On studying world order: A plea for systematic inquiry

Conclusion The creation of improved systems of world order requires great care. Alternative configurations may or may not prove more suitable, and each must be painstakingly examined on its own merits. For those of us who are actively concerned with studying about world order, this means the application of a far more rigorous conception of inquiry to our subject. So long as we cannot accept the Leibnizian claim that this is certainly the best of all possible worlds, our search for better ones must certainly be the best of all possible searches. This means that models of world order must be derived from appropriate hypotheses and subjected to the strictures of systematic analysis. World order studies must be treated in accordance with the strict canons of inquiry outlined in this essay. Only then can they begin to develop the highly generalized system of theory that characterizes any science.     

The Gender Ethics and Politics of Affection: The ‘Feminine’Melodramatic Mode in Walter Salles' Central do Brasil (1998)

This article reads Walter Salles's Central do Brasil (1998) through a reappraisal of the film's relationship to melodrama in order to emphasise the significance of the association of affect with ethical judgment in thinking about the complex and contradictory gender politics of the film, thereby challenging the conventional tension between pathos and logos. Using a number of filmic and psychoanalytic theories, this article argues that Central do Brasil's melodramatic search for a ‘space of innocence’ in the Sertão could offer less a nostalgic return to anachronistic forms of living than a survival strategy for living in late modernity. Finally, this article argues that Central do Brasil, while lamenting the state's withdrawal from the public sphere, calls for an ethical imperative that is associated with a ‘feminine’ responsible and generous capacity to embrace the other as a necessary form of social and political action for the redefining of citizenship in Brazilian neoliberal society.     

Correction to: The Public Power of Judgement: Reasonableness Versus Rationality—Setting the Ball Rolling

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - In the original publication of the article, the paragraph beginning “We begin with two...     

Determination of MDMA, MDA, MDEA and MBDB in oral fluid using high performance liquid chromatography with native fluorescence detection

This paper describes the analytical methodology for the determination of MDMA, MDA, MDEA and MBDB in oral fluid. After a liquid–liquid extraction, the analysis was carried out by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), with fluorescence detection. The detector wavelength was fixed at 285 nm for excitation and 320 nm for emission. The mobile phase, a mixture of phosphate buffer (pH = 5) and acetonitrile (75:25), and the column, Kromasil 100 C8 5 μm 250 mm × 4.6 mm, allowed good separation of the compounds in an isocratic mode in only 10 min. The method was validated and showed good limits of detection (2 ng/mL) and quantitation (10 ng/mL) for all the amphetamine derivatives. No interfering substances were detected. A stability study of these compounds in oral fluid stored at three different temperatures (−18, 4 and 20 °C) over 10 weeks was conducted, showing a time-dependent degradation of the four compounds.     

Judicial Decisions Involving Questions of Private International Law

Netherlands International Law Review -