The subject of trade and environment is a touchy one. More than being touchy, in fact, it is contentious. For an issue as contentious as that of the prospects of trade and environment being mutually beneficial, there is never any dearth of ideas and analyses. About a year-and-a-half back was organised a conference on Trade, Investment and Environment where experts from both the North and the South thrashed it out.

What policies are needed in a globalised economy if environmental protection is to be secured? How can discussions on the relationship between trade, environment and investment move forward to offer genuinely 'win-win' solutions? Do transnational corporations help or hinder environmental protection? What does this mean for any multilateral investment framework? Is there a need for a new global environmental organisation? These were some of the key issues that have been highlighted in the 26 papers compiled by Halin Ward and Duncan Brack.

There are three basic contentions around which the extraordinarily complex and interlinked issues addressed in these papers centre. First, there is 'protection versus protectionism'. Do powerful trading nations use trade measures as a way of forcing developing countries to adopt essentially their own world view? Is the trade and environment debate a form of 'eco-colonialism'? From an economic, as well as an environmental, perspective, when does it make sense to link environmental protection objectives to trade policy?

Second is the relationship between foreign direct investment and the environment. Do the activities of transnational corporations tend, on balance, to help or hinder environmental protection? How can transnational corporations most effectively be regulated in order to maximise their potential contribution to sustainable development? And what does this mean for any potential multilateral investment framework?

Third, there is a collection of institutional issues. How far can and should the World Trade Organization (WTO) go in incorporating environmental considerations into its day-to-day thinking before overstepping its proper mandate? Would 'mainstreaming' the environment throughout the WTO and the agreements it oversees somewhow challenge this? Would strengthening the role of the nongovernmental actors in the system be a threat to sovereignty or a recognition of a new 'international civil society'? And is there a need for a new global environmental organisation equal in authority to the WTO to act as a counterweight to it, and to address some of the problems that result from the fragmented nature of the existing international environmental regime?

The much-misunderstood phenomenon of globalisation overlies each of these themes. What are the most appropriate policy interventions in a globalised economy if environmental protection and social welfare are to be maximised? What system of global governance is needed? The practical challenges involved in defining new roles for all of the actors in the face of the 'globalisation phenomenon' come across clearly in this book.

If these three issues lie at the heart of the subjects addressed in the papers, four major events in the trade and environment and investment and environment calendars also dominate: (i) the WTO Appellate Body report in the Shrimp/Turtle case (published in October 1998), (ii) the collapse (in the same month) of the negotiations on the draft Multilateral Agreement on Investment; (iii) the proposed (as it was then) high-level meeting on trade and environment or trade and sustainable development (which eventually took place, in a slightly different form, in March 1999); and (iv) the Millennium Round of trade negotiations at Seattle in 1999-end.

That the gap is widening between environmentalists and investors/traders was never as evident as it was in Seattle. Many of the papers presented here were euphemistic, but if there was anything euphemistic about the ire of environmentalists at Seattle, investors should shudder at what awaits in the future.

This in-depth, engrossing book tells not only the story of Galileo Galilei, the inventor of the telescope, but also of his oldest daughter, Virginia, or Suor Maria Celeste. Galileo was wronged by the authorities of a Church to which he gave his faith as well as his daughters (they were nuns) when they misinterpreted the Bible and tried him for heresy because he said that the earth not only moved, but that it was not the centre of the universe. This misunderstanding of the way the solar system works arose from a misinterpretation of the Bible by the Church.

Standing by her father and giving him moral support throughout was his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, a Poor Claire nun. She wrote him encouraging letters and managed his household affairs as best she could behind convent walls. Even when the Pope (Urban VIII) would not allow Galileo to come home to Florence, his daughter sent him remedies for his illnesses and kept his hopes of returning alive. When he was commanded to do penance by reciting prayers, his daughter took this duty over for him.

In seventeenth century Italy, the Catholic Church had Inquisition offices everywhere and still burned people at the stake for heresy. It also had an index of banned books which "good" Catholics were not permitted to read. While the Church no longer looms so large over its flock's affairs, there are many other religious organisations in other nations that do. People are still executed in Saudi Arabia for infractions against Islam, for example. While the Church did away with the Index of Prohibited Books with the Vatican II council, authors like Salman Rushdie are in fear of their lives because religious leaders have banned their books and put prices on their heads for daring to speak their minds about a particular religion.

This book tells the story of Galileo and his daughter in a way that is easy to read and hard to put down. There are many pictures scattered throughout the text, making the story easier to understand. The reader can see where Galileo taught school, what his tomb looks like, and how his books were illustrated. There is even a photo of Galileo's signed confession that got him out of worse troubles than simply being imprisoned in someone's home. The background history given puts the story in the proper context, giving the reader a better understanding of the story.

 

What Amazon says:

Everyone knows that Galileo Galilei dropped cannonballs off the leaning tower of Pisa, developed the first reliable telescope, and was convicted by the Inquisition for holding a heretical belief--that the earth revolved around the sun. But did you know he had a daughter? In Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel (author of the bestselling Longitude) tells the story of the famous scientist and his illegitimate daughter, Sister Maria Celeste. Sobel bases her book on 124 surviving letters to the scientist from the nun, whom Galileo described as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and tenderly attached to me." Their loving correspondence revealed much about their world: the agonies of the bubonic plague, the hardships of monastic life, even Galileo's occasional forgetfulness ("The little basket, which I sent you recently with several pastries, is not mine, and therefore I wish you to return it to me").

While Galileo tangled with the Church, Maria Celeste--whose adopted name was a tribute to her father's fascination with the heavens--provided moral and emotional support with her frequent letters, approving of his work because she knew the depth of his faith. As Sobel notes, "It is difficult today ... to see the Earth at the centre of the Universe. Yet that is where Galileo found it." With her fluid prose and graceful turn of phrase, Sobel breathes life into Galileo, his daughter, and the earth-centred world in which they lived. --Sunny Delaney © Amazon.com