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This paper aims to investigate the impact of reforms on economic growth in a sample of transition economies of Central Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States from 1989 until 2010. We employ a panel data methodology and run a Haussman test to distinguish between a fixed effect and a random effect model. In addition, we take into account the role of reform reversals and examine their contribution in the growth dynamics. Reform downgrades are very common since in some cases progress in reforms has been stalled or even reversed due to political instability, wars, economic crises, etc. We model the reforms downgrades following the previous work of Merlevede (2003) using a different methodology and extending our period of estimation. Furthermore, the relationship between other explanatory variables (i.e. initial conditions, fiscal balance) and growth is further explored in the empirical estimation. JEL Classification O57, P21 Keywords transition economies, reforms, reversal Author's e-mail lorena_zh@hotmail.com Supervisor's e-mail roman.horvath@gmail.com

MA, Faculty of Humanities, School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2007 / The settlement of international disputes by peaceful means has been described as one of the principles basic to the whole structure of the international system. It has been contended that this principle is the natural corollary for the prohibition of the use of force in settlement of international disputes enshrined in Art. 24 of the United Nations Charter, and embodied in Art. 2 (3). The UN’s organ assigned this mediation role is the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for matters with respect to state responsibility. The International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the Special Court of Sierra Leone are international tribunals with jurisdiction to try matters relating to individual criminal responsibility. At continental as well as at regional levels, some states have set up their own institutions to peacefully manage conflict amongst them and in the broader region. Nevertheless, the question—in a world where dispute settlement institutions and processes are supernumerary relative to conflicts, can they effectively serve as key to conflict prevention? remains a major concern. Based on critical research, this report inquires whether conflict prevention is mythical or an attainable objective and whether the international judiciary which is prima facie a conflict mediation body can catalyze conflict prevention. In attempting to answer these questions, an understanding of the concepts of free and fair trial is preponderant; coupled with understanding current debates about the undermining of international justice by the states.

The main aim of establishing the prison institution in all parts of the world including Nigeria is to provide a rehabilitation and correctional facility for those who have violated the rules and regulations of their society. However, the extent to which this maxim is true in practice has been a subject of controversy. A casual observation of the population that goes in and out of the prisons in Nigeria presupposes that there are some problems in the system, hence the prisons system has not been able to live up to its expected role in Nigeria. Against this background, this paper makes an argument on why reform is necessary in the Nigerian prisons. Some of these reasons include reforming the prisoners to be better than what they were before they were imprisoned, rehabilitate the prisoners in order to equip them with new skills or improve on their old ones, and seclude criminals from the rest of the society, pending when they have atoned for their “sins”. The structural-functionalist approach of the system theory for the study of human society and culture as proposed by Radcliff-Brown of the British School of social anthropology and later developed by Meyer Fortes and Max Gluckman is utilized in explaining prison environment. Main sources of information for this study are secondary materials which include, journals and official bulletin of the government. Among other issues, this discourse articulates various reforms that have already taken place and are still on-going in the Nigerian prison system. These include efforts in the decongestion process, provision of necessary infrastructure facilities and other logistics including transportation services and general skills acquisition programmes. This article also makes a critical impact appraisal of the reform processes in the system. From the appraisal, the author believes that there are more gains than pains in the system since the gradual reform processes therein. In order to deal finally with prison congestion, this paper suggests that the decongestion committee needs to be strengthened in its work by changing their periodic visit to the prisons to be more regular and frequent, more prison yards need to be built, more non-governmental organizations should be encouraged and allowed to visit the prisons to monitor the activities there, from which they can make an input in form of suggestions to the various reform committees on what to do.

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