During the debate over the ratification of the United States-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Bush Administration argued that implementation of a free trade agreement would help strengthen the nascent democracies in Central America. As a bilateral agreement, CAFTA would not only foment greater trade liberalization by expanding market access and eliminating trade barriers, but also help transform the entire commercial frameworks in Central America and promote economic development. These implications are not just economic – in particular, its provisions on intellectual property and investment rights, government procurement and labor standards affect the political institutions underpinning democracy and rule of law. This thesis assesses the role in which CAFTA has affected democratic institutions in Central America. It employs a methodology known as the Democratic Audit to evaluate consequences to four dimensions of democracy - the electoral processes, open and accountable institutions, civil and political liberties, and civil society. It demonstrates the value of using the Democratic Audit to assess a trade agreement’s political effects with an application to Mexico after NAFTA. Then this work considers the case studies of El Salvador and Costa Rica, the most salient examples of democratic institutional change after CAFTA, by drawing on original research especially into the electoral politics and civil society development in these countries. Ultimately, the thesis argues that the most significant institutional effects of CAFTA have been its role as a political issue, rather than its content, in galvanizing popular opinion and reinvigorating electoral politics and civil society - ironically, not the consequences that the Administration originally had in mind. The research demonstrates that, even if some conclusions cannot be drawn due to the recency of CAFTA, the framework it has employed will be an invaluable tool for assessing future trade agreements.

Climate change is putting the Earth’s biodiversity in serious jeopardy. UBC’S Biodiversity Research Centre is aiming to understand the impact of this shift.

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Différents organismes internationaux se sont penchés sur l’école rurale des pays en émergence. La plupart de ces travaux de recherche montrent que ces écoles n’offrent pas une éducation adaptée au milieu dans lesquelles elles sont situées, du fait essentiellement qu’on y a implanté la structure administrative et pédagogique des écoles urbaines sans tenir compte des caractéristiques de la population infantile des zones rurales. Afin de tenter de remédier aux difficultés identifiées, ces organismes ont proposé diverses solutions ou préconisé des politiques adaptées à ce contexte particulier. Le but de cette recherche est d’étudier comment ces recommandations convergent-elles avec les politiques éducatives et dans le quotidien des écoles en milieu rural de deux pays de l’Amérique centrale, le Costa Rica et le Nicaragua. À cette fin, comme cadre d'analyse, nous avons établi six catégories : condition socio-économique, plan d'études et pédagogie, relation école et communauté, enseignants, technologie et finalement, gestion et gouvernance. Pour ce faire, nous analysons les recommandations globales formulées par diverses organisations internationales et d’autres organismes des pays développés à propos de l'éducation rurale. Nous comparons ensuite ces informations avec les décisions politiques prises ces dernières vingt années, dans les deux pays sélectionnés afin de favoriser le développement éducatif des zones rurales. Pour finir, nous observons sur le terrain le quotidien de quelques écoles rurales des deux pays retenus. En partant de l’hypothèse qu’il existe suffisamment d’information et de recommandations permettant l’élaboration des politiques éducatives appropriées pour améliorer les conditions des écoles rurales, le travail présente une analyse multiniveaux (recommandations globales, politiques nationales et pratiques scolaires) en établissant la convergence ou la divergence dans chacune des catégories. Les principaux résultats de la recherche démontrent qu'il existe une convergence entre les pratiques scolaires et les politiques éducatives émises par les pays étudiés, avec quelques exceptions. Quant à la convergence entre les recommandations globales et les politiques émises par ces pays, on ne peut pas parler de convergence de façon générale. La recherche propose l'élaboration de profil de politiques nationales pour chaque pays, en fonction de la manière par laquelle ils abordent la problématique de l'éducation rurale : soit par l’assignation des ressources pour étendre les services éducatifs normalisés pour tous les enfants, ou en produisant des politiques focalisées, créant des programmes spécifiques, faisant remarquer la différence du monde rural. / Various international organizations have studied rural schools in developing countries and the majority of the research shows that these schools do not offer an education adapted to the community in which they are located. This is primarily due to the fact that the schools are integrating administrative and teaching structures of urban schools without taking into consideration the characteristics of child populations in rural zones. In response to the identified difficulties, these organizations proposed various solutions or recommended policies adapted to this particular context. The goal of this research is to study how these recommendations translate into educational policies and their impact on daily life of rural schools in two Central American countries, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. For this purpose, we’ve created an analysis framework with six categories: socio-economic status, curriculum and pedagogy, school and community relationships, teachers, technology, and lastly, management and governance. With this intention, we’ve analyzed the recommendations made by various international organizations and other organizations from developed countries related to rural education. We’ve compared this information to the political decisions on educational development in rural communities made in the last twenty in these two countries. Lastly, we’ve completed the research with field observations, studying the day-to-day work in rural schools. Working from the hypothesis that there exists sufficient valid information and recommendations to issue appropriate policies that improve conditions in rural schools, this work presents a multi-level analysis (global recommendations, national policies and school practices) by determining convergences and divergences in each of these levels. The main results of the research show that there is a convergence between school practices and education policies created by the countries, with some minor exceptions. When it comes to convergence between global recommendations and the countries’ policies, we cannot speak of convergence in general. This research proposes the use of national policy profiles for each country, depending on how they deal with the challenges of rural education: assigning resources to extend standard educational services to all children, or generating targeted policies, creating specific programs that highlight the difference of the rural world.

The contamination of seafood with methylmercury (MeHg) is a global health issue, as MeHg is a well known neurotoxin. Since dietary nutrients may interact with MeHg toxicity, and oxidative stress is one of the primary mechanisms underlying MeHg neurotoxicity, we characterized dietary antioxidant-MeHg interactions. Firstly, we used an ethnobotanical study to confirm the antioxidant activity of Northern Labrador Tea, Rhododendron tomentosum ssp. subarcticum (Tea), for the Canadian Inuit, a population with elevated MeHg exposure. Secondly, we determined the ability of Tea to ameliorate MeHg-induced toxicity in a rat perinatal exposure study. MeHg exposure (2 mg/KgBW/d) was associated with perturbed development and behaviour, elevated brain N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors, and serum lipid peroxidation. Surprisingly, Tea co-exposure (100 mg/KgBW/d) modulated MeHg’s effects on brain NMDA-R levels and lipid peroxidation, but also increased mercury serum concentrations. Thirdly, using a toxicogenomics approach we determined that MeHg exposure caused the down-regulation of Nr4a2 and its protein product Nurr1. These novel MeHg targets are implicated in developmental learning functions and were corrected with MeHg + Tea co-exposure. Lastly, we conducted a risk assessment survey and cross-sectional dietary epidemiology study in Costa Rica to further investigate dietary nutrient-MeHg interactions. Costa Rica is a Central American country with multiple sources of Hg and a high per capital fish consumption. Here, 5 of the 14 populations we studied exceeded the recommended MeHg provisional tolerable daily intake (pTDI) of 0.2 µg/KgBW/d. In Heredia the pTDI was exceeded by 34% of woman participants, primarily associated with canned tuna consumption. Interestingly, we detected that Hg body burden was significantly reduced by the consumption of antioxidant-rich dietary items. Considering our collective results, we hypothesized that MeHg toxicokinetics may be altered by dietary nutrients at the site of intestinal absorption from the disruption of gut flora, or at the site of cellular demethylation in tissues from the improvement of cellular redox state. The interaction of dietary nutrients on MeHg outcomes has a large impact on risk assessment and may provide a public health approach for managing the risk associated with MeHg exposure without reducing local fish consumption.

Globalization and human-domination of the globe have increased the complexity, scope and pace of human-environment interactions in ways that have fundamentally reconfigured the opportunities and challenges for sustainability. As a result, what society needs from science has shifted. Society and scientists alike now call for new ways of doing science that can support decision-makers to confront the complexity and uncertainty of sustainability in today’s more globalized world. The research presented in this thesis contributes to answering this call. The goal of the research was to examine complexities in how globalization shapes the opportunities and challenges for pursuing sustainability. It was conducted in a region of the world where human-environment interactions have been fundamentally transformed by globalization: Latin America. The research used a two-tiered, qualitative case study approach to examine environmental policy-making in Costa Rica and land-use management in Costa Rica’s dry North West. It had three specific objectives: 1. To analyze how environmental policy-making in Costa Rica was influenced by the transfer of policy ideas between the international and Costa Rican political systems; 2. To trial a novel methodology for conducting qualitative land-use research that can support natural resource managers to pursue sustainability while maintaining a high level of scientific credibility; and, 3. To examine the specific processes of forest recovery and rural livelihood change in Costa Rica’s dry North West, and their implications for sustainability and forest management. This research makes three key contributions to our understanding of interactions between globalization, sustainability and complex social-ecological systems. First, it counters a tendency towards oversimplification in both theories and solutions for sustainability. It shows that neither generalized large-scale theories nor single blueprint solutions are adequate on their own to address the complex reality of environmental policy-making and land-use management in Costa Rica today. Second, it demonstrates how the potential of qualitative research to support natural resource managers can be more fully realized through methodological innovation. Third, it reveals important ways that environmental policy-makers and natural resource managers can avoid the pitfalls of oversimplification to more directly confront the complexities of pursuing sustainability under globalization.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Zugl.: München, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

My study has questioned recognized factors of news valuation in the context of Costa Rican newspapers, with the aim at getting greater understanding in how news are valued in Costa Rican newspapers and what factors contribute to making an event the main article of an issue. My research therefore is a snapshot at how the news valuation process is conducted in Costa Rica at the moment. I furthermore went on to do a quantitative content analysis containing five theories of factors of news valuation, that I have theorised myself as a result of my research containing recognized factors of news valuation.   The data has been selected through a random selection process, and then collected via the national library in San José, Costa Rica. I then went on to carry through a quantitative content analysis, containing 46 variables from recognized factors of news valuation and an additional five variables from my own theories, on the selected samples.   The variables in my analysis to a great extent tried questioning the theories of Judy McGregor, Henk Prakke, Håkan Hvitfelt and Galtung and Ruge.   The results show that some of the theories created by mentioned scholar do apply in the news valuation process in Costa Rican newspapers. It furthermore show that some factors, mentioned by the same scholar, to have great impact in the news valuation process does not at all impact the news value of an event in Costa Rican newspapers. This study shows that there is cultural and geographical differences in how events are valued as newsworthy or not, and that the factors that are acknowledged as determining of news value in one region or country, may in fact not at all apply in another part of the world.   The results of my own theories show that there are differences in what factors that affect the news valuation process. My theories state that there are other factors that affect news values and that there can be opposing factors depending on in what country/region/journalistic area the news are valued.

La doctrina del control de convencionalidad fijada por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, demanda que los jueces nacionales tengan en cuenta, al resolver sus causas, tanto al Pacto de San José de Costa Rica como a la interpretación que del mismo ha hecho tal Tribunal. Se discute si para esto último cabe atender solamente al criterio adoptado por la Corte al emitir sentencias, o también cuando formula opiniones consultivas. Existen distintas opiniones. El autor se inclina por incluir a las opiniones consultivas entre las fuentes obligatorias en el control de convencionalidad.