The International Journal
of Not-for-Profit Law

Volume 7, Issue 1, November 2004

A publication of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

This issue of the International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law opens with a special section on Nurturing Civil Society. First, we take a look at the Panel of Eminent Persons on UN-Civil Society Relations, including its origins, recommendations, and impact. The author, John D. Clark, is a social scientist at the World Bank and a member of ICNL's Board who served as staff director of the Panel of Eminent Persons. Northwestern University's Craig L. LaMay scrutinizes some of the knotty, rarely acknowledged problems surrounding the media's contributions to civil society and democratic transitions. Jim Sleeper of Yale University probes the role of religion in "a nation with the soul of a church," as G.K. Chesterton characterized the United States, as well as the apparent inability of both the left and the right to come to grips with the issue. Finally, Nayereh Tohidi of California State University, Northridge, discusses women's important contributions to NGOs and civil society in post-Soviet Azerbaijan.

Our other features range just as widely. J. Hana Heinekin of the University of Tokyo and Robert Pekkanen of the University of Washington offer a primer to the complicated legal changes underway in Japan that affect not-for-profit organizations. Former diplomat J. Peter Pham of James Madison University discusses civil society against the backdrop of civil war in Sierra Leone. Thomas Silk, a San Francisco attorney, proposes a set of principles for governing not-for-profit corporations in this time of regulatory uncertainty. Ontario attorney Terrance S. Carter and his colleague Sean S. Carter discuss the perils that international information collection and sharing may pose for Canadian charities. Milton Cerny, an attorney formerly with the Internal Revenue Service, discusses IRS rules governing the political activities of churches and other religious organizations.

We close the issue with reviews of timely books. Our reviewers are David Robinson, an ICNL Advisory Council member who manages the Institute of Policy Studies Programme on Civil Society and directs the Social and Civic Policy Institute in New Zealand; Gerald M. Easter, a political scientist at Boston College; and Matthew Crenson, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University.

We're pleased to offer, for the first time, a PDF file containing the entire issue of IJNL. For readers with fast Internet connections, the PDF makes it easier to print some or all of the journal. For readers with dial-up connections, we continue to post HTML versions of our articles as well.

In sum, IJNL once again presents expert commentary from around the globe on civil society, philanthropy, NGOs, and the legal and cultural environments that shape them. As always, we hope you find the issue informative, provocative, and useful.

Stephen Bates
Editor
International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law
sbates@icnl.org

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ISSN: 1556-5157