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Embassy bank accounts are among the properties of statesmost widely presentin foreign states. Accordingly, they constitute an ideal target for attachment by creditors. International instruments have largely upheld state immunity from execution regarding bank accounts, however. Likewise, state practice largely – and apparently increasingly – supports state immunity from measures of attachment, by applying a presumption that funds in embassy bank accounts are used for governmental non-commercial purposes. This approach is overly deferential to the state. Instead, it is argued that domestic courts should require that the state, at least partially, discharge the burden of proof regarding the nature (commercial/sovereign) of the funds in the bank account. A failure to discharge this burden should result in a rejection of immunity. Only such an approach adequately balances the interests of states and creditors, and does sufficient justice to the creditor's right of access to a court. In addition, it is argued that such a balance is also brought about by construing literally general waivers of immunity from attachment, as not requiring an additional specific waiver regarding embassy bank accounts.

Abstract Background Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an integral element of how the alcohol industry promotes itself. The existing analyses of CSR in the alcohol industry point to the misleading nature of these CSR practices. Yet, research has been relatively sparse on how the alcohol industry advances CSR in an attempt to facilitate underlying business interests, and in what ways the ongoing display of industry CSR impacts public health. This paper aims to investigate the alcohol industry's recent CSR engagements and explain how CSR forms part of the industry's wider political and corporate strategies. Methods Our study used qualitative methods to collect and analyse data. We searched for materials pertaining to CSR activities from websites of three transnational alcohol corporations, social media platforms, media reports and other sources. Relevant documents were thematically analysed with an iterative approach. Results Our analysis identified three CSR tactics employed by the alcohol companies which are closely tied in with the industry's underlying corporate intents. First, the alcohol manufacturers employ CSR as a means to frame issues, define problems and guide policy debates. In doing this, the alcohol companies are able to deflect and shift the blame from those who manufacture and promote alcoholic products to those who consume them. Second, the alcohol corporations promote CSR initiatives on voluntary regulation in order to delay and offset alcohol control legislation. Third, the alcohol corporations undertake philanthropic sponsorships as a means of indirect brand marketing as well as gaining preferential access to emerging alcohol markets. Conclusions The increasing penetration and involvement of the alcohol industry into CSR highlights the urgent needs for public health counter actions. Implementation of any alcohol control measures should include banning or restricting the publicity efforts of the industry's CSR and informing the public of the alcohol industry's notion of social responsibility. More significantly, an internationally binding instrument should be called for to enable countries to differentiate between genuine concerns and spurious altruism, and in doing so, resist the industry's attempt to erode alcohol control.

This article argues that the incentives to spend time and resources engaging with non-academic groups are largely absent for early career researchers, who are usually focused on acquiring the essential elements of a good academic CV, namely publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals, gaining teaching experience and presenting papers at disciplinary conferences. As a result, early career researchers have little reason to undertake training in how to engage with non-academic groups, and institutions have no reason to make such training integral to a researcher's professional development. However, a survey of early career researchers in the UK conducted for this article shows that there is a definite appetite among researchers to undertake public engagement activities. But if public engagement is to become a routine part of a researcher's activities then the weight that potential employers afford to these endeavours needs to increase substantially.

The concept of 'middlepowermanship,' or middle power diplomacy, was first used by John W. Holmes and Paul Painchaud in separate papers presented at a 1965 conference on global development. While middlepowermanship has been analyzed by scholars interested in the foreign policies of middle powers, the concept has unfortunately not received the attention or respect from the broader academic community that it deserves due to the predominance of the realist paradigm for analyzing international relations. Realists tend to focus their attention on the great military powers of our world. Other states are often dismissed as 'lesser' followers of great power leadership. Adapted from the source document.

The conditions that led to low expectations for the Rio+20 conference tell us more about the prospects for addressing collective global problems than a focus only on its substantive outcomes. Three conjectures on why expectations were so low are put forward: a lack of vision and modest ambition at the conference's core; unresolved and unconfronted normative contestation that limited progress on potentially transformative ideas such as the green economy; and practices of multilateralism that have not caught up to structural changes in the global system, exacerbated by the inability or unwillingness of key actors to move from entrenched identities. Some surprising institutional outcomes of Rio are also assessed in light of the three conjectures. This form of analysis turns attention to the politics that the outcomes reflect and opportunities and pitfalls going forward.