Quick blogging. Sponsored by Bolivia, next July 28th the UN is moving towards embodying the human right to water in the form of a UNGA Resolution. The current content of the right to water is clarified by the General Comment 15 (GC-15) and reports produced by the Independent Expert on the Right to Water and Sanitation. The GC-15 is not binding as a legal instrument to state parties of the ICESCR, although it is an authoritative source of interpretation.
A UNGA Resolution on the other hand, may constitute an evidence of state practice which reinforces the bindingness and (the legal) existence of the right to water under International law [International Law experts are welcomed to argue on this :) ].

However, I consider the resolution’s draft text to be vague. It only recalls the GC-15 and two previous reports by the Independent Expert (IE). There is no clarification whatsoever on the content of the right. It may be that the strategy of interpretation is to link the Resolution with the GC-15 and the IE reports.

Note that some countries including the UK, USA and Canada opposes this move. As such, a vote might be required. Main supporters are likely to be Southern states. In order for this resolution to be supported by more states, more vagueness might be necessary. Nevertheless, this is already an important diplomatic move.

Read also, Maude Barlow’s and Mikhail Gorbachev’s op-eds on the right to water. The Draft Resolution (July 19th) is accessible here.
Does anyone know Indonesia’s diplomatic position?

 

In the previous posts, I explained two significant uses of Dropbox: to sync your MS Word Document across computers and sync your Endnote libraries, styles, filters and connections.  What I forgot to explain is what dropbox is all about.

This video explains it all:

And, as Professor Farnsworth says: good news everyone, if you join through this referral, you will get 2.250 GB of free storage (and sync).

 

 

 

And so does social ‘sciences’ and the law.

Picture: Taken from The Copenhagen National Museum

Quick blogging. Finally the long awaited report from the Independent Expert (IE) is out.

The report emphasize the importance of transparency, participation and accountability in water projects involving the private sector. On the transparency side, the IE even suggests that "Commercial confidentiality must not jeopardize the transparency requirements provided for under the human rights framework". Finally, she conclude and recommends that "The process of decision-making and implementation, any instruments that delegate service provision including contracts, and instruments that outline roles and responsibilities must be transparent, which requires the disclosure of adequate and sufficient information and actual access to information".

 

I hope this report ends the long speculation that the human right to water means outlawing “privatisation”. It does not and is never meant to be as such. The discourse on water has been cluttered with the privatisation debate. This report outline that the word “privatisation” itself is dilemmatic and the problem does not end there. Privatization has its problem and so does non-delegated or state-owned services. The real problem is governance, whether the service is public or private or hybrid.

More discussions follows.

Read the full report here.

Relevant posts:

Transparency in Water Services
Indonesian Water Services Suffering from a Lack of Governance
14 Disturbing Facts about Jakarta's Water
Where to complain for bad water services – a comparison
Jakarta’s water crisis, whose fault?
Human Right  Aspects of Private Sector Participation in the Water Sector
Is water a commodity or human rights?
The human right to water is not a property right
Why busy with the right to water instead of governance
Consultation on the Human Right  Aspects of Private Sector Participation in the Water Sector: more responses from the private sector
The Economist and the human right to water
Transparency Agenda in Water Utilities Regulation
Hukum Air (Water Law) is not really a topic in Indonesia
Papers:
Safeguarding water contracts in Indonesia
Constitutional Court review and the future of water law in Indonesia
Presentation:
Anticipating water trade

 

Hello again researchers!

 

Your Endnote contains the list of literatures and authorities you used for your research paper. It may also contain your research data itself, attached to the bibliography in endnote. For sure, you want it to be safe and if possible, retrievable from any location which has endnote software in it. The solution: store your endnote data in the cloud. If you use multiple computers, you might want to sync it as well so that every changes you made in one computer will be adjusted in the other. We’ll do this using dropbox.

Steps:

The Three Main Folders

1. Install Dropbox.

2. Identify three main folders used in endnote: the styles folder, the filters folder and the connections folders. Click edit, preferences, folder locations. You will see three default path to folder locations.

3. Go to windows explorers, find the location of those three folders, copy them.

4. Go to your MyDropbox, create a new folder (e.g. Endnote) and paste them there in the new folder.

5. Now you need to return to your endnote, click edit, preferences, folder locations, select folder. Change the path into your new endnote folders in Dropbox.

 

 

The library file (ENL)

 

Normally, Endnote store your library file in MyDocuments/Documents. Go to windows explorer, find the *.enl files and copy them. Next, go to MyDropbox, paste them there (or you can paste it in your endnote folder in dropbox too, if you like). In order to change the default library location, do the following:
Click edit, preferences, libraries, open the specified libraries, click add open libraries, apply.

 

That’s it! Your endnote is in your dropbox now. You can work on your paper in any computer with endnote and dropbox installed. If you are using a new computer, don’t forget to adjust the paths of your endnote software into your dropbox folder.   

Related post:
Howto: Autosave your ms word doc in Dropbox

 

This is a tip to my fellow countrymen ph.d, master students, and anyone else working with MS-Word in multiple computers. As you know, dropbox is a tool to sync, store and (optionally) share your data in the cloud. It gives you a 2GB of storage capacity.

Now that’s too small for me since I consume at minimum 5 GB of space ( for my MS Office files and PDFs data) every 6 months. So I use dropbox in combination with other free cloud strorage facilities such as Skydrive (25 GB). I use dropbox only to sync and store my working files, which are mostly in MS-Word (well, occasionally lawyers use excell and visio too, but only occasionally!). The whole ms-word working files cost me less than 500 MB for one year. That should work for everyone too. Even if you manage to write and publish 50 papers in a month, that should count for less than 1 GB for the whole year! Bottomline: dropbox free 2 GB account would suffice for syncing your working files. But for your data, you may need additional backup storage from Skydrive.

Here’s how it work for MS Word:

MS Word 2003:

Click tools --- Options --- File Locations --- Modify

 

 

MS Word saves your working files in Document/My Document by default. In order to change this, click modify and point it to your MyDropbox folder (normally located in My Document).

For MS Word 2007, you need to click the Office Button, click Advanced, in the General section click File Locations, click Documents in the File types list,  click Modify and then point it to your MyDropbox location.

Done. Now there is no more need to copy-paste your file from your local computer to your MyDropbox folder. Just save it as usual, and it will store in the cloud, your local hard drive and sync with your other computers at the same time.

Later when I have time, I will provide you with a tutorial on how to sync your endnote files, libraries and styles across computers as well as storing it in the cloud, using Dropbox.

The E&P Sharing Contracts and Agreement 2010 is taking place in the 6th until the 8th of July in the Grand Hyatt, Jakarta. Master Class A is taking place on the 6th of July with the topic “Structuring, Negotiating and Managing EPC Contracts in the Oil and Gas Industry”.

Tomorrow is a special day as the plenary session will take place. There’s an exciting segment where Dr Widjajono Partowidagdo of the National Energy Council (DEN) will discuss a new economic model he’s developed on the “Next Steps of Action” for operators and government to achieve the vision of the forum: Reformed, Energetic and Efficient E&P Industry in Asia Pacific through fresher, commercially viable E&P agreements.

High-level executives from oil and gas, oil financing and government sectors, supermajor IOCs, big NOCs, INOCs, SOCs including ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Total, Hess, Samsung, Petronas, PTT, Pertamina, Medco, major law firms, and teams from Indonesian regulators in the ESDM and BPMIGAS attended the forum.

Click here (Masterclass A) and here (Masterclass B and C) to get a sneak peek on the Master Classes. Read the forum agenda here.