What Are the Alternatives?
It is possible to use the Handle System, which is the technical foundation of DOIs, in isolation from the DOI system, and at first this may appear to be a cheaper option. However, the value of DOIs is as much in the social infrastructure around them as it is in the underlying technology. DOIs are guaranteed to remain active and resolve to something, so that even if the object it refers to ceases to exist, there will at least be a useful message confirming that the object did exist once, saving the user from wondering if they simply have an incorrect link.
Policy makers and pundits often try to make it seem that top-down, corporate globalization is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the current economic processes known as “globalization” have been defined and driven by a very small number of people. United, citizens around the world can create a kind of grassroots globalization a people’s globalization that puts economic, social and political justice at the center of trade and investment. Citizens groups from across the Western Hemisphere have written an “Alternative Agreement for the Americas” that offers a picture of what socially responsible and environmentally sustainable commerce would look like. You can find the document here on the Global Exchange website. As detailed in this proposal, governments should retain the right to impose performance requirements on investors, as well as maintain protections for small and medium-scale producers and key sectors in their respective national d
