes to aid in adaptation and mitigation planning.

There is a growing concern in recent years regarding climate change risks to real estate in the developed and developing countries. It is anticipated that the property sector could be affected by variable climate and related extremes as well as by the strategies adopted to combat greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper aims to analyse the current knowledge regarding future climate changes to understand their possible impacts on the real estate sector of Malaysia with an aim to help stakeholders to adopt necessary responses to reduce negative impacts.

Available literature is reviewed and data related to climatic influences on buildings and structures are analysed to understand the climate change impacts on real estate in Malaysia.

The study reveals that temperature in the Peninsular Malaysia will increase by 1.1 to 3.6°C, rainfall will be more variable and river discharge in some river basins will increase up to 43 per cent during the northeast monsoon season by the end of this century. These changes in turn will pose risks of property damage and increase property lifecycle costs. Furthermore, property prices and the overall growth of the property sector may be affected by the government policy of GHG emission reduction by up to 45 per cent by the year 2030. This study concludes that the property sector of Malaysia will be most affected by the implementation of GHG emission reduction policy in the short term and due to the physical risk posed by variable climate and related extremes in the long term.

The study in general will assist in guiding the operational responses of various authorities, especially in terms of those interventions aimed at climate change risk reduction in the property sector of Malaysia.

Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, states have the obligation to implement and monitor children’s rights. A key element thereof is the creation of independent national institutions for the promotion and protection of children rights (independent children’s rights institutions – ICRIs). All over the world a wide variety of such institutions can be found. In this chapter, the authors aim at providing a broader understanding of how to research ICRIs’ capacity to monitor and promote children’s rights. The authors use the case of the Dutch Children’s Ombudsman and an evaluation of this institute to draw out key elements of such research. This chapter shows the importance of studying the political process behind the establishment of an ICRI, and conceptualize and measure the autonomy of an ICRI in a comprehensive way. Moreover, the chapter sketches how an ICRI is part of a wider “children’s rights landscape” engaging with children’s rights actors at different levels. Multidisciplinary research is needed to grasp these elements and conduct a comprehensive assessment of an ICRI.