Access to Internet as a Human Right – Justification and Comparative Study

This paper advances a human rights perspective to the understanding of internet access by viewing it through a comparative lens with reference to countries in Europe, and the USA, India, and China. The question that is explored is: does internet access warrant recognition as a stand-alone human right, or is it sufficient that access is so bound up with one or more existing rights that formal recognition is unnecessary? Through this paper an effort has been made to analyse whether having a right to internet access as a human right is possible and to argue for the need to recognise such a right given the importance such a right holds, as can be seen especially during the ongoing pandemic when every aspect of life has been shifted to the online mode.

U.S. Family Law Along the Slippery Slope: the limits of a sexual rights strategy for polyamorous parents

Families in the United States are rapidly changing, and the normative familial model of two married, monogamous, heterosexual parents with children no longer reflects the majority of U.S. families. Nonetheless, state incentive-based policies and discriminatory family laws continue to enforce heteronormative monogamy. Recent changes to the U.S. legal landscape have produced limited formal recognition and protections for same-sex couples and LGBTQ parents, and even these narrow rights are withheld from other diverse familial configurations including families with polyamorous parents. This article uses the concept of sexual citizenship to frame the analysis of U.S. family courts’ normative construction of family, identifying striking parallels between family courts’ historical and contemporary prejudicial treatment of LGBTQ parents and the institution’s similar delegitimization and denigration of polyamorous parents today. This paper reviews polyamorous parents’ efforts towards achieving legal and societal legitimatization, finding significant parallels with legal strategies LGBTQ parents utilized to seek legal recognition and protection prior to federal recognition of same-sex marriage. This paper highlights the inadequacies of such a formal sexual citizenship approach, finding that a limited strategy of accumulating specific sexual rights fails to address non-monogamy’s more radical cultural presence as well as the (non-legal) informal aspects of belonging needed to improve the livability of polyamorous parents’ and their children’s lives. This paper concludes with recommendations for improving the treatment of non-traditional families including LGBTQ, polyamorous, and other blended families, both within and outside the legal institution.

Progress towards equality in the practice of the ECTHR and the partnership agreement in de facto alliances

The article examines the progress towards equality in the practice of the ECtHR and its significant impact on the partnership agreement in de facto alliances. It has been established that over the last thirty-five years, the approaches of the European Court of Human Rights to the issue of the right of same-sex partners to family life and its formal recognition have undergone significant changes. It was found that the issue of discrimination was the subject of a number of cases concerning various rights of homosexual unions. It is substantiated that in the aspect of the right to formal recognition of same-sex partnerships by the state, the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the case “Oliari and others v. Italy ». It was found that despite many years of case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the provisions of Council Regulation № 2016/1104, not all EU countries have provided legal certainty for same-sex couples, even in the form of civil partnerships (namely, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania). The French experience of regulating the procedure for concluding, essential conditions of a partnership agreement, as well as the procedure for its termination is studied. It is substantiated that taking into account the European integration processes in Ukraine, reforming its private law according to European standards, our state, given the principle of equality and positive obligations under Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms should guarantee partners in de facto unions sex legal certainty. In our opinion, it is optimal to amend the Central Committee of Ukraine and grant the right to conclude civil partnership agreements to persons regardless of the article. At the same time, the IC of Ukraine must maintain a heteronomous approach, ie guarantee the right to marry persons of the opposite sex, which fully complies with Art. 12 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Given that a partnership agreement can be an effective legal regulator of relations between individuals in de facto unions, it is worth borrowing the positive experience of France in improving Ukrainian legislation.

Native Law as One of The Sources of Law in Sabah Legal System

Native law is one of the sources of law recognised by the Federal Constitution in Malaysia. In Sabah1, one of the states in East Malaysia, native law received its formal recognition from the British government in 1888. It continues to exist until today, governing matters involving the natives of Sabah. The law is administered by the native court, presided by the native chiefs. This paper discusses the evolution of native law in the State of Sabah since colonial times and analyses the development of customary law as one of the sources of law in the Malaysian legal system. The analysis includes a discussion on the validity of customs and the position of native law in the Sabah legal system.

Octopus djinda (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae): a new member of the Octopus vulgaris group from southwest Australia

A new Octopus Cuvier, 1797 species, Octopus djinda Amor, 2021 (previously treated as O. cf. tetricus and O. aff. tetricus), is described from the shallow waters off southwest Australia. This species was classified as conspecific with O. tetricus Gould, 1852 from Australia’s east coast and New Zealand but is shown here to be morphologically and genetically distinct. This description is based on 25 individuals across three localities in southwest Australia, encompassing most of its distribution. Greater and non-overlapping sucker counts on the males hectocotylised arm delimit east and west coast forms. DNA barcoding using cytochrome c oxidase subunit I also successfully differentiates between these taxa; 13 polymorphisms along a 349 bp partial fragment (3.7% sequence divergence). A close relative of the O. vulgaris Cuvier, 1797 species-group, O. djinda, sp. nov. supports a highly productive fishery and is currently one of two octopod fisheries worldwide to have received sustainable certification from the Marine Stewardship Council. The taxonomic description presented here provides formal recognition of the taxonomic status of southwest Australia’s common octopus, O. djinda, sp. nov. and facilitates appropriate fisheries catch reporting and management.

How Climate-Induced Migration Entered the UN Policy Agenda in 2007–2010: A Multiple Streams Assessment

In 2007, issues regarding climate-induced migration took a giant leap on the international policy agenda at the same time as a growth of interest in and salience of climate security. From having been a technical non-issue since the 1980s, climate-induced migration became one of the most emphasised consequences of climate change for a short period. After three years of fluidity in actors, institutions, and conceptual framings, issues of climate change and migration reached a formal recognition in the 2010 Cancún Adaptation Framework, marking a new era for policy discussions on climate-induced migration. This article sets out to show why this issue, which had been known to policymakers and academia for at least two decades, took such a major leap up the agenda at this specific point in time. The article draws from rich primary interview material together with an analytical framework based on the multiple streams framework in order to systematically answer this question. In doing so, the article primarily offers an empirical contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the specific agenda-setting mechanisms of climate-induced migration in an international policy context.

Parole as resentencing: Exploring the punitive accounts of parole decision-making through the comparative case study of Israel

Parole boards have traditionally assessed prisoners’ future risk and rehabilitation prospects in deciding on early release from prison. However, parole boards may do more. In some systems, they may deny parole applications for punitive reasons, thus acting as a resentencing authority. This study conducted a qualitative analysis of the punitive discourses of parole decision-making, with Israel as a comparative case study. Through interviews with 20 chairpersons of Israeli Parole Boards, we found three themes of punitive parole decision-making: (a) preserving public confidence in the criminal justice system; (b) preserving penal proportionality; and (c) re-censuring an especially depraved moral character. The findings suggested that parole boards’ punitive discretion is multidimensional and complex. Such punitive discretion may be openly implemented, it may be cloaked as risk assessment, or decided without formal recognition. The findings further indicated that resentencing through discretionary parole may not only conflict with rehabilitation and risk aims, but may also raise challenges for retributive and deterrent penal policy. Implications for comparative parole policy are discussed.

Misokinesia is a sensitivity to seeing others fidget that is prevalent in the general population

Misokinesia––or the ‘hatred of movements’––is a psychological phenomenon that is defined by a strong negative affective or emotional response to the sight of someone else’s small and repetitive movements, such as seeing someone fidget with a hand or foot. Among those who regularly experience misokinesia sensitivity, there is a growing grass-roots recognition of the challenges that it presents as evidenced by on-line support groups. Yet surprisingly, scientific research on the topic is lacking. This article is novel in systematically examining whether misokinesia sensitivity actually exists in the general population, and if so, whether there is individual variability in the intensity or extent of what sensitivities are reported. Across three studies that included 4100 participants, we confirmed the existence of misokinesia sensitivity in both student and non-student populations, with approximately one-third of our participants self-reporting some degree of sensitivity to seeing the repetitive, fidgeting behaviors of others as encountered in their daily lives. Moreover, individual variability in the range and intensity of sensitivities reported suggest that the negative social-affective impacts associated with misokinesia sensitivities may grow with age. Our findings thus confirm that a large segment of the general population may have a visual-social sensitivity that has received little formal recognition.

Anthroengineering: an independent interdisciplinary field

In recent decades, funding agencies, institutes and professional bodies have recognized the profound benefits of transdisciplinarity in tackling targeted research questions. However, once questions are answered, the previously abundant support often dissolves. As such, the long-term benefits of these transdisciplinary approaches are never fully achieved. Over the last several decades, the integration of anthropology and engineering through inter- and multidisciplinary work has led to advances in fields such as design, human evolution and medical technologies. The lack of formal recognition, however, of this transdisciplinary approach as a unique entity rather than a useful tool or a subfield makes it difficult for researchers to establish laboratories, secure permanent jobs, fund long-term research programmes and train students in this approach. To facilitate the growth and development and witness the long-term benefits of this approach, we propose the integration of anthropology and engineering be recognized as a new, independent field known as anthroengineering . We present a working definition for anthroengineering and examples of how anthroengineering has been used. We discuss the necessity of recognizing anthroengineering as a unique field and explore potential novel applications. Finally, we discuss the future of anthroengineering, highlighting avenues for moving the field forward.

PROTAGORAS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF GRAMMAR

Offering a re-evaluation of all the available evidence, including passages from Aristotle's Rhetoric, Poetics and Sophistici Elenchi, Diogenes Laertius’ biographical sketch as well as the grammar scene in Aristophanes’ Clouds, this article argues that Protagoras’ engagement with grammatical questions must have been more sophisticated and thorough than is often assumed. In Protagoras’ discovery of grammatical gender, formal considerations – most likely inspired by the analysis of personal names – played a more fundamental role than semantic ones, and his typology of πυθμένες λόγων equally presupposes the formal recognition of at least verbal mood, if not also tense.