Human Rights, Refugees, and The Right 'To Enjoy' Asylum

Increasingly hard-line and restrictive asylum policies and practicesof many governments call into question the scope of protectionsoffered by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.Has the focus on the 1951 Convention been to the detriment andsubordination of other rights and standards of treatment owedto refugees and asylum-seekers under international human rightslaw? Which standard applies in the event that there is a clashor inconsistency between the two bodies of law? In analysingthe interface between international refugee law and internationalhuman rights law, this article looks at the right to familylife and the right to work. Through this examination, contentand meaning is offered to the almost forgotten component ofthe right ‘to enjoy’ asylum in Article 14(1) ofthe Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948.     

Media and the politics of belonging: Sudanese Australians,letters to the editor and the new integrationism

Nolan, Burgin, Farquharson and Marjoribanks focus on media as a significant site through which a politics of belonging is played out, focusing particularly on coverage of Sudanese Australians. To this end, they analyse letters to the editor that concern Sudanese Australians in three Victorian newspapers in 2007, a highly significant year in which this group became the focus of significant levels of (predominantly negative) media coverage. Through textual and thematic analysis, the authors demonstrate how such letters worked to reiterate and extend a politics of ‘integrationism’ that, without entirely departing from Australia's commitment to multiculturalism, has rearticulated the latter along neo-assimilationist lines. In doing so, they show how, in many letters, Sudanese Australians are problematized for their failure or refusal to ‘integrate’ in ways that involve an explicit or implicit process of racialization. In the process, the article also critically considers the important role performed by media in the politics of belonging, particularly through their reiteration and contestation of the politics of race and multiculturalism in Australia. Rather than simply a matter of reproducing a hegemonic politics, it shows how such processes, despite the marked limitations of their framing within a ‘race debate’, also serve to demonstrate significant fault lines in the politics of belonging.     

Explaining differences in sub-national patterns of clean technology transfer to China and India

The Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has the capacity to incentivize the international transfer of environmentally sound technologies. Given that both countries are expected to have similar incentives when managing the distribution of technology transfer within the country, why do sub-national patterns in the allocation of projects with technology transfer differ? Using comparable political–economic data compiled for China and India, we offer an explanation for these differences. In China, where the government regards the CDM as a tool for achieving sustainable development, technology transfer is concentrated in provinces that need it the most and that are most conducive to receiving transfers (i.e., economically less developed, yet heavily industrialized provinces). In India, where the government takes on a “laissez-faire” approach to the CDM, neither level of economic development nor that of industrialization affects clean technology transfer. In this regard, although the incentives are similar, the capacity to pursue them is not comparable. We test these hypotheses using data on CDM technology transfer across Chinese provinces and Indian states during the 6-year period from 2004 to 2010.     

A randomized clinical trial of tailored interventions for health promotion and recidivism reduction among homeless parolees: outcomes and cost analysis

Objectives

This study conducted a randomized controlled trial with 600 recently released homeless men exiting California jails and prisons.

Methods

The purpose of this study was to primarily ascertain how different levels of intensity in peer coaching and nurse-partnered intervention programs may impact reentry outcomes; specifically: (a) an intensive peer coach and nurse case managed (PC-NCM) program; (b) an intermediate peer coaching (PC) program with brief nurse counseling; and (c) the usual care (UC) program involving limited peer coaching and brief nurse counseling. Secondary outcomes evaluated the operational cost of each program.

Results

When compared to baseline, all three groups made progress on key health-related outcomes during the 12-month intervention period; further, 84.5 % of all participants eligible for hepatitis A/B vaccination completed their vaccine series. The results of the detailed operational cost analysis suggest the least costly approach (i.e., UC), which accounted for only 2.11 % of the total project expenditure, was as effective in achieving comparable outcomes for this parolee population as the PC-NCM and PC approaches, which accounted for 53.98 % and 43.91 %, respectively, of the project budget.

Conclusions

In this study, all three intervention strategies were found to be comparable in achieving a high rate of vaccine completion, which over time will likely produce tremendous savings to the public health system.

     

The Significance of R(BG and Anor) v Suffolk CC (2021): Meeting ‘Eligible Need[s]’ in Social Care?

Liverpool Law Review - The reasoning in Suffolk offers a partial redefinition of the notions of wellbeing and individual need, via its detailed analysis of the legislative frameworks associated...     

A hidden cost of war: the impact of mobilizing reserve troops on emergency response times

This paper analyzes a hidden cost of war: the effect of the mass mobilization of reserve troops on the response times of domestic emergency services to accidents. We provide a statistical examination of this linkage following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and find that mobilization significantly increases response times to accidents in the United States. These mobilization-related costs are exacerbated by both legal restrictions and issues of replacing highly specialized human capital.     

Two Cheers for Interpretivism: Deconstructing the British Political Tradition

This article engages with Bevir and Rhodes' version of interpretivism from a critical realist perspective. It argues that they are misguided to equate path‐dependency with path‐determinancy. Instead, we argue that there are three path‐dependencies, institutional, discursive and political‐economic, which constrain without determining the actions of agents and thus effect political outcomes. The argument is illustrated through a brief consideration of the operation of the British Political Tradition.     

Education. Period. Developing an acceptable and replicable menstrual hygiene intervention

This paper summarises pilot work by Irise International to develop an acceptable and replicable solution to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) in East Africa based around the manufacture of a reusable pad. The paper presents a theoretical justification for the approach and the results of pilot work used to develop it, including baseline menstrual hygiene practices and their relationship to school absenteeism in schoolgirls in western Kenya, the short-term impact of training girls to make a reusable product on school absenteeism using a partial preference, parallel group randomised control trial, and an assessment of the acceptability of the approach.