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If justice in Colombia has stepped toward transitional justice, a framework mainly focused on providing redress to the victims of war, why have animals been excluded from it? As a response to animal cruelty, in war and outside of it, a punitive response remains. In a transitional justice regime, moving away from strictly anthropocentric solutions could bring reconciliation that transcends the criminal/innocent, city/jungle, and human/nature artificial dichotomies. Si la justicia en Colombia ha dado un paso hacia la justicia transicional, un marco enfocado principalmente en brindar reparación a las víctimas de la guerra, ¿por qué se ha excluido a los animales? La respuesta estatal a la crueldad animal, en la guerra y fuera de ella, sigue siendo punitiva. En un régimen de justicia transicional, alejarse de soluciones estrictamente antropocéntricas podría traer una reconciliación que trascienda las dicotomías artificiales entre criminal/inocente, ciudad/jungla y humano/naturaleza. Distinción Harvard Law School Writing Prize, 2020.

In Birth Rights and Wrongs (2019), Dov Fox points out that torts law is in principle capable of changing through court decision making, and that it has in the past been bold enough to measure harms that seemed unmeasurable at first glance. Fox notes that despite torts malleability, courts have been reluctant to grant sufficient relief to patients that have been harmed by practitioner’s negligence in the realm of reproductive negligence -the “freezer malfunction” cases. He notes that “conventional harms miss real and serious losses to people who end up without the child they’d give anything to have” (Fox, 23). This paper (i) examines the position of three feminist legal theories on what it would mean to claim damages for being unable to conceive due to practitioner’s negligence and (ii) analyzes the weight that courts have given to pregnancy while establishing whether compensation is due. The conclusion (iii) compares the posture of the courts with the examined theories on the matter and examines the way in which ‘new’ families are being excluded from redress. En Birth Rights and Wrongs (2019), Dov Fox señala que la ley de daños en EEUU es, en principio, capaz de mutar a través de la toma de decisiones de las cortes, y que en el pasado los jueces han sido lo suficientemente audaces como para medir daños que parecían inconmensurables a primera vista. Fox señala que, a pesar de la maleabilidad de los daños, las cortes se han mostrado reacias a otorgar un alivio suficiente a los pacientes que han sido perjudicados por la negligencia del médico en el ámbito de la negligencia reproductiva, los casos de "mal funcionamiento del congelador" –denominados así por los casos en los que el material reproductivo congelado se daña, se pierde, o se estropea. Fox señala que "los daños convencionales pasan por alto pérdidas reales y graves para las personas que terminan sin el hijo que darían cualquier cosa por tener" (Fox, 23). Este artículo (i) examina la posición de tres teorías legales feministas sobre lo que significaría reclamar daños y perjuicios por no poder concebir debido a la negligencia del médico y (ii) analiza el peso que los tribunales le han dado al embarazo al establecer si se debe indemnizar. La conclusión (iii) compara la postura de los tribunales con las teorías examinadas sobre el asunto y examina la forma en que las "nuevas" familias están siendo excluidas de la reparación.

Conventional wisdom holds that large sums of money poured into election campaigns are the gateway to corruption. Allegations of the corrupting influence of money in politics and policy are widespread on the national level. Yet, little empirical evidence has advanced the understanding of such a link on the local level, coupled with blurred corruption measures. This master’s thesis tests the effect of campaign finance on public procurement corruption risks in Colombian municipalities, focusing on donations, small donations, and financial disclosure. To that end, I seized publicly disclosed contribution-level data from the 2015 municipal elections and a novel index of institutionalized public procurement corruption risks based upon contract-level data from the near population of local governments. The analysis shows that donations are negatively associated with overall corruption risk, yet they affect specific corruption risks differently. By contrast, small donations seem to correlate positively with direct awarding for a sub-sample of medium-sized municipalities, whereas in their large-sized counterparts the effect of the former on institutionalized corruption is adverse. Finally, financial misreporting is positively linked with market competition restrictions and direct awarding. In the conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for future research and outline a series of policy recommendations. La sabiduría convencional sostiene que las grandes sumas de dinero invertidas en campañas electorales son la puerta de entrada de la corrupción. Las acusaciones sobre la influencia corrupta del dinero en la política y la política pública son contundentes a nivel nacional. Sin embargo, poca evidencia empírica ha avanzado el entendimiento de dicha relación en el nivel local, junto con difusas mediciones de corrupción. Esta tesis de maestría mide el efecto del financiamiento de campañas electorales en el riesgo de corrupción en la contratación pública en municipios colombianos, enfocándose en las donaciones, las pequeñas donaciones y el reporte de información financiera sobre las campañas. Para alcanzar tal fin, usé información pública sobre las contribuciones políticas durante las elecciones locales de 2015 y un novedoso índice de corrupción institucional en la contratación pública, basado en el análisis de procesos de compra del universo de alcaldías municipales en Colombia. Los resultados muestran que las donaciones se relacionan negativamente con el riesgo de corrupción en general, aunque afectan específicos riesgos de corrupción de manera diferente. Por otro lado, las pequeñas donaciones muestran una correlación positiva con la contratación directa en ciudades medias, mientras en ciudades grandes el efecto parece ser negativo. Finalmente, el subreporte de información se relaciona positivamente con riesgos como restricciones a la competencia y contratación directa. En la conclusión, discuto las implicaciones de dichos resultados para futuras investigaciones y señalo algunas recomendaciones de política pública.

This paper aims to analyze concealment and deception in self-defeating organizational crisis response strategies and the possible consequences of their adoption on a company’s reputation. It represents an example of where every guideline to address stakeholders after a crisis was dismissed. It investigates a major environmental incident that took place in Colombia in 2013 and studies how the responsible company responded to the incident through the examination of company reports, media statements and national and international newspaper articles. The analysis shows that in addition to environmental damage, the company’s reputation was affected by the way the company responded during this crisis. The outcomes highlight the importance of the manner in which a crisis response is managed, as these types of mistakes often aggravate reputational damage. This paper is an invitation for companies to be quick, consistent and transparent with their responses when facing their stakeholders in moments of crisis. Not doing so may aggravate not only social but also economic and environmental impacts. Contrary to other contributions on the subject, this study implies that a misleading crisis response, including concealment and deception, can be an even greater challenge to a company’s reputation than the crisis itself.

The present work addresses the question of how companies belonging to the natural resource industry use to perform greenwashing practices to their organizational value chain processes. For this purpose, a multi-case approach with five different cases in the Colombian context is adopted. Through the data analysis, an exemplification of each of the five value chain greenwashing transgressions at the company level is provided. Besides highlighting a real-life problematic with several implications in a sensitive context, the contributions of this work are twofold. First, the work contributes to reinforcing the notion of greenwashing and related transgressions by clarifying a concrete way of identifying certain deceptive practices related to the organizational value chain under certain conditions. Second, this work promotes the transferability of the concepts used for elucidating the reality of the value chain greenwashing phenomenon at different levels and in various geographical contexts. Finally, both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Framed by the normative dimension of the crisis communication literature, this study examines and compares the messages conveyed by two large companies in the South American extractive industry when dealing with catastrophic crises. By focusing on the application of the ethics of care principles, this study illustrates two divergent ways of conducting interpersonal relationships and benevolence as a virtue when communicating with stakeholders in the aftermath of two recent socio-environmental disasters involving human losses in Venezuela and Brazil. For this purpose, the offending companies’ official responses obtained from various public sources are analyzed, both within and across the two cases, in light of a proposed outline of the theoretical framework at issue. The results show the contrasting ways in which these companies approached their stakeholders through crisis responses when referring to crisis casualties. Furthermore, the study compares the two cases’ backgrounds and argues that the socio-political context influences the corporate decisions on crisis responses.

Dada la dificultad que tienen los emprendimientos sostenibles en la consecución de financiación, este trabajo pretende concebir la forma en que los inversionistas de impacto deciden sobre la asignación de dichos recursos. La metodología adoptada se basa en un análisis cualitativo de 25 casos de estudio, aplicando teoría fundamentada. Los resultados indican que estos inversionistas contemplan elementos de decisión objetivos y subjetivos propios de un proceso convencional de análisis de riesgo. Finalmente, se esquematiza un conjunto de criterios de valoración para el otorgamiento de inversiones de impacto orientado a servir de guía a los aspirantes de este tipo de apoyos.

The commercial drones’ market has grown significantly in recent years given its different industries’ applications. Ports are evolving and moving towards Industry 4.0, creating an opportunity for technologies to improve their operations, one being drone-in-a-box technology; however, there is scant understanding of the port industry, its potential customers and the technology needs to be addressed. This study explores the UK port industry and its potential use of drone-in-a-box, to give recommendations to Herotech8 about how to grow in this market. A critical review of the literature was carried out and primary data collected from 14 interviewees, i.e. managers working at ports, people related to the drone industry and experts – with knowledge in drone technology and/or ports. Given the lack of awareness of drone-in-a-box technology, some information was gathered regarding conventional drone technology. Also, to contrast and complement the information, several interviews were conducted with Herotech8’s CEO. Results identified potential customers and their understanding of drone technology – applications, benefits, drawbacks and challenges. A value proposition emerged from these findings, but the impact level on each customer will depend on how their needs could be satisfied. Therefore, a general buying decision process was mapped to identify the crucial steps where needs can be recognised and assessed to deliver high value. The results indicated that although customers had not heard about drone-in-abox technology, they are interested; however, there is a fear of acquiring relatively new technologies and some would rather not be the early adopters. Recommendations were made, highlighting the steps to be taken by Herotech8, having identified the need to gain market share in the port sector, including attracting potential customers’ attention, establishing a process to identify their needs and sealing its first deal.