Development as Fairness

Development as Fairness

 Speech pronounced during the "Cultural Resources for Sustainable Development" Conference, Shanghai, China, April 25, 2008.


Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Guests:

I feel honored to be able to attend today's Forum which made us all feel the importance of dialogue between culture and development and the role of culture as a tool for self-reflection. This spirit of self-reflection has generated and continues to generate a more and more mature reflection on the historical task that constitutes for the Chinese the development of West China.

Today, being south of the Yangtze river and considering  our geographical opposite North-West China (the former state of Loulan around Lob-Nor in Xinjiang), we cannot but recall how the men...

Read more: A New Perspective on the Opening and Development of West China

Development as Fairness

The exhaustion of natural resources and the damage to the ecological environment, competition for resources and environmental damage have become issues of concern in the international community. Environmental issues are redefining the notion of security. Consequently, initiatives have been flourishing: Japan launched its Cool Earth 50 initiative in May 2007. End of November 2007, the new Australian government put to immediate execution its decision to sign the Kyoto Protocol. In December 2007, the United Nations Climate Change conference held in Bali draw much international attention, as the question of which mechanism will succeed to the Kyoto Protocol after 2012 is becoming one of the main global concerns and fields of diplomatic...

Read more: Asia and Environmental Diplomacy

Development as Fairness

Since the adoption of the 11th Plan in March 2006, China has shown its commitment towards a more sustainable model of development, a model less wasteful of precious resources and more guided by the “harmony” principle, at the social as at the environmental level. By doing so, it also asserts its role as a responsible stakeholder of global governance. The developmental problem encountered by China is not only its own, though it does manifest itself on a larger scale than anywhere else. “Sustainability” has become the common, pressing imperative of international organizations, public powers, international companies, local entrepreneurs and civil societies throughout the world. The magnitude and interconnectedness of the challenge...

Read more: Cultural diversity and sustainable development

Development as Fairness

The following just wants to stress the fact that "sustainable development’ is not a mere technical concept, and that when reflecting on different models of "sustainable development" cultural sensitivity is an issue that remains often overlooked.

The concept is now well known - to the extent that it risks to loose its original appeal: “Sustainable development” is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Sustainable development is also defined as maintaining a delicate balance between the human need to improve lifestyles and feeling of well-being on one hand, and preserving natural resources and ecosystems, on which we and future generations...

Read more: Culture and Sustainable Development

Development as Fairness

During the last month the economic crisis has deepened its roots: the economy in the US fell 0.3% in the third quarter, the general indexes of stock markets have fallen all around the world from the developed countries to the emerging markets, consumer confidence is hitting record lows and articles about the financial crisis and the end of this period of capitalism are abundant. Critics on how the incentives system has deteriorated the world wealth distribution in favor of bankers and managers are leading the political debates in several countries.

The crisis exists and it is imperative to have a close look on how governments react locally and in concert with multilateral institutions. But this is also the right moment to check our...

Read more: Do not let the crisis take all the gains away

Development as Fairness

On September 10, Romano Prodi, former president of the European Commission and former Italian Prime minister, was the guest of the Xu-Ricci Dialogue Institute at Fudan University, Shanghai. Together with Professor Melloni, director of the John XXII Foundation for Religious Science in Bologna, he was introducing to a Chinese audience the flagship project of the Foundation: a database regrouping the editions of all Ecumenical Church Councils, in all languages and writing systems in which they had been acted

What follows is a slightly abridged English version of the speech he pronounced in Italian on this occasion:

Read more: Europe-China Cooperation in the Digital Era by R. Prodi

Development as Fairness

An interview with Paul Jobin

Paul Jobin’s research on Japanese (and Taiwanese) nuclear plant workers began in 2002, mainly at Fukushima Daiichi. After March 2011, he conducted further interviews in Fukushima and joined rounds of negotiation launched by labor groups with the Ministry of Health and Labor.

Could you summarize the policies towards radiation protection in Fukushima, and what characterizes the current situation, one year after the nuclear disaster?

Even before the disaster, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) employed a large pool of workers in order not to exceed the annual quota of radiation per person. The latest statistics from TEPCO (dated November 30, 2011) reported 3,745 workers on the site in March (about 1700...

Read more: Fukushima one year on: nuclear workers and citizens at risk

Development as Fairness

Gaël Giraud, Economic Researcher at the CNRS, tells us about his book "20 proposals to reform Capitalism" and discusses topics ranging from the economic crisis to green development.

Read more: Gaël Giraud's Proposals for Capitalism

Development as Fairness

In 1991, a book by Saskia Sassen, The Global City, signaled the coming of age of metropolis as key actors of the globalization process. Information technologies, intimately linked to the globalization process, were producing a phenomenon of “metropolization”, i.e. an accrued concentration of services and decision centers in giant cities that form together a “global network.” London, San Francisco, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai… Such metropolises are indeed the places where the future takes shape – they are also those that provoked and nurtured the current financial crisis…

Nowadays, more than half of the world population lives in cities, and a growing number lives in very big ones. The ills that come with it are well...

Read more: Global and Compact: the Future of Metropolises

Development as Fairness

When I was a child, I enjoyed reading the tales and legends from the Greek mythology. Young boys are especially mesmerized by the Twelve Labours of Hercules, a hero not so smart, but so brave and enthusiastic… Among the Twelve Labours he had to accomplish, Hercules fought a hydra with seven heads – or nine heads according to the different versions. In fact, there are several different tales of the fight. The most common one tells that the seven heads of the hydra would grow back after being cut and Hercules had to sever the heads one by one to prevent their growing again. One of these heads was even immortal and Hercules had to bury it under a rock. Curiously, the version I kept in my mind is different: each head would grow up if...

Read more: Hercules and the Hydra: the Seven Crises of Humankind