When migrants make perilous sea crossings: the causal role of international law

When the fate of migrants at sea is discussed, it is common for the implementation of international law to be invoked as a remedy. The present paper interrogates some of the assumptions about the value of international law that lie behind this. What is at stake in viewing international law as a solution to current challenges relating to migrants at sea

Human Rights Beyond Borders at the World Court: The Significance of the International Court of Justice's Jurisprudence on the Extraterritorial Application of International Human Rights Law Treaties

This article uses the case study of the question of whether human rights treaty law applies extraterritorially as a means of exploring the general theme of the value of the International Court of Justice's involvement in human rights, when compared to such involvement by specialist human rights bodies. The Court's express pronouncements on the issue, in the Wall Advisory Opinion, the DRC v. Uganda judgment, and the Provisional Measures Order in Georgia v. Russia, as well as an earlier more general statement in the Namibia Advisory Opinion, are compared to determinations on the issue by specialist courts and tribunals. The article begins by setting out the broader historical context of the ICJ's involvement in human rights issues. It then analyses the different ways in which this involvement can be critically appraised, in the process making the case for the focus adopted herein, on a comparison between the role of the Court and that of specialist human rights tribunals on issues of meaning/interpretation rather than application/enforcement, and, within this, on comparative analysis concerned with the generalist/specialist distinction itself rather than the relative merits of positions taken on the substantive law. Such a focus is then deployed through a detailed critical evaluation of the Court's statements in the decisions indicated. Finally, the article summarizes the significance of the Court's determinations on the extraterritorial application of human rights law, and the broader relevance of these determinations for understanding the role of the ICJ in the field of human rights more generally

The Unintended Consequences of Expanding Migrant Rights Protections

One story that can be told about the development of legal protections for certain forced migrants in international law is, in terms of the scope of protection, a progressive one. From expanded definitions of who is entitled to refugee-law protection, to the development of complementary protection in human rights law, the ambit of that which the law purports to cover has moved wider. This might be seen as part of the broader trend in the expanding coverage of international human rights law generally. Yet, a counternarrative can also be told: a diminished commitment on the part of many states, particularly economically advantaged ones, to inward migration, including of forced migrants, as evidenced in the expanded scope of non-entrée, “closed borders” measures, from visa restrictions to carrier sanctions, push-back operations, and an unwillingness to engage in numerically significant refugee resettlements to their countries. This backlash trend can also be identified in human rights policy generally. Just as the scope of human rights legal protection in general, and the legal protection accorded to certain migrants in particular, has expanded, so too states have become less willing to provide such protection

Socio-economic rights, extraterritorially

The chapter offers a critical evaluation of the 2011 Maastricht Principles on the Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, using the Principles and its associated Commentary as a case study in assessing the potential contributions of international human rights in the struggle against global poverty and economic inequality. This case study is used because, on the fundamental bases for obligation—conceptions of ‘“power’” and ‘“cooperation’” that will be reviewed herein—the Principles and the Commentary reflect how many international legal experts, not only those associated with the Principles, view the general contours of the law in this area. The chapter argues that the view of the law set out in the case study has a very limited potential to transform global economic relations for the better

Spin-helix Larmor mode

International audienceA two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with equal-strength Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling sustains persistent helical spin-wave states, which have remarkably long lifetimes. In the presence of an in-plane magnetic field, there exist single-particle excitations that have the character of propagating helical spin waves. For magnon-like collective excitations, the spin-helix texture reemerges as a robust feature, giving rise to a decoupling of spin-orbit and electronic many-body effects. We prove that the resulting spin-flip wave dispersion is the same as in a magnetized 2DEG without spin-orbit coupling, apart from a shift by the spin-helix wave vector. The precessional mode about the persistent spin-helix state is shown to have an energy given by the bare Zeeman splitting, in analogy with Larmor’s theorem. We also discuss ways to observe the spin-helix Larmor mode experimentally

A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

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Improvements in 25 Years of Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Therapy

In 1980, Dr. Michel Mirowski and his team inserted the first implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in a patient. Initially, ICD therapy was not widely accepted, and many physicians actually considered this therapy unethical. Large secondary and primary prevention trials, demonstrating a beneficial effect of ICD therapy in selected patients not only on arrhythmic death but also on all-cause mortality, stimulated a rapid growth in the number of implants and increased patient’s and physician’s acceptance. Improvements in size and weight, arrhythmia discrimination capabilities, battery technology, shock waveform and output, monitoring capabilities and defibrillator electrode technology eventually resulted in the current large number of yearly implants. Today, almost 40 years after the conception of the ICD and 25 years after the first human implant, ICD therapy is the treatment of choice for patients at risk for life-threatening arrhythmias either as secondary or primary prevention. Furthermore, with the more recent addition of resynchronisation therapy to standard ICD therapy, it became possible to treat selected patients with advanced symptoms of heart failure and to lower the risk of sudden death

Two Odorant-Binding Proteins Mediate the Behavioural Response of Aphids to the Alarm Pheromone (E)-ß-farnesene and Structural Analogues

Abstract Background: Aphids are agricultural pests of great economical interest. Alternatives to insecticides, using semiochemicals, are of difficult applications. In fact, sex pheromones are of little use as aphids reproduce partenogenetically most of the time. Besides, the alarm pheromone, (E)-ß-farnesene for a great number of species, is difficult to synthesize and unstable in the environment. The search for novel semiochemicals to be used in population control can be efficiently approached through the study of the olfactory system at the biochemical level. Recently odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) have been shown to play a central role in olfactory recognition, thus becoming the target of choice for designing new semiochemicals. Methodology/Principal Findings: To address the question of how the alarm message is recognised at the level of OBPs, we have tested 29 compounds, including (E)-ß-farnesene, in binding assays with 6 recombinant proteins and in behaviour experiments. We have found that good repellents bind OBP3 and/or OBP7, while non repellents present different spectra of binding. These results have been verified with two species of aphids, Acyrthosiphon pisum and Myzus persicae, both using (E)-ß-farnesene as the alarm pheromone. Conclusions: Our results represent further support to the idea (so far convincingly demonstrated only in Drosophila) that OBPs are involved in decoding the chemical information of odorants and pheromones, and for the first time provide such evidence in other insect species and using wild-type insects. Moreover, the data offer guidelines and protocols for the discovery of potential alarm pheromones, using ligand-binding assays as a preliminary screening before subjecting selected compounds to behaviour tests