bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strategies for Internationalizing Justice
Authors: Grosescu Raluca
Published: February 2024

This chapter examines the transnational mobilizations of Latin American and Central Eastern European justice activists to render justice for gross human rights violations perpetrated by the military and communist dictatorships during the Cold War. It demonstrates how Latin American actors deployed a variety of anti-impunity tactics, targeted numerous foreign jurisdictions, and legitimized their cause through a liberal humanitarian discourse on human rights. Through both their efforts in various Western European courts and the alliances they forged with Western lawyers and judicial officials, Latin American activists boosted universal jurisdiction as a principle of international criminal law. This principle was further enforced by Argentinian courts, which opened investigations into a variety of major international crimes committed across the globe. In contrast, Central Eastern European activists focused their mobilizations on the European level, lobbying for the establishment of a ‘Nuremberg for communist crimes’—an international legal instrument that would have put communist crimes on par with those of the Nazis. Their political discourses were often connected to radical conservative politics and aimed to delegitimize any leftist political thought. While managing to enforce a totalitarian interpretation of communism in European assemblies and to reshape the EU’s remembrance policy, Central Eastern European activists’ impact on the international justice system ultimately remained marginal.
Particulate and Granular Magnetism
Authors: O'Grady Kevin , Fernandez Gonzalo Vallejo , Hirohata Atsufumi
Published: February 2024

This text is concerned with magnetic nanoparticles and granular thin films which form the basis of all advanced magnetics technology excluding permanent magnets and soft materials for inductors and transformers. The first part of the text is concerned with fundamental concepts. Thereafter chapters are presented on magnetic domains including basic principles but then restricted to domains in granular thin films and single domain particles including coherent and incoherent reversal and the effects of exchange coupling. Particular emphasis is then placed on thermal activation effects and the role of a particle or grain size distribution and the measurement techniques by which the effects of thermal activation can be measured. This part concludes with a detailed discussion of the phenomenon of exchange bias and magneto-resistance in multilayers. Part two includes the description of three dominant forms of technology using particulate and granular magnetic materials. The first of these is ferrofluids including engineering applications in seals and loudspeakers but then looking at the rapidly developing field of biomedical applications in general and in particular the phenomenon of magnetic hyperthermia. The second major application is the field of magnetic recording which is addressed including tape recording and heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). Finally the development and implementation of magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is described including the commercialisation of MRAM using bits oriented perpendicular to the plane and switched by spin transfer torque (STT) and read via magneto-resistance using tunnelling magneto resistance (TMR). Finally a brief outlook of future potential developments is described.
Ferrofluids
Authors: O’Grady K. , Fernandez G. Vallejo , Hirohata A.
Published: February 2024

An explanation of the structure and components in a ferrofluid is presented together with a simple preparation process to produce these magnetic liquids. Unusual phenomena such as the surface and labyrinthine instabilities are then described. The properties of ferrofluids are then discussed in terms of their magnetic behaviour. Applications in engineering devices such as rotary vacuum seals, loudspeakers and inclinometers are discussed together with the concept of magnetic sink float separation and the ability to align non-magnetic materials in the fluids. Medical and biomedical applications particularly magnetic hyperthermia are discussed together with a proposed new technique to create a material that heats exclusively by magnetic hysteresis. Other biomedical applications in drug delivery and cell separation are described together with the use of magnetic polymer spheres. Finally magneto-rheological fluids which consist of micron sized particles dispersed in an oil which change their viscosity dramatically on exposure to a field are presented.
Evidence on psychobiological pathways
Authors: Siegrist Johannes , Li Jian
Published: February 2024

The content of this chapter complements the epidemiological knowledge on links of adverse psychosocial work environments with elevated health risks by experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on psychobiological pathways that underlie these associations. Pathways are analysed in four steps, starting with the sympathetic-adreno-medullary and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical stress axes, followed by sections on immune function and inflammation, and on allostatic load. Readers are expected to become familiar with these basic concepts and their application in occupational health research. This application is illustrated and discussed by selected results from recent scientific research presented in figures and text. An introductory part explains the main features of the study designs that are required to investigate psychobiological pathways. The chapter ends with some reflections on future developments in this innovative field of research, with a focus on epigenetic markers.
Organizational contexts and social change in rehabilitation
Authors: Siegrist Johannes , Li Jian
Published: February 2024

To a large extent, opportunities of working with a chronic disease or disability, and risks of early exit from paid work are contingent on legal regulations and on the structures of medical and vocational rehabilitation services. Legal regulations concern regular retirement, early retirement due to disability pension, and processes of return to work. In all instances, active and passive labour market and social policies exert a decisive impact, and these policies vary widely across countries. Special attention is given to organizational features in the provision of medical and vocational rehabilitation services. Despite their reasonable availability, these two services are often not well coordinated, as illustrated in the case of cardiac rehabilitation and of return to work with mental disorder. In medically dominated fields of rehabilitation the pro-active role of patients was disregarded for a long time, but recent attempts to empower patients with chronic health impairments became more visible. In this chapter, some examples of this social change are described. In the final part, we develop some suggestions on how future developments can contribute to successfully coping with the burden of chronic disease and disability in working populations.
Last Captives
Authors: Fields-Black Edda L.
Published: February 2024

This chapter talks about Harriet Tubman’s words that she could not “understand” those who were enslaved in the South Carolina Lowcountry. It explores the differences between what Tubman had experienced in Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the systems of enslavement in the South Carolina Lowcountry, where African Americans remained in bondage after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. It highlights Tubman’s conviction that all enslaved people yearned to be free, willing to risk it all and put their own freedom and their very lives in jeopardy. The chapter considers Tubman and the black men who escaped in the Combahee River Raid as anomalies among Black abolitionists as they lectured about the evils of enslavement and worked to end it for all. It describes African-Americans that were born enslaved, never experienced the Middle Passage, and had initiated the processes of creating new cultures and languages that fused Western African and European elements.
Worth a Thousand Words
Authors: Szto Peter
Published: February 2024

This chapter critically examines the role of seeing in social work education. Seeing is essential to how social workers observe, process information, and understand the social world. An advantage of a keen observer is effectively advancing social work practice. Without clear-eyed observations, clients, communities, and social problems are difficult to see and prone to invisibility. Seeing involves more than the biomechanics of the eye. Seeing involves how the mind perceives the social world and grasps the spiritual dimension of human experience. Human spirituality is viewed as integral to comprehending meaning, creativity, and engaging personhood. A biocognitive-spiritual conception of personhood is examined in relation to seeing. In particular, a reflexive approach to the art form of photography is taken to demonstrate a holistic approach to personhood and development of a visual epistemology for social work education.
Building and Repairing Through the Arts
Authors: Ghazaleh Nesrien Abu , Heredia Osvaldo , Bos Eltje
Published: February 2024

Chapter 12 explores the intersection of positive psychology and the arts. Positive psychology is a strength-based theory that seeks to empower characterological strengths, foster community connection, and encourage belonging. Examples are provided about how the arts and positive psychology are integrated as both therapeutic and mindful practice methods to mitigate negative feelings and elevate positive emotions, serving as both interventive and preventive strategies. Although much of the research and practices were concentrated on how positive psychology and the arts work to support resilience and strength in the professions and everyday life, it is acknowledged that it alone may not be sufficient to alleviate deep-seated human suffering. The positivity/expressive interconnection, however, is especially salient in the postpandemic world, where burnout, secondary trauma, and compassion fatigue is a global public health problem.
Microaggressions
Authors: Freeman Lauren , Stewart Heather
Published: February 2024

This chapter provides a history of microaggressions. The term was coined in 1970 by a Black Harvard psychologist, Chester Pierce, to describe the “subtle blows” experienced by Black people that are not major or explicit and yet cause real harm. Though little was written about microaggressions for three decades, microaggressions gained traction in 2007 through the work of psychologist Derald Wing Sue and his colleagues. Chapter 1 discusses Sue et al.’s work on microaggressions, tracing key revisions and developments the concept has undergone in the last 15 years. It also outlines some of the main criticisms that have been launched against microaggressions and considers responses that have been offered. This chapter provides the groundwork for Chapter 2, which lays out a novel critique of the dominant understanding of microaggressions. It also motivates our reconceptualization of microaggressions that comprises the majority of this book.
Microaggressions Reconsidered
Authors: Freeman Lauren , Stewart Heather
Published: February 2024

In response to the problems of an act-based account of microaggressions discussed in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 advances a revised account: the harm-based account of microaggressions. Instead of understanding microaggressions from the perspective of the acts committed by microaggressing agents, this chapter argues that the concept must be reoriented toward recipients of microaggressions and the harms they experience. The three types of microaggressions that comprise a harm-based account are epistemic microaggressions, which result in epistemic harm (namely, harm to someone in their capacity as a knower); emotional microaggressions, which result in emotional harm; and self-identity microaggressions microaggression, which result in harm to one’s sense of self. This chapter introduces and provides examples of each category of microaggression and demonstrates how a harm-based account is theoretically, practically, and morally preferable to an act-based account. It sets the foundation for the rest of the book where each type of microaggression is developed within medical and healthcare contexts.
How Academic Centers Can Accelerate Partnerships and Progress in Maternal Health
Authors: Stuebe Alison M.
Published: February 2024

This chapter applies a socioecological model to outline the many ways that academic health centers (AHCs) can accelerate progress in maternal health, from individual-level patient care to scholarship and society. The discussion provides examples of innovative programs and policies at multiple institutions. An enterprise-wide approach to community engagement will require reconsideration of communities, moving from viewing them as people or groups in need of service to seeing them as assets who can help AHCs better understand and address social determinants of health, enhance students’ and trainees’ ability to provide care, and increase the relevance and potential impact of research discoveries. By engaging community members and other stakeholders as partners with unique strengths, wisdom, and lived experience, AHCs can be part of transformative solutions to improve health and well-being for every birthing person.
Transformational Maternal and Child Health through Expanded Healthcare Coordination and Community Engagement
Authors: Calvo Ahmed V. , Stadtmueller Lyndsey , Isama Anita , O’Neill Erica , Loafman Mark
Published: February 2024

Improving current outcomes in maternal and child health requires additional insights beyond the remarkable investment in, and advances of, traditional healthcare. A life-course perspective and a comprehensive scope that includes community collaboration and an expanded healthcare team are needed. The lessons learned from the Perinatal and Patient Safety Collaborative can help formulate the type of framework that is needed beyond a traditional clinical practice; for example, the need to include other disciplines, such as dental care and mental health. Using a network approach can result in wider collaboration that leverages local organizations to engage the community and address components not resolvable by traditional medical care. Modern data analytics have promise for advancing both individual care and community care, leveraging lessons from population and public health.
Activating Our Village in Los Angeles County: Birth Equity and Black Families
Authors: Desjolais Brandi Sims , Franklin Melissa , O’Connor Helen , Patterson Kaci , Aadam Sonya Young , Allen Deborah , Jones Adjoa , Swilley Sylvia
Published: February 2024

To have joyous, healthy pregnancies and birth experiences, Black women and families must activate their village. In Los Angeles County, California, The Los Angeles County African American Infant and Maternal Mortality (AAIMM) Prevention Initiative has become an extension of that village. It is a coalition made up of activists, funders, clinicians, birth workers, epidemiologists, and parents representing public health, health care, mental health agencies, and community and faith-based organizations. The goal of AAIMM is to address the high rates of Black infant and maternal death and to ensure healthy and joyous births for Black families in Los Angeles County. In this chapter, we describe the importance and the power of naming racism as the root cause of inequality in perinatal health, outline the benefits of a unified public–private partnership in effecting large-scale change, and examine what it takes to operationalize a collaborative antiracist agenda. The chapter aims to show the importance of coming to a collective understanding, framing, and decision-making.
Centering Equity: Systemic Racism and Social Determinants of Maternal Health
Authors: Hernandez Natalie D. , Johnson Tamaron A.
Published: February 2024

This chapter explores the impact of structural racism on maternal health in the United States. Structural racism is understood as a social determinant of health that has negative implications for the health and well-being of racially and ethnically diverse birthing people, the majority of whom are women. The chapter explores the history of reproductive abuses against racially and ethnically diverse women. It connects this past to present issues of disproportionately high maternal mortality rates in the United States compared to any other developed nation. Reproductive justice is presented as an equity-centered framework that is useful in acknowledging the dismal state of maternal health and offers valuable tools to oppose and challenge structural racism in maternal health. A reproductive justice framework demands acknowledgment of past reproductive abuses in addressing reproductive health disparities.
Doulas and Incarcerated Populations
Authors: Hayes Crystal , Pizii Marisa
Published: February 2024

Carceral systems play a key role the maternal health as many women are incarcerated during their critical reproductive health years. Reproductive justice is an analytical and organizing tool that has the power to shift how we think about supporting pregnant women in prison systems. Part of this support is care that is offered through prison-based doulas. This chapter provides an overview of the history of reproductive justice, and describes how this framework can be used to reshape the healthcare and maternal care women receive while they are incarcerated. This chapter is also an autoethnography of two Black women, doulas and childbirth educators, who work in carceral spaces. They describe some of their experiences and the challenges they faced working in a women’s facility.
Our Habitat and Disposable Stuff
Authors: Liberman Anatoly
Published: February 2024

A study of words like house, home, threshold, ajar, and bed is bound up with the history of material culture, and the sections about them address some of the basic questions of civilization. One learns what thought processes stood behind calling people’s habitation “house,” why not every house could be called “home,” why thresholds were places meant for threshing corn (grain), and why it was important, in English and elsewhere, to coin a word for a half-open door. Things we dispose of and throw away (litter, trash, rubbish, and garbage) are people’s eternal companions, and the words coined to designate them are often expressive (sound-imitative and sound-symbolic). Few of them have a clear origin, and there is, predictably, little agreement about their etymology. Litter is an exception, but, in the beginning, it had nothing to do with disposable stuff. One also wonders why language makes such fine distinctions and has so many words for nearly the same thing. Gibberish belongs to this group by association. The history of its pronunciation and meaning is full of uncertainty and intrigue.
A Few Idioms
Authors: Liberman Anatoly
Published: February 2024

The origin of idioms is often as complicated as the origin of words. Though the idioms we use are seldom very old, a few go back to the Middle Ages. One needs professional training to become an etymologist, but the origin of idioms appears to be a subject within everybody’s reach. Hence a great multitude of fanciful hypotheses, reference to nonexisting myths (especially from Old Norse) and to individuals who never existed. Yet by hook or by crook and raining cats and dogs seem to have been explained in a satisfactory manner, with reference to old customs. The same holds for pay through the nose, quite probably a phrase of nautical origin (no one’s noses were mutilated for the purpose). Special sections are devoted to those phrases. God’s acre was popularized by Henry W. Longfellow, and its history is instructive in that all the materials pertaining to it were once published in the popular press (Notes and Queries) and later only summarized by a professor from Harvard. Rotten Row is a place name, rather than an idiom (there are many places in England called this!), but research into it follows the same lines as research into idioms. It appears that the origin of Rotten Row has been accounted for in a satisfactory manner.
A Palace War, not a Revolution
Authors: Ollion Étienne
Published: February 2024

The chapter begins by recounting the main events of the 2017 French electoral season, an atypical campaign that led to the election of 38-year-old Emmanuel Macron, who had never been elected to office and lacked the support of an established political party when he launched his campaign. Yet this initiative proved to be very successful, for him as well as for the hundreds of MPs who entered parliament just one month after him. This cohort was hailed by some as a game changer, with its scores of novices, its unseen representation of women, and the diminishing mean age. But, for critics, the change was a superficial public relations exercise, and the few dozen inexperienced MPs a gauzy distraction from the reality of a parliament that remained as unrepresentative as ever. Comparative analysis across cohorts offers original insights in this debate, and into French political careers. Using sequence analysis, it shows that the 2017 vaunted renewal was for the most part a career accelerator for many. The 2017 election is more akin to a “great shortcut,” where dozens of elected officials collectively took advantage of a shake-up in the order of succession to bypass the queue they were already waiting in.
Up-and-Comers
Authors: Ollion Étienne
Published: February 2024

This chapter revisits a classic issue in democracies: the role of the experience of political leaders. Based mostly on an innovative statistical analysis, it demonstrates that the much-vaunted novices, whose transformative energy was endlessly evoked during the campaign, did not accomplish much by way of reforms. Rather, they were swiftly relegated to junior positions in the parliament while other newly elected but more experienced MPs had a very different fate. Along with former staffers and aides, who had learned their trade from senior politicians, the latter captured virtually all the key positions of power. Having identified this inertia, the chapter explores its causes. Experience, acquaintances in high places, and a sense of entitlement born in their accelerated and successful career, make them central actors.
Constructing Music
Authors: Nakra Teresa M.
Published: February 2024

Constructing Music presents a new method for teaching music fundamentals that foregrounds creative coding practices and builds upon the computing skills that today’s students already possess. Featuring a set of step-by-step tutorials and lessons, the book invites readers to engage directly with the components of musical structure. Readers interact with the properties of music using editable short code “patches” developed in Max, a visual coding environment for interactive music and media that has been widely used for more than thirty years. Dozens of patches accompany the book and allow readers to play with the building blocks of sound, creating for themselves the patterns of tonal music. Designed to support computer-based learning in tonal harmony, musicianship, and music theory, the book avoids the privileged lens of Western music notation and instead explains music content through analogies with Lego bricks, referencing ideas from creative technology, engineering, and design. The chapters explain core music theory concepts in detail and support the descriptions through code simulations and visualizations, progressing through the topics with increasing complexity. The final chapter explores the questions and theories that emerge from the lessons, considering the role of music as a proto-form of AI and its impacts on emotion, wellness, and creativity. Along the way, students explore the accompanying code examples and reinforce each topic by tinkering, modifying, and creating their own versions of the material.
Tutorials
Authors: Nakra Teresa M.
Published: February 2024

Chapter 1 presents a step-by-step introduction to coding in Max with six tutorials that cover critical startup information for beginners. The tutorials have been designed to help those who don’t have any prior experience with coding quickly ramp up to a level of comfort in the software environment. Readers will be introduced to basic programming concepts such as algorithms, loops, and variables. They will learn how to navigate their way around the Max interface and place simple objects in a patch. They will then implement simple arithmetic computations and explore electronic sound playback, followed by a technical overview of MIDI and digital audio. Finally, readers will learn how to incorporate hardware kits and MIDI controllers into their musical coding projects. The tutorials also introduce basic musical terms and concepts that will be explained further in the chapters that follow.
Time-based Structures
Authors: Nakra Teresa M.
Published: February 2024

Chapter 4 explores how basic musical building blocks and simple pitch-based structures can be grouped together to create intermediate forms that include the element of time. The topics in this chapter belong to the “time domain” of music. This chapter engages with aspects such as tempo, meter, melodies, arpeggios, and harmonic progressions. These compound structures require specific sequences of events; sometimes, several consecutive or overlapping steps are involved. The introduction of the time aspect represents a significant shift in emphasis at this point in the book. The vertical (pitch-based) and horizontal (time-based) components of music represent two fundamentally different processes. The vertical element is based on acoustic frequencies, whereas the horizontal is based on patterns that evolve over time.
Applying Climate Science to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events
Authors: Vavrus Stephen J. , Puz Aimee , Kruse Samuel , Patz Jonathan A.
Published: February 2024

This chapter introduces basic concepts and methods used by climate scientists to analyze climate change and its effects on weather patterns, including areas of scientific uncertainty. It explains how greenhouse gases cause climate change and how computational sciences enable improved attribution of extreme weather events to climate change. Globally, extreme weather events are becoming more intense and more frequent. The chapter also includes tools for predicting future climate, such as climate modeling and downscaling, and feedback processes. Positive and negative feedback processes, such as the ice-albedo feedback mechanism, which accelerates warming as bright reflective sea ice disappears, have profound influences on climate change. Climate modeling has advanced dramatically due to improved understanding of climatic processes and ever-increasing processing speed and data-memory capacity of computers.
Respiratory Disorders
Authors: Agache Ioana O. , Sampath Vanitha , Aguilera Juan , Nadeau Kari C.
Published: February 2024

Climate change increases ground-level ozone concentrations in ambient air, increasing the risk of new-onset and exacerbation of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It also increases the frequency and severity of wildfires, thereby raising ambient levels of particulate matter and other air pollutants and increasing respiratory tract irritation and new-onset and exacerbation of asthma and COPD. It increases the duration of the pollen season and the allergenicity of pollen, thereby worsening symptoms of allergic rhinitis and asthma. And it increases the frequency and severity of heavy downpours and floods, increasing the likelihood of indoor moisture and growth of and exposure to mold, as well as increased incidence of fungal respiratory disorders. Prevention of climate-induced respiratory disorders can be achieved by mitigation of greenhouse gases and by preventive measures taken by government agencies and individuals to reduce exposure to ozone, particulate matter, pollen, mold, and excessive heat.
Energy Policy
Authors: Tebbe Nova M. , Mailloux Nicholas A. , Nemet Gregory F.
Published: February 2024

This chapter covers energy sources, current energy policies, renewable energy, and the vision to reach “net-zero emissions.” Various policy mechanisms are presented. A textbox summarizes research on how reducing greenhouse gas emissions provides substantial health co-benefits. The use of low-carbon energy sources, such as wind and solar power, for electricity generation has been growing rapidly, even as fossil fuels remain the major source of energy globally. The adoption of wind and solar power are growing quickly and the costs of these energy resources are decreasing dramatically. Maximizing the potential for wind and solar power depends on developing electricity systems with more storage, transmission, and demand-response measures, which respond to electricity demand to curb peak electricity loads. National policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, put the United States on track to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, but much more stringent policies will be needed to get to net-zero emissions.
Developing and Implementing Interventions for Health Adaptation
Authors: Ebi Kristie L. , Berry Peter
Published: February 2024

The increasing scale and pace of climate change impacts require rapid scaling up of actions to protect health and close the adaptation gap. Effective actions to protect health include assessing risks and vulnerabilities to current and future climate change, identifying populations that suffer disproportionately, and developing needed interventions while empowering civil society organizations and the general public. It is important to conduct a climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessment to understand current and projected health risks and the best adaptation options. The increasing complexity and severity of health risks requires that leaders in the health sector work closely with those in other sectors to develop climate-resilient, low-carbon health systems. Success in protecting health from climate change requires health officials to regularly monitor progress in adaptation and mitigation. Adequate investment in adaptation is critical to ensuring that individuals, communities, and health systems can effectively respond to challenges of climate change.
Introduction
Authors: Maher Shiraz , Cook Joana
Published: February 2024

This chapter introduces the book, key concepts, and chapter summaries within. Specifically, it defines Islamism and provides a background to the concept and application of Islamist governance. It discusses the imperatives for an Islamic State as understood by Islamists, alongside social and cultural considerations, as well as those of political realism. It then discusses the organizational structure of the book around constitutional actors and violent movements. Extending into a thorough literature review on rebel governance, it situates the study of Islamist governance within this field. Finally, it provides a brief summary of each chapter in the book.
Monetary Economics, Illicit Economies, and Legitimation
Authors: Lokmanoglu Ayse , Phelan Alexandra
Published: February 2024

In Chapter 7, Ayse Lokmanoglu and Alexandra Phelan consider the case of ISIS utilizing the concept of eudaemonic legitimation, which involves appeals to economic performance and effectiveness as a legitimation strategy. They investigate how ISIS consolidated stable economic practices by way of illicit activities, while simultaneously justifying traditional monetary economics in an attempt to appeal to the organization’s performance and effectiveness as means of legitimation. These economic appeals of legitimation were not solely attempts to mobilize popular support, but also to assert the portrayal of sovereignty to an international audience.
Local Governance as a (De-)Legitimizing Tool for Competing Violent Extremist Groups in Central Mali
Authors: Demuynck Méryl , Coleman Julie
Published: February 2024

In Chapter 8, Méryl Demuynck and Julie Coleman map out governance efforts by jihadist groups in the conflict-afflicted state of Mali. Highlighting the governance vacuum upon which the groups Katiba Macina and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) capitalized to assert themselves as a legitimate alternative power, this chapter also considers the role that local governance issues have played in the context of increased infighting among violent extremist organizations active in central Mali. It further outlines the key actors related to the conflict and explores how the al-Qaeda-affiliated Katiba Macina and ISGS have approached local governance in this competitive environment, and the extent to which local governance strategies serve as (de-)legitimising tools for competing Islamist armed groups.
Hezbollah’s Parallel Governance Structure in Lebanon
Authors: Levitt Matthew
Published: February 2024

In Chapter 10, Matthew Levitt considers Hezbollah’s social-welfare governance model, outlining its growth over the course of the group’s own development and across a broad array of service areas including social, public health, educational, financial, infrastructure, and environmental issues. The chapter also interrogates Hezbollah’s independent activities and its efforts in more recent years to co-opt the Lebanese government’s bureaucracy for its own ends, which have proven extremely effective. However, Levitt notes that as the corrupt sectarian political system in Lebanon continues to come under increased pressure to change, Hezbollah’s role as a key player in this system could undermine its position.
Seeking an Argument I
Authors: Leite Adam
Published: February 2024

The Global Epistemic Priority Thesis is, roughly, the thesis that the evidence for the totality of our beliefs about the world is limited to what is given to us by our experiential states. This chapter continues the argument that this thesis does not arise out of the commitments of everyday epistemic life. Some contemporary foundationalists have attempted to motivate this thesis by appealing to considerations about justificatory regresses. This chapter focuses on the relation between concerns about justificatory regress and our ordinary epistemic commitments and practices to show that justificatory regresses do not successfully motivate the Global Epistemic Priority Thesis. The necessary regresses simply don’t get started.
Enough Is Enough
Authors: Leite Adam
Published: February 2024

A fully satisfactory refutation of external world skepticism need not involve or yield an epistemological theory. Finding no reason to think skepticism true and decisive reasons to think it false, we reject it. This chapter addresses objections arising from the fear that we might be unwittingly duped, the yearning for non-contingent and ahistorical reasons, the demand for a justification that makes use of no beliefs about the world, Stanley Cavell’s claim that skeptical reflection arises from a distinctive kind of experience available to us all, and the thought that no refutation of skepticism can be philosophically satisfactory without underwriting by an epistemological theory. As with the work undertaken elsewhere in this book, the responses to these objections provide a form of illumination that is reasonably termed philosophical even though it does not involve the development of a theory of knowledge, evidence, or empirical justification.
Introduction
Authors: von Bogdandy Armin , Piovesan Flávia , Mac-Gregor Eduardo Ferrer , Antoniazzi Mariela Morales
Published: February 2024

This collection of essays focuses on the transformations led by the Inter-American System of Human Rights and the impact caused by Ius Constitutionale Commune en America Latina (ICCAL). ICCAL consists of a robust set of domestic and international norms, actors,and institutions that interact to advance human dignity in Latin America. Although compliance is usually seen as the only driver of transformation stemming from the Inter-American System of Human Rights, it is one of several factors to consider when assessing the legal, social, and political impact of ICCAL. The authors thereby expand the notion of impact along three dimensions. First, they include as the subject of the analyses all tools of the IAHRS that might serve its transformative mandate. Second, they consider the centrality of the community of practice, a diverse group encompassing a broad range of stakeholders working within the realm of Inter-American Human Rights standards. Third, the authors analyze the impact of ICCAL in the development and consolidation of human rights standards, to increase the capacity of civil society and States to respect, protect, and fulfill such standards, and to deepen transnational conversation and cooperation.
The Use of Transformative Provisional Measures by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Authors: Burbano-Herrera Clara , Haeck Yves
Published: February 2024

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has asserted that the deprivation of liberty must not be accompanied by the dispossession of all human rights. The rights of detainees to life, personal integrity, and fair trial must be effectively respected and guaranteed just as they must be ensured to individuals who have not been deprived of liberty. This chapter examines the impact of transformative provisional measures granted by the IACtHR to protect persons deprived of liberty kept in terrible prison conditions. The chapter holds that transformative provisional measures arise out of structural problems, that is, situations in which State authorities have consistently failed to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of historically marginalized groups. Therefore, transformative provisional measures aim to protect the rights of a multiplicity of persons who are collectively in danger, while also preventing human rights violations. Special attention is given to the transformative provisional measures adopted in the case of the Criminal Institute of Plácido de Sá Carvalho, where the Inter-American Court balances the right to dignified conditions of detention, on the one hand, and the State’s obligation to punish those who commit crimes, on the other.
Creating the Narrative of Human Rights Impact in Latin America
Authors: Urueña René , Cortes Stephania Yate
Published: February 2024

This chapter argues that the Inter-American Human Rights System’s “impact” is not a static fact but rather is a continuously evolving description of reality. It implies a narrative that results from interpreting certain national facts through a normative lens, thus providing the organizing logic to describe the “reality” in which the inter-American institutions operate. This constant process makes “impact” a moving goal—the ultimate movable signpost, which can be understood only through an overarching narrative that features both the descriptive and the normative, in constant interaction with each other. This chapter focuses on four specific processes through which such a narrative of compliance is created: framing, the development of cognitive categories, the deployment of emotions, and the generation of aesthetic illusions.
The Inter-American Human Rights System and Its Impact on the Human Rights of Women
Authors: Falcón Julissa Mantilla
Published: February 2024

What has been the impact of the Inter-American Human Rights System on the protection of the human rights of women? More specifically, how has the System addressed sexual violence? This chapter approaches these questions by analyzing how the System conceptualizes sexual violence as a human rights violation. It also explores the Inter-American System guidelines on the criminal investigation of sexual violence. The chapter focuses on the inter-American standards and their role in the recognition and condemnation of sexual violence as a human rights violation, emphasizing the responsibility of the State for sexual violence as torture. Based on a gender perspective and considering the intersectional approach, this chapter analyzes the impact of the Inter-American System in relation to sexual violence, highlighting challenges for safeguarding the dignity of the victims.
The Inter-American Human Rights System’s/ICCAL’s Impact on Transitions to Democracy from the Perspective of Transitional Justice
Authors: Binder Christina
Published: February 2024

This chapter focuses on the Ius Constitutionale Commune en América Latina (ICCAL)’s impact on transitions to democracy in selected Latin American countries from the perspective of Transitional Justice. In Latin America, transitions to democracy often involve the engagement with major human rights violations of the former regime. A key parameter to measure the impact of the Inter-American Human Rights System (ICCAL) on transitions to democracy will thus relate to its ability to facilitate dealing with these violations at the domestic level and its according support for domestic institutions. More particularly, in the Latin American context, the question arose as of how to qualify the provision of amnesties for past human rights violations since many Latin American States passed amnesty laws in the course of transitions to democracy. As is shown, blanket amnesties run against the very idea of Transitional Justice. Amnesty laws were also subject to a rich case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and found to violate key provisions in the American Convention on Human Rights. It is argued accordingly, that the Inter-American Court’s case law on amnesties is of crucial importance for transitions to democracy, and the respective impact of the ICCAL is therefore considerable. More particularly, the Inter-American Human Rights System and the Court have contributed to the realization of all aspects of Transitional Justice when dealing with amnesty laws that are in contravention of the American Convention on Human Rights: with retributive, restorative, and distributive justice.
Addressing Conceptual Challenges
Authors: Pérez-Liñán Aníbal , Morrison Kelly , Schenoni Luis L.
Published: February 2024

To understand how States implement orders of the Inter-American Human Rights System, it is crucial to consider the question of time for two primary reasons. Firstly, the incentives for governments to comply with legal outcomes change over time, and secondly, States often intentionally delay their compliance with reparative measures. Thus, time is a relevant consideration when assessing legal outcomes and accounting for State behavior. This chapter proposes new criteria to evaluate compliance over time and illustrate those criteria with evidence from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). To this end, the chapter introduces the distinction between “snapshot” metrics, which compare State implementation at a single point in time, and “discrete-time” metrics, which assess levels of compliance on an annual basis. After discussing two conventional snapshot metrics—the static rate of compliance and the average compliance time among closed measures—the chapter introduces two novel metrics: (1) the annual probability of compliance and (2) the expected time for compliance (ETC). The annual probability of compliance and the ETC are mathematically equivalent and thus exchangeable. An analysis of all cases decided by the IACtHR between 1989 and 2018 indicates that compliance with reparation measures follows a distinctive life cycle over time. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the conceptual distinction between compliance and impact and then provides some warnings about potential tensions between State compliance and political backlashes.
Activism Strategies Involving the Inter-American System
Authors: Kletzel Gabriela
Published: February 2024

This chapter focuses on the work done by national human rights organizations that, understanding the potential of the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS), have not limited their actions to bringing human rights cases and scenarios of violations to light, but have also deployed diverse strategies to catalyze structural transformations, as well as led substantive and institutional development by challenging and expanding the agenda of the IAHRS’s bodies, safeguarding its composition and generating and enhancing working tools. To shed light on these roles, concrete examples are provided involving actors and interventions that have enabled material transformations in the observance of rights within States or, from an institutional perspective, the System itself. The overview of strategic interventions by social actors within the Inter-American System shows that analyses of its impacts should not be focused on narrow or isolated actions, since its contributions have often been in continuous dialogue with processes of national struggle and transformation, in which the victims have brought incredible tenacity to their battle. The inputs of national stakeholders have demonstrated the value of having deep knowledge of the complex State networks operating in each context and re-signified the usefulness and specific role of international recourse. They have also borne evidence of the role of civil society in generating and renewing tools, safeguarding the integration of the mechanisms, and proposing new outlooks on issues to work on.
The Majles
Authors: Raisi Alireza
Published: February 2024

There has been a consolidation of the powers of Iranian hardliners within the ruling elite at the expense of gradually undermining Majles’s constitutional authority in legislation and oversight. That is, following the reformist Sixth Majles in 2004, the hardliners decided to curb the Majles’s role in policymaking and to ensure an upper hand for unelected elements within the Islamic Republic. Not only did this process undermine the power of Iran’s parliament, but it also fundamentally recast the pattern of political participation and citizen–politician linkages in Iran. The lack of influence triggered a sharp decline in the 2020 parliamentary electoral turnout. It also limited the role of the parliament in the policy process and in addressing the programmatic demands of the citizens. In such an environment, the Majles has assumed itself a parochial role in addressing the particularistic needs of the citizenry.
Soviet Russia in the Pacific
Authors: Ziegler Charles E.
Published: February 2024

This chapter examines the Soviet government’s efforts to spread the ideology of communist revolution in Asia, and then to establish the USSR as a more conventional Pacific great power. The discussion traces events in the immediate post-revolutionary period, when a Far Eastern Republic was established and Japan invaded Russian territory; the period following World War II when Joseph Stalin attempted but failed to realize fully his ambitions for Soviet expansion into China, Japan, and Korea; tensions with China and the Far East military buildup under Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev; concluding with Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms of the late 1980s. Soviet influence in the Asia Pacific was constrained by geopolitical realities, political institutions, economic practices, and foreign policy norms, many of which can be traced back to pre-revolutionary times. Key limiting factors included the Kremlin’s preoccupation with military power, a perception of the Russian Far East as a distant and vulnerable frontier, the autarkic and flawed economic model of central planning, Soviet inability to find a niche within the Asian economic miracle, and the traditional Russian position as a land power centered on the Eurasian continent.