Seizing the ‘Arbitrage Opportunity’ for Legal Rights (Innovations Case Discussion: International Bridges to Justice)
| Autor: | Kenneth Neil Cukier |
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| Rok vydání: | 2008 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization. 3:135-142 |
| ISSN: | 1558-2485 1558-2477 |
| DOI: | 10.1162/itgg.2008.3.2.135 |
| Popis: | peering into microscopes. Then, what sprang to mind were buff Silicon Valley entrepreneurs devising new business models. These caricatures sound simplistic, but they largely held. However, a new form of innovation has emerged that forces us to change our mental picture again. Its agent of action is the social entrepreneur, and the method is to do for society what their forbearers did for business. On the surface, the link between innovation and rights may not be apparent. International Bridges to Justice’s operations seem straightforward: it promotes legal rights around the world by partnering with governments to develop and assist a community of public defenders. It sounds like another do-good non-governmental organization. But this is to severely misunderstand IBJ’s work and the method of its founder and president, Karen I. Tse. Rather, it represents a radical approach. On one level, IBJ cleverly turned a series of difficult obstacles into a “market opening” for its activities. At the same time, IBJ’s initiatives effectively transform legal rights from a political problem to an economic issue. By putting it on a different plane, a window of opportunity is opened whereby substantial, long-lasting change is possible. The IBJ story is instructive not only because it reveals a new form of innovation, but because IBJ’s approach may serve as a model for other global problems that require many stakeholders to be brought together. Yet it embodies something far greater, too. From its modest first step of fostering rights, where it ultimately ends is at the audacious goal of ending state-sanctioned torture in this century. To realize this, Ms. Tse implores, requires a change in consciousness. It is powerful ideal. Does it simply fit the pattern of the wonderful hyperbole that all entrepreneurs share? Or is Ms. Tse actually on the path towards achieving this, in the footsteps of people like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. To consider this, it is vital to understand the rich dimensions of IBJ’s innovation, which is not obvious on the surface. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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