Corporate Waqf: Discovering the Primary Challenges

This study aims to explore and understand the key challenges of corporate waqf management and its implementation, particularly in Malaysia. This study adopted a qualitative approach. Specifically, data obtained from three interviews that involved an academician, a Shariah scholar and a business practitioner have been examined thoroughly. Generally, this study discovers three primary challenges pertaining to corporate waqf and its possible implementation. Legal constraint based on current regulatory settings of waqf management, narrow mindset of key stakeholders and lack of awareness and understanding amongst the general public are the core reasons that impede the successful acceptance and implementation of corporate waqf. This study is expected to contribute to the improvement of the waqf management. It provides an initial understanding about the primary issues that would be confronted when implementing corporate waqf. Thus, it puts forward several insights about the future strategies for positioning corporate waqf into practice.

Liberalism, the Only True Humanism

Liberalism is often criticized because it is said that it is concerned only by economic problems (and not more general human problems) and because it is in favor of selfishness. This is wrong and, in fact, liberalism is, on the contrary, the necessary consequence of a universal and valid conception of ethics. The foundation of liberalism consists in the fact that everyone must be respectful of the legitimate rights of any person (as regards, for instance, his body, his mind, and his legitimate property rights). Therefore, it implies that one ought to be respectful of another person either if this person is generous or if he is selfish (one is not obliged to be selfish, but one has the right to be selfish). Thus, liberalism is founded on the fundamental universal ethics and it is respectful of the individual conceptions of personal ethics. It is not in favor of selfishness, but in favor of individualism. This is why it must be said that liberalism is the only humanistic approach of social problems. However, many people consider that it is ethically justified to impose a redistribution policy to decrease so-called “social inequalities.” But, so doing, a state is not respectful of the legitimate property rights of those who are obliged by legal constraint to pay taxes. A voluntary distribution of resources from individuals who give part of their legitimate resources to other individuals is ethically justified. But it is not the case whenever this transfer of resources is made by using coercion. And it must be added that it has negative consequences. Those who benefit from the redistribution policy are less induced to make productive efforts. And those who have to pay the taxes are also less induced to develop their productive activities. Therefore, the production of resources is diminished by the redistribution policy and all the members of a society (for instance a country) suffer from this non-ethical policy.

The benefits of free speech and expression

Chapter 2 argues that John Stuart Mill supported free speech on the grounds of the beneficial effects it can have, in Chapter 2 of his On Liberty of 1859. But the history in chapter 1 suggests that this has been a recurrent view through the ages. If free speech is valued for its benefits, speech that frustrates those benefits suggests a clear boundary on free speech which should appeal voluntarily to its supporters. Their voluntary self-restraint in speech should normally be better than legal constraint for keeping speech beneficial. But self-restraint is not the only preserver of benefits. Speech that opens ears, to take an expression of Gandhi’s—in his case, the ears of powerful opponents—is also a preserver of benefits.

Freedom of Speech and Expression

This book on freedom of speech and expression starts (chapter 1) with an inter-cultural history of this valued right through the ages and then recalls (chapter 2) the benefits for which we rightly value it. But what about speech that frustrates these benefits? Supporters of the benefits of free speech have reason to exercise voluntary self-restraint on speech which frustrates the benefits. They should also cultivate a second remedy: the art, illustrated in chapter 1, and called by Gandhi the art of ‘opening ears’, by other kinds of speech and conduct. Such voluntary methods are to be preferred to legal constraints. But (chapter 3) legal constraint is sometimes necessary. In the twenty-first century, social media funding based on manipulation of personal speech data requires skilful legislation and enforcement in favour of social media that protect freedoms.

The Permissive Power of the Ban on War

This chapter examines a classical area of international law: the use of force by states. The ban on war is often cited as the centerpiece of the modern international legal-political system and used to distinguish the contemporary age from earlier, less legalized periods. Liberal convention sees the ban on war as a legal constraint on states' political choices; states seeking to uphold the international rule of law are advised to refrain from using force against other states. However, this understanding is flawed. The UN Charter outlaws some kinds of war and permits others, such as those undertaken in self-defense. The chapter then demonstrates that the Charter is a mechanism by which law sorts the motivations for war into lawful (self-defense) and unlawful (all others) categories. It thereby creates a framework to legitimate wars and reduce their political costs. The Charter is not antiwar: it is explicitly permissive of war so long as the claimed motive is self-defense.

Constitutional Amendments

Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendment and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: What is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.

Official memories and legal constraints: A classification of memory instruments in France and Belgium

Public authorities do not have a monopoly over memory constraint in the sense that they are not alone in promoting collective memories. However, the article suggests a classification of the memory instruments in France and Belgium according to the degree of legal constraint (sanctioning, prescriptive and latent). This classification offers a new understanding of the exercise of the legal constraints which are a way for the public authorities to offer specific accounts of certain past events.

IDENTIFICATION OF CONSTRAINTS IN PROJECT SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

Theory of Constraints (TOC) is new concept of project management. Every project has some constraints. This study explores the constraints to improve the project performance dealing with time constraint with a case of Sankosh-Tipling Road project and Bhimdhunga-Lamidanda Road Project of Dhading District. Questionnaire survey, Project report analysis, Key informant interview and case studies were the methods used for the data collection and content analysis, S-Curve and interim payment assessment were done to process the data. The major constraint among several other constraints in Bhimdhunga-Lamidanda Road project, legal constraint which is restriction of District Coordination Committee (DCC) to collect gravel and boulders from river and quarry sites was found as major constraint in the project. Constraint has affected with time extension for total 309 days with progress of only 34.76% till 13 june, 2017. Thus, this study has assumed that project could be completed within previously proposed deadline if different counter measures which have been suggested with consideration of TOC.

7. Law, Politics, and the Use of Force

This chapter examines the place of international law in international politics, with particular emphasis on whether legal constraint is effective in averting or limiting the use of force by states. It begins with a discussion of the efficacy of international law in regulating the behaviour of states, focusing on the so-called perception–reality gap in international law. It then considers various reasons why states obey the law, from fear of coercion to self-interest and perceptions of legitimacy. It also explores the role and status of breaches of international law in international politics as well as the functions of the two laws of armed conflict, namely, jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Finally, it analyses the apparent paradox of legal constraint on warfare in relation to power politics and the mitigatory effects of norms governing the conduct of war.