Reshaping Cultural Heritage Protection Policies at a Time of Securitisation: France,Italy, and the United Kingdom

In the context of the increasing securitisation of cultural heritage, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom have reacted differently to the recent wave of iconoclasm perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and similar radical groups and terrorist organisations. With cultural heritage now discursively identified as a security concern, the three states enacted security practices to deal with the newly emerged security threats. All three cases show a tight association between the protection of cultural heritage, development and security policies. State-driven cultural heritage protection policies continue to be designed around the notion of multilateral cooperation, although innovative forms of public-private multilateralism and civil-military cooperation are increasingly being introduced.     

Analytical Challenge in Postmortem Toxicology Applied to a Human Body Found into a Lake after Three Years Immersion

The body of a 30‐year‐old woman was found in Como lake at a depth of about 120 meters in her own car after 3 years of immersion. The aim of this study was to evaluate psychoactive drugs as well as alcohol biomarkers in biological matrices. The following analyses were initially performed: GC‐MS systematic toxicological analysis on biological fluids and tissues; GC‐MS analysis of drugs of abuse on pubic hair; direct ethanol metabolite determination in pubic hair by LC‐MS/MS. After 7 years, the samples, that had been stored at ?20°C, were re‐analyzed and submitted to an LC‐MS/MS targeted screening method, using multiple reaction monitoring mode. These analyses detected citalopram (150–3000 ng/mL), desmethylcitalopram (50–2300 ng/mL), clotiapine (20–65 ng/mL), and ethyl glucuronide (97 pg/mg). The methods showed an acceptable reproducibility, and the concentrations of citalopram and desmethylcitalopram calculated through the two analytical techniques did not significantly differ in biological fluids.     

Why Berlusconi’s landslide return? A comment on the 2008 Italian general election

At the Italian parliamentary election of April 2008 the centre-right coalition, led by media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, prevailed with 3.3 million votes over the centre-left coalition, led by Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome. This commentary analyzes the electoral results by looking at three factors which affected the vote: the institutional context, the electoral campaigns of both coalitions, and the voters’ behaviour. The article claims that the electoral outcome originated from an asymmetrical abstention of centre-left voters who did not turn out, and from a high-level of swing-voting which favoured the centre-right. It is argued that this election hardly signals a political realignment. Rather than value changes, valence politics and government performance are at the basis of the centre-right victory.      

Vico’s “Scienza Nuova”: Sematology and Thirdness in the Law

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Is it the task of legal semiotics or the legal philosophers to define legal semiotics? For the...     

Decentralization,Fiscal Independence,and Poverty in the Philippines

Decentralization is a common public sector reform in developing countries. Its basic rationale is that local governments have an informational advantage regarding the needs and preferences of consumers. However, decentralization also has drawbacks. Foremost is the efficiency advantage of the central government in providing public services because of economies of scale and better access to resources. This study looked at the relationship between decentralization and poverty using data from Philippine cities and municipalities. Results suggest that decentralization, as represented by fiscal independence and measured by the share of locally sourced revenues to total local government revenues, is indeed associated with lower poverty. However, this effect is not linear—the marginal effect of decentralization on poverty diminishes as decentralization increases. Moreover, decentralization moderates the positive effect of good governance on poverty reduction and the magnitude of the relationship between poverty and decentralization is stronger in poorer municipalities than in richer ones.     

Exploitation in Human Trafficking and Smuggling

This article explores the mechanisms that underpin human smuggling and trafficking. It argues for the continued analytical relevance of the distinction between “trafficking” and “smuggling”, as posited by the 2000 UN Protocols. While this distinction has come under sustained criticism from several authors over the last 15 years, it nonetheless continues to capture the essential features of two distinct phenomena (control over a human being vs. illegal entry into a country), and acknowledges the role of agency in smuggling. The paper goes on to discuss three different scenarios that may emerge as a result of the interplay between smugglers and smuggled persons, and it specifies the role of exploitation in each scenario. In addition, the paper offers empirical evidence of the key building blocks of smuggling — namely the search for reliable information and the reaching of an agreement in regard to the service offered — and of how smuggling can turn into trafficking. This work concludes by drawing out the relevant policy implications.