Identity in Postgenomic Times: Epigenetic Knowledge and the Pursuit of Biological Origins

As genetic knowledge continues to strengthen notions of identity in Euro-American societies and beyond, epigenetic knowledge is intervening in these legitimation frameworks. I explore these interventions in the realm of assisted reproduction—including adoption, donor conception, and gestational surrogacy. The right to identity is protected legally in many states and receives due attention in public and private international law. Originating from the context of adoption, donor-conceived and surrogacy-born persons have recently demanded the same protections and focused on the right to genetic knowledge. This article explores possible implications of epigenetic knowledge on identity. I start by articulating the deep influence of genetics on the notion of identity, and how this unfolds in legal contexts. Next, I examine how epigenetic findings that stress the importance of seeing biological life as situated and embedded in environments can challenge how adoption, donor conception, and gestational surrogacy are experienced and understood. While I argue that epigenetic knowledge can reify identity with the same determinism underpinning genetics, it can also allow for more biosocial understandings of identity that consider history and experience as entangled with biology.

Role of Legal Theory in Legal Education

The article addresses the role of legal theory in legal education. Today, a multitude of perspectives is present within legal theory and, as a subject, it is not as distinct as it is sometimes claimed to be. It is evident when considering syllabuses in the Nordic countries that nearly all LLM programmes have ambitions to teach legal theory as embracing a multitude of theoretical and methodological perspectives. This multitude of perspectives promises adaptable content for the subject of legal theory in various legal contexts, and could facilitate a reflection on how knowledge is acquired and why. The challenge addressed in the article is the presence of explicit or implicit ideas from the subject of legal theory as comprising a coherent “legal method” and a specific list of accepted theories. The persistence of such ideas is scrutinised in this article with help of the concepts of “professional knowledge” and “scholarly knowledge”. In order to navigate the complex field of legal theories, students need meta-reflective skills, which means the ability to reflect upon the underlying complexity and multitude of the subject. This is shown by a case study from the Department of Law at the University of Gothenburg, together with examples from curricula and textbooks from legal theory courses across the Nordic countries.

Out of Character

This chapter is a critical appraisal of the “character theory of excuses” in legal philosophy, which maintains that an excuse is available to a defendant when their action is not a manifestation of their character. The essay argues, using a strategy derived from the skeptical position in the virtue ethics-situationism debate, that the moral psychology underlying the character theory of excuses is empirically inadequate. It is further suggested that yoking excuses to character assessment threatens to make determining excuses epistemically intractable in legal contexts, given the many practical obstacles to definitive character assessment.

Advances in the Registration of Farmers’ Varieties: Four Cases from the Global South

Over the last few decades, there has been a growing appreciation of crop varieties developed by local farmers, commonly referred to as farmers’ varieties. These varieties often have attractive characteristics for both producers and consumers, such as adaptability to harsh environmental conditions and high nutritional values. Yet they are usually not sold in formal markets, and tend to be limited to farmers’ seed systems. This is partially due to national seed laws that, in an effort to guarantee good quality seed of uniform and stable varieties, create obstacles for farmers’ varieties to reach the market. This article describes the experiences of four countries—Bolivia, Laos, Nepal and Zimbabwe—that are developing alternative variety registration systems for farmers’ varieties. Most of these cases have never been documented before. The cases present the main drivers behind and approaches to the registration of farmers’ varieties in different legal contexts and at different stages of development. We conclude that farmers’ variety registration systems can generate benefits including faster and cheaper variety releases, improved farmer incomes, and a larger diversity of well-adapted varieties in the market—but some important issues are still to be resolved.

It's About Bloody Time and Space

Time frames relationships of power, especially in the context of law. One of the clearest ways in which time is implicated in both law and society is via discourses about women’s biological functions. This Article is an introduction to a larger project that analyzes legal discourses regarding a crucial aspect of women’s calendrically-associated biological functions: women’s menstrual periods. Over the course of the project, I explore legal discourses about menstruation through the notion of what literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin calls “chronotopes”—a connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships. Temporality, Bakhtin argues, is closely associated with certain paradigmatic spaces, and the combination of shapes, ideologies, and identities. Legal discussions of women’s menstrual bleeding are key sites for the discursive creation and maintenance of certain ideologies of womanhood. These discussions appear in a wide variety of contexts and in ways that either explicitly reference or implicitly index ideologies of female identity. All are characterized by efforts to mark them as narratives linked to other temporally prior or future moments, and are often indices of chronologically or spatially related stigmas and taboos. While legal discourses of menstruation do not give a complete account of the category “woman,” they provide cogent examples of how womanhood ideologies are constructed in legal contexts.

Conclusion

The final chapter, chapter 7, weaves together the findings from both the cross-national, time-serial statistical analyses and the in-depth case studies to offer overarching arguments for why women’s representation advanced on high courts around the world. Despite differences in socioeconomic and legal contexts, a common denominator emerges: high courts are gendered. Taken together, both the cross-national and cross-temporal evidence shows that women’s appointments to the peak bench is not automatic, and that both domestic and international factors are influential. In general, despite relatively full pipelines, gendered institutions in the selection process have limited women’s advancement. In different ways, changing global norms have raised the profile of women’s appointments, placing pressure on those with the power to transform the bench, although with varying degrees of success. A chain of favorable influences emerge: new norms of gender equality encourage reimagining the composition of courts; advocacy organizations challenge the status quo; and windows of opportunity enable change. For women to make significant and sustainable strides, it is necessary to go beyond equal treatment and access to the same opportunities. Instead, what is needed is an equity-minded approach: a fundamental transformation of the processes that were built around the traditional all-men norm. The chapter offers a multi-pronged set of approaches for diversifying the judiciary. Reimagining high courts is not only about gender parity; it means building inclusive judiciaries that reflect the full range of lived experiences in society.

LEGAL SUPPORT TO THE PROTECTION OF LAND AND SOIL IN LIGHT OF NEW REGULATIONS OF UKRAINE

In this article, regulations on land and soil protection are studied in a chronological sequence and in the historical and legal contexts. The main factors responsible for the deterioration of the quality of land resources and the soil environment are identified. The modern regulatory framework providing legal support to land and soil protection is analyzed. Among the current problems is the improper land-use triggered by inadequate legal regulation concerning pollution, depletion, degradation, and reduced fertility of soil. Appropriate legal protection to the ecological functions of the soil is absent. Further legal framework addressing rational use and protection of land resources (including soil) in Ukraine should be developed integrating environmental interests of society and ecological tenets of sustainable development.

Veiling in Ancient Near Eastern Legal Contexts

Particularly interesting textual evidence on the use of the veil in ancient Mesopotamia comes from 15th-14th century BC Assyria. No comprehensive code of laws has reached us from this age, but only a collection of 14 tablets, which are named ad hoc “Middle Assyrian Laws”, from the religious and political capital Aššur. Veiling was prescribed for appearances in public of married women, even if widows, but also applied to the vaster class of women who were ‘Assyrian’, i.e. of free status and native-born. On the other hand, prostitutes had no right to wear a veil, and severe punishments were foreseen for transgression; and the same applied to slave women. These harsh rulings on the veil and other matters in the “Middle Assyrian Laws” do not, curiously enough, find counterparts in the contemporaneous legal deeds, which show women endowed with a much more liberal status. Perhaps the “Laws” reflected normative codifications applying to the stricter moral and intellectual ‘climate’ of the city of Aššur, dominated by its temple and royal palace.

Effects of digitalisation of organisations on internal audit activities and practices

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how the internal audit function (IAF) modifies its activities and practices in relation to the digitalisation the organisation. This paper specifically examines the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities by internal auditors. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a survey conducted with 82 chief audit executives based in the USA and members of the institute of internal auditors. Findings Results indicate a positive relation between the organisation’s level of digitalisation and the use of data analytics by internal auditors during their missions. Results also indicate that the organisation’s level of digitalisation has an indirect effect on the proportion of the internal audit planning dedicated to consulting activities. Specifically, the use of data analytics mediates the relationship between the organisation’s level of digitalisation and the proportion of the internal audit planning dedicated to consulting activities. Research limitations/implications This research was conducted amongst internal auditors based in the US Future research could investigate the insights of other internal audit stakeholders and investigate different legal contexts. Practical implications Results show that digitalisation increases the use of data analytics by internal auditors and the performance of consulting activities. The results, therefore, highlight the importance of these two aspects for the IAF to continue to bring value to organisations. Originality/value This research provides more insights on internal audit working practices. The digitalisation of the organisation leads the IAF to use more data analytics and perform more consulting activities.