The International Journal
of Not-for-Profit Law

Volume 15, Issue 1, April 2013

This issue of the International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law takes a look at the changing legal environment confronting civil society organizations in South Africa, Indonesia, and Canada.

Ricardo Wyngaard, a longtime adviser to not-for-profit organizations, examines the interaction between the not-for-profit sector and the government in South Africa, particularly the de-registration orders (subsequently withdrawn) affecting more than 23,000 organizations in late 2012 and early 2013. Civil society organizations also face challenges in Indonesia, according to Eryanto Nugroho of the Indonesian Centre for Law and Policy Studies (Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan Indonesia). Existing law strictly controls Indonesia’s civil society organizations, sometimes in arbitrary ways, and a proposed revision fails to fully alleviate the problems. Next, we provide an overview and analysis of recent Canadian efforts to harmonize the laws regulating not-for-profit corporations with those regulating for-profit corporations. The author, Terrance S. Carter, is managing partner of Carters Professional Corporation as well as counsel to Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP on charitable matters.

We feature four additional articles, too. Dominique Jakob, a professor of private law and director of the Center for Foundation Law at the University of Zurich (UZH), and Peter Picht, an academic assistant at UZH, consider legal issues that may arise when a foundation board makes investments based in part on notions of social responsibility. Next, Henry Otieno Ochido posits explanations for Kenyans’ meager donations to NGOs, which must rely on foreign funding instead, in light of the fact that Kenyans generously devote time and resources to addressing local needs through the tradition of Harambee. The author is Head of Operations, Compliance and Research at the NGOs Coordination Board in Nairobi, Kenya. In the following article, Firdoos Dar, a Ph.D. Scholar in Central Asian Studies at the University of Kashmir (India), examines the role played by NGOs in Tajikistan and some of the historical and cultural factors that have shaped it. Finally, Byambajav Dalaibuyan, a Ph.D. candidate at Japan’s Hokkaido University, demonstrates how the tool of social network analysis can shed light on the nature and extent of interactions among NGOs, based on a case study in Mongolia

As always, our gratitude goes out to the authors of our articles for sharing their expertise.

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