Suchergebnisse

Editorial note: Gareth Davies, Professor of EU law, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam

Climate change is often seen as an issue of intergenerational equity - consumption now creates costs for future generations. However, radical mitigation now would reverse the problem, creating immediate costs for current generations, while the benefits would be primarily for future ones. This is a policy problem, as persuading those living now to bear the cost of changes whose benefits will mostly accrue after their deaths is politically difficult. The policy challenge is then how to temporally match costs to benefits, either by deferring mitigation costs, or by speeding up climatic benefits. Geoengineering may provide some help here, as it might enable climate change to be slowed more immediately, at a lower upfront cost, and allow a greater share of the mitigation and adaptation burden to be passed on to those in the future who will benefit most.

When Member States restrict free movement on public health grounds they must show that their measures have a sound scientific basis. However, during the pandemic Member States have imposed a wide variety of restrictions, at the border, and internally. While Member State governments have invariably had local scientific advice, the variety of their measures suggests that their actions have also been driven, to some extent, by public opinion, contrary to what EU law generally allows. This situation could be seen as a defeat for EU law as traditionally conceived, and the triumph of local preferences over scientific standards. Perhaps we learn that in a crisis, local desires for symbolic security and closure trump both law and science. Alternatively, it can be argued that the Court of Justice's emphasis on exclusively objective justifications for measures is unrealistic and over-strict. The pandemic responses show that (i) science is often neither clear nor determinative, and (ii) policy is invariably a mix of science and values, even in apparently technical fields. In either case, the absence of legal challenges to Member State actions leaves free movement in an uncertain state. Have we entered a new phase, where national fears are a more legitimate justification for restricting movement, or will the pandemic be treated as so exceptional as to be beyond law, and thus not a precedent?

Free movement is intended to bring Europeans together. This article suggests it may have the opposite effect: it may drive them apart. The mechanism involved is sorting. This happens when people are free to choose where to live, and choose a community which matches their preferences. This match can come about in different ways, but the result of them all is that people of particular preferences are clustered together, leading to society being structured as a series of adjacent mono-cultures. It is not a large step to suggest that this arrangement is likely to cause alienation between the communities. The fact of sorting means that they have less in common than they did before. For Europe, if sorting happens, this would imply that polarization between states would increase and the governability of the EU would be threatened. Free movement may be less a mechanism of integration than one of disintegration.

It is often assumed that Court of Justice interpretations of EU law are definitive and binding. However, this conflicts with conventional ideas about the trias politica, as well as with the principle of conferral, and rests on no more than the Court's own assertion. It also has harmful policy consequences, forcing national courts into constitutional resistance and, in claiming to fix the meaning of the Treaties, smothering Union politics. Interpretative pluralism, by contrast, insists on the possibility of diverging interpretations. That allows for wider participation in the construction of EU law, while retaining the integrity of Union law through commitment to shared texts and a balance of power between institutions. Institutional disagreements are reframed, not as conflicts between legal orders, but as conflicts about the meaning of a shared one. This approach is more profoundly integrative than the Court's top‐down approach, and also allows for greater diversity and experiment.

The cases decided by the Court of Justice concerning free movement of goods and services are often seen in terms of a difficult balance between trade and consumer protection. This paper suggests that their major consequences are not for the consumer at all, but for quality of life in European societies. Legislation which restricts what can be sold, and who can sell it, has consequences for equality, autonomy, social cohesion, and identity which are greater in importance than any consumer-protective effect. That the Court's focus is so unbalanced – it ignores these social concerns - is to do with several factors. Firstly, the Court has a transactional fixation, seeing contracts as essentially private matters which are of no concern to wider society. This view point is common in economic law, but unrealistic, and embodies some very controversial implicit political standpoints. Secondly, when the Court approaches the judicial review of national measures which restrict free movement it does not in fact engage in balancing at all, but seeks to reconcile interests, and to push integration forward. The ability of a national community to determine its own quality of life and express its values is something which evades easy reconciliation with a single market. On the contrary, integration brings unavoidable costs in autonomy and social concerns, and denial of this fact is harmful to both Europe and the EU. This argument proceeds by an examination of the case law concerning free movement, and the process of judicial review found within that law.

Nottingham, as one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, a key strategic pre-Conquest borough, and the most important royal governmental hub in central England by the time of the Angevin kings, from Henry II to John (1154–1216), is a city with a fascinating story to tell. However, the study of its origins and early development has been somewhat neglected. A major contributory factor is that key archaeological excavations undertaken in the city between 1969 and 1980 remain unpublished, while since 1980, the outcomes of development-led excavation have not provided sufficient opportunities to investigate key areas on an equal scale. In the last few years, preliminary evaluation of material from the unpublished excavations under the aegis of the Origins of Nottingham project and an increase in archaeological investigation has again started to highlight the wealth of potential insight to be gained from the archaeological deposits preserved beneath Nottingham's streets. Exploring and interpreting these remains are crucial if we are tostart to understand Nottingham's growth and significance as a major urban settlement in medieval central England between the seventh and thirteenth centuries.

The three year EU-funded MAZI research project (www.mazizone.eu) brought together universities, civil society organizations, and neighbourhood groups to design, develop and trial a digital toolkit for supporting local sustainability in four European countries. Funder constraints, partner ambitions and community needs had to be balanced to both adhere to academic research protocols while making a difference in the neighbourhoods where research and action took place. These sometimes conflicting ambitions caused partners to continuously question whose agendas were best being served by the project activities. They had to confront asymmetries of power, capacity, and credibility both within the consortium and within the community settings. Local circumstances changed; partners had to negotiate new, unfamiliar, and changing roles; and guises had to be adopted to progress sometimes conflicting ambitions. In this paper, we report on the challenges encountered in two of the pilot locations, Berlin and London. These two pilots were similar as they consisted at the outset of a university partner previously unconnected to the locality, working with a civil society partner that was deeply embedded in the setting though long-term engagement. In both cases, the pairings sought to work closely together both on the ground and in research tasks. Finding acceptable compromises stimulatedconsiderable self-reflection and required ongoing negotiation. We offer insights on the potentials and pitfalls of civil society activistsand academic researchers collaborating within a research framework from the perspectives of both, with the goal of building a bridge of understanding between these two viewpoints

Grant support: This work was supported by EPSRC [grant numbers EP/E036775/1, EP/K020293/1] and received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [grant agreement No 668119, project "IDentIFY"] ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Please read abstract in the article. ; The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, the Van Ewijck Foundation, the National Research Foundation (NRF South Africa) and the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Synergy grant. ; http://link.springer.com/journal/12520 ; pm2021 ; Anatomy

The University of South Wales was commissioned by the Welsh Government to undertake focus groups to explore parents' views about parenting practices and approaches to child discipline. The purpose of the focus group research was to inform the development of questions for use in future quantitative work around this issue. The findings from this research and the quantitative work that follows will be used to inform the development of Welsh Government policy in relation to the Programme for Government commitment to work to make physical punishment of children and young people unacceptable through the promotion of alternative, positive approaches to parenting. Fourteen focus groups were conducted in eight local authority areas around Wales with mothers and fathers of children and young people aged between birth and 18 years. Each focus group was semi-structured in nature. Hypothetical scenarios and possible approaches to discipline were presented to all of the focus groups and participants were asked to think about their attitude to each of the approaches, in each of the scenarios. The focus groups transcripts were analysed for emerging themes, which alongside evidence from quotes supporting these themes, were used to address the specific research questions raised in the research brief. The main findings were: Parents perceive certain sources to have expertise in managing children's behaviours; these include other parents, some care/health education professionals and some TV professionals. They had not considered government sources, such as leaflets, websites and press releases or web-sites in general, as 'expert' sources. The findings of this report indicate that it would be useful to explore the knowledge and opinions of a much wider sample using a questionnaire developed from the findings from the focus groups. Such a study would enable a representative sample of the Welsh population to express their views on appropriate parenting via a medium which would enable them to retain anonymity. Such research could explore the important issues identified within this report, which should be considered in developing future policies in this area.

This review examines the issue of equality of care amongst those with cleft lip and/or palate in the European Union (EU) and beyond. Issues of equality both between and within national populations are considered, and it is argued that those from countries with smaller healthcare expenditure and who are from marginalised groups are at the greatest risk of, and affected most severely by, healthcare inequalities. The socioeconomic impact of inequality is also discussed. Having reviewed these topics, the goals and activities of the European Cleft and Craniofacial Initiative for Equality in Care Action, formed pursuant to an award from the EU's European Cooperation in Science and Technology, are introduced. Constituted of an open network of clinicians and researchers committed to exploring and reducing such inequalities, the ongoing Action is formed of multiple working groups examining these issues within the EU and has organised training schools, conferences and short-term scientific missions concerned with these issues. These activities are discussed along with the future directions of the Action, the impact it has had to date and the benefits of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology award.

This review examines the issue of equality of care amongst those with cleft lip and/or palate in the European Union (EU) and beyond. Issues of equality both between and within national populations are considered, and it is argued that those from countries with smaller healthcare expenditure and who are from marginalised groups are at the greatest risk of, and affected most severely by, healthcare inequalities. The socioeconomic impact of inequality is also discussed. Having reviewed these topics, the goals and activities of the European Cleft and Craniofacial Initiative for Equality in Care Action, formed pursuant to an award from the EU's European Cooperation in Science and Technology, are introduced. Constituted of an open network of clinicians and researchers committed to exploring and reducing such inequalities, the ongoing Action is formed of multiple working groups examining these issues within the EU and has organised training schools, conferences and short-term scientific missions concerned with these issues. These activities are discussed along with the future directions of the Action, the impact it has had to date and the benefits of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology award. ; peer-reviewed

The authors would like to thank the clinical teams of the Royal Aberdeen Infirmary for their support, in particular Dr German Guzman-Guttierez, Mr Paddy Ashcroft, Dr Tanja Gagliardi, Prof Steven Heys, Prof Alison Murray and Prof Graeme Murray. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 668119 (project "IDentIFY"). ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Information about the socioeconomic drivers of Silurus glanis anglers in the UK were collected using questionnaires from a cross section of mixed cyprinid fisheries to elucidate human dimensions in angling and non-native fisheries management. Respondents were predominantly male (95%), 30-40 years of age with £500 per annum. The proportion of time spent angling for S. glanis was significantly related to angler motivations; fish size, challenge in catch, tranquil natural surroundings, escape from daily stress and to be alone were considered important drivers of increased time spent angling. Overall, poor awareness of: the risks and adverse ecological impacts associated with introduced S. glanis, non-native fisheries legislation, problems in use of unlimited ground bait and high fish stocking rates in angling lakes were evident, possibly related to inadequate training and information provided by angling organisations to anglers, as many stated that they were insufficiently informed.