Innovative Projects, Experiences, and Ideas

Values, Common Interests, and Practices to Share

8 March 2010
The Law and Cross-cultural Dynamics in Europe by Christoph EBERHARD

Meeting of the Cross-cultural Skills in the Social Services workgroup, Division of Research and Development in Social Cohesion, Council of Europe, February 17-18, 2009, Paris. We met: to launch a discussion on the legal frameworks that would: allow our societies to change toward a democratic management of cultural diversity, and help to integrate into the European institutions, essentially in the services, the concept of reasonable accommodation; to think about the relevance of (...)

1 March 2010
Cross-cultural Listening and Dialog by Christoph EBERHARD

Here is a video excerpt of the interview (Montreal, August 10, 2009), “The myth of pluralism. A dialog with Robert Vachon" (former director of the Institut Interculturel de Montréal, founder and director of the magazine Interculture). In his life devoted to cross-cultural dialog and through his explorations in the Institut Interculturel de Montréal of the cultures of the world and the dialog among them, Robert Vachon has acquired knowledgeable wisdom in the area of dialog and attention. He (...)

The Law as a Mirror of Cultures. For Another Globalization. - 1 March 2010, by Christoph EBERHARD

The second edition of the Christoph Eberhard’s book, Le droit au miroir des cultures. Pour une autre mondialisation (The Law as a Mirror of Cultures. For Another Globalization) has just been published with a preface by Etienne Le Roy. Presentation In this age of globalization, Law theoreticians and researchers in social sciences are increasingly questioning the adequacy of their tools for the complexity and interdependence of the contemporary world. Some of the questions are becoming (...)

Building One’s Retirement around Human Responsibilities? - 16 January 2007, by Pierre CARO

Facing the irreversible changes in our environments – demographic, geopolitical, scientific, and religious – we can no longer consider our retirement period without drawing up for our life a real project, that makes sense to ourselves and to others. Entering the retirement period is no longer the same as entering old age Some are very young and some very old, but above all, today, there are five or six generations that have to live together and consider their future in the global system. (...)

Our Common Responsibility to the Global Environment: The Europeans’ Ecological Debt - 10 December 2005, by Yolanda ZIAKA

Everyone knows more or less what the debt Third World countries is: a financial debt. This is not true for the ecological debt, a new concept that was coined by South American NGOs in the early 1990s. In its current conception, as used by South American activists, the ecological debt is a debt that is due by the industrialized countries of the North to the Third World countries, once colonies, as per the environmental impact entailed (still today) by the exploitation of their resources by (...)

Climate Warming and Our Common Responsibility: Becoming Informed So We Can Act - 10 December 2005, by Yolanda ZIAKA

The issue of global warming, a major challenge of our time, is a quintessential "entrance" to the initiation of an awareness-raising and education campaign on the question of everyone’s individual responsibility. Following is a brief overview of the issue as it stands today (September 2005) and a few ideas on the educational potential of this issue for an initiation to the concept of human responsibility. Climate change - current situation The energy received by the Earth from the sun is (...)

The Ecological Footprint As a Tool for Awareness-raising on Individual and Collective Responsibility - 10 December 2005, by Yolanda ZIAKA

The "ecological footprint" concept could be used to great advantage as an educational tool in the framework of communication and education actions around the concept of responsibility, with a view to becoming aware of our responsibility for the impact of our own lifestyle on the environment. It therefore carries significant potential for the development of a responsible attitude. Following is a short presentation of the concept (definition and applications) and a few ideas on the (...)

The "Imperative of Responsibility" According to Hans Jonas - 6 November 2005, by Yolanda ZIAKA

In his book "The Imperative of Responsibility," published in 1979, the German philosopher Hans Jonas pleads for the extreme emergency to give ourselves an ethics for technological civilization based on "the imperative of responsibility." His theory starts from the finding that the promise of modern technology has turned into a threat of disaster: science confers to man previously unknown forces, the economy constantly pushes forward in an unbridled impulse. Economic achievements have (...)

The Ecological Footprint as a Tool in Environmental Education - 7 September 2005, by Hans HARMS

What is the ecological footprint? It is a tool for determining if our lifestyles are sustainable. Categories of human consumption are translated into areas of productive land which is required to provide resources and assimilate waste products. The “footprint” is the total amount of land required to sustain one human or group of humans, say in a family or city, based on their use of energy, food, water, transport, building material and other consumables. It is a way of determining relative (...)

Assuming Responsibilities in Daily Life: Responsible Consumption - 10 July 2005, by Yolanda ZIAKA

The responsible-consumption movement aims to raise consumer awareness and bring consumers to change their attitudes and behavior in the direction of committing to products applying social and environmental criteria. Mass consumption and the limits of our planet World War II brought about, in its wake, an explosion of mass domestic consumption that has continued to grow ever since with the support of television, which is responsible for conveying the new life style associated with this (...)

Nevertheless, there are alternatives: the experience of the cooperative of Mondragón - 3 September 2005, by Hans HARMS

We are in the year 2005 a.C. neo liberalism became the dominating approach all over Europe. Who does not understand yet or does not want to understand the fact that enterprises have to dismiss thousands of workers and employees although they declare record benefits is stamped as dreamer or a complete idiot. But is this really true all over Europe? No, in a remote valley in the deepest Basque country people still believe in the priority of human interest over the capital. Here we find the (...)

“To buy is a political act”: pathways towards a responsible consumption - 3 September 2005, by Hans HARMS

“To buy is a political act”. Responsible consumption represents an effort to simultaneously reduce pollution and consumption. The choices we make as consumers are perhaps the easiest and most effective methods we have of making our opinions relevant to corporate and government decision-makers. Buying is voting There are 6 billions of us today, half are under 20. Every move we make is important. This means that you can already vote even if you’re not 18 yet ! How ? Simply in thinking before (...)