The Force of International Law: Lawyers' Diplomacy on the International Scene in the 1920s

Where does international law (IL) draw its authority from a still weakly institutionalized international scene deprived of the warrants of a state? To address this classical debate, the article draws from a case study on the social and professional structure of the “international legal community” as it emerged during the 1920s as part of the rise of multilateralism and international organizations. It focuses on the “situation of the international lawyers” of the time, starting with the multiple and often antagonistic roles they play (as legal advisers, scholars, judges, diplomats, politicians, etc.) and the variety of interests and causes they defend (states, international organizations, professional interests, etc.) in international politics. It argues this heteronomy of international lawyers helps understand the autonomization of international law. Far from being opposed to one another it has often been assumed—realism and idealism, national loyalty and international loyalty, political logic and learned logic—actually gain when analyzed as various modes of affirming a single cause—that of an international rule of law. This attention given to the “situation of international lawyers” and to the way they manage their various allegiances also accounts for the particular vision of the “International” and of “Law and Politics” relationships that are encapsulated in this emerging international corpus juris.     

L'offre active de services de santé mentale en français en Ontario et au Manitoba : les rôles clés des instruments et des outils

This article is based on the results of a survey carried out in 2019 to document health managers and professionals’ knowledge concerning their linguistic obligations and the tools promoting active offer in the field of mental health in French, in Ontario and Manitoba. The working hypothesis is that knowledge of the obligations and available tools can contribute to a successful offer of services in French. The more professionals and managers understand their obligations, the more tools they can use to fulfill them. The study shows that there is indeed a link between knowledge of obligations and the use of tools to provide an active offer of mental health services in French. It also highlights the key role of tools to provide French services actively.     

Contents of Volume 13

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 13     

Suicides by fall from height in Geneva,Switzerland, from 1991 to 2000

Suicides due to fall from height in Geneva from 1991 to 2000 were reviewed. Scene investigations, autopsy findings, psychiatric histories, and toxicology results were examined. There were 197 of these suicides, an incidence of five cases per 100,000 inhabitants per year or one fourth of all suicides in Geneva per year. Autopsies were performed on 33%, the rest had external examinations. Of the victims, 56% were female and 44% were male. The age distribution peaked at 20-29 years in men and 60-69 years in women. Most of the victims jumped from their home, the range of 2 to 7 stories being the most frequent height. Major injury sites, in decreasing frequency, were the thorax, abdomen, skull, vertebrae, pelvis and limbs. Psychiatric illness was reported in 38% of the cases. Toxicological analysis was performed in 25% of the cases and showed that the main drugs present were benzodiazepines, cannabis and antidepressant.     

Sensitive and specific multiresidue methods for the determination of pesticides of various classes in clinical and forensic toxicology

Original and sensitive multiresidue methods are presented for the detection and quantitation, in human biological matrices, of 61 pesticides of toxicological significance in human. These methods involved rapid solid-phase extraction using new polymeric support (HLB and MCX) OASIS cartridges. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for volatile (organophosphate, organochlorine, phtalimide, uracil) pesticides and liquid chromatography-ionspray-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for thermolabile and polar pesticides (carbamates, benzimidazoles). Acquisition was performed in the selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode. Extraction recovery varied owing to the nature of pesticides, but was satisfactory for all. Limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantitation (LOQs) ranged, respectively, from 2.5 to 20 and from 5 to 50ng/ml. An excellent linearity was observed from LOQs up to 1000ng/ml for all the pesticides studied. The proposed procedures yielded reproducible results with good inter-assay accuracy and precision. A few cases of intoxication are presented to demonstrate the diagnostic interest of these methods: in two cases were determined lethal concentrations of endosulfan and carbofuran; in four other cases, the procedures helped diagnose intoxication with, respectively, parathion-ethyl, the association of bromacil and strychnine, bifenthrin and aldicarb.     

Do Competitive Examinations Promote Diversity in Civil Service?

The representative bureaucracy literature provides a growing body of empirical evidence that a representative public workforce enhances the efficacy and legitimacy of public services. However, little attention has been paid to the capacity of civil service competitive examinations to give equal opportunity of access to public jobs to equally competent citizens. To fill this gap, the authors use French databases to analyze whether competitive examinations comprising both written and oral tests ensure equality of treatment for all candidates regardless of gender, place of residence, or place of birth. The results challenge the capacity of these examinations to treat candidates equally, identifying inequalities in the written tests as well as evaluation biases in the oral tests. However, oral evaluation biases tend to offset inequalities in the written tests. Therefore, selection boards take a sort of affirmative action toward the sole successful members of groups suffering such inequalities.     

Use of drugs of abuse in less than 30-year-old drivers killed in a road crash in France: a spectacular increase for cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines

A collaborative study was conducted in France in order to determine the prevalence of cannabinoids, opiates, cocaine metabolites and amphetamines in blood samples from drivers killed in road accidents in 2003 and 2004 and to compare these values with those of a previous study performed during the period 2000-2001 involving 900 drivers. Blood samples were provided from 2003 under 30-year-old drivers, killed in a traffic accident. Drugs of abuse were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry using the same analytical procedures in all the 12 laboratories. The most frequently observed compounds were by far cannabinoids, that tested positive in 39.6% of the total number of samples. Delta9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the most active of the principle constituents in marijuana (cannabis sativa), was detected in the blood of 28.9% drivers and was the single drug of abuse in 80.2% of the positive cases. It was associated with amphetamines in 7.4% and with opiates and cocaine in 1.9 and 4.8%, respectively. Amphetamines were present in 3.1% of the total number of samples, cocaine metabolites in 3.0% and opiates in 3.5%. When comparing these results with those of a previous study performed 3 years before, a significant increase is observed for THC (28.9% versus 16.9%), cocaine metabolites (3.0% versus 0.2%) and amphetamines (3.1% versus 1.4%). This study demonstrates the critical necessity of implementing in France as soon as possible systematical roadside testing for drugs of abuse.     

Environmental cooperation: ratifying second-best agreements

As an alternative to the environmental cartel approach, we assume that an international environmental agreement aims simply at providing a collective response to a perceived threat. Given this less demanding concept of cooperation and considering that most treaties become enforceable only after ratification by a sufficient number of participants, we examine the set of self-enforceable agreements. This set contains first-best but also second-best agreements that do not maximize the collective welfare of members but meet environmental and/or participative requirements. We study the properties of this set and discuss admissible values of targets and thresholds that favour economics over environmental objectives and vice versa.     

Undiagnosed, untreated acute promyelocytic leukemia presenting as a suspicious sudden death

Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia frequently associated with clotting abnormalities and severe hemorrhagic diathesis. The disease is associated with a high incidence of early fatal hemorrhage. We report the sudden death of a 40-year-old male without significant medical history in which foul play had been initially suspected. A thorough postmortem investigation performed on the decedent lead to the diagnosis of APL. Cause of death was a cerebellar hematoma. Underlying APL should be considered in the differential diagnosis when unexplained bleeding is encountered in a decedent. This case emphasizes the value of routinely collecting bone marrow during an autopsy to enable accurate testing and diagnosis.