In January 2019, Nigeria enacted the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, which provides for a joint legal framework for both competition and consumer protection. This article examines the theoretical and practical rationale for integrating competition and consumer protection, recognizing that, while related, the two may pursue distinct goals and operate under different principles. It provides a lens to review the issues an African country faces following integration, especially in the broader normative discussion of the goals of competition law. Although there is literature investigating the integration of consumer protection and competition, there is still nothing that examines the place of consumer protection in the wider theoretical context of competition for developing countries, particularly how they balance efficiency with other goals of competition. The article also offers the first academic review of the five-year practice of competition law and its application in Nigeria.

Credibility and intent are important but imprecise legal categories that need to be assessed in criminal trials as neither common nor civil legal systems provide decision-makers with clear rules on how to evaluate them in practice. In this article, drawing on ethnographic data from trials and deliberations in Italian courts and prosecution offices, we discuss the emotive-cognitive dynamics at play in judges’ and prosecutors’ evaluations of credibility and intent, focusing on cases of murder, intimate partner violence and rape. Using sociological concepts of epistemic emotions, empathy, frame and legal encoding, we show that legal professionals use different reflexive practices to either avoid settling on feelings of certainty or overcome doubts when evaluating credibility and intent. Empathy emerges as a multifaceted tool that can either generate certainty or be used deliberately to instigate or overcome doubts. We contribute to the growing body of literature addressing the emotional dynamics of legal decision-making.

This article is concerned with the question whether a defendant in an unjust enrichment action can reduce or eliminate its liability by establishing that it could have obtained the enrichment (or part of it) from the claimant in a way that would not have given rise to liability. The answer in principle ought to be no. In arguing for that conclusion, I consider the meaning of “enrichment” and “loss”, the nature of the change of position defence and the basis of liability for unjust enrichment in cases involving ultra vires charges by public authorities and the taking of money without consent by private defendants.

Damage caused to underwater infrastructure has increased in frequency over the past few years. Incidents in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea have shown that anchor-dragging ships can easily cause disruption to internet or electrical networks, along with examples of other methods of deliberate harm, such as the use of explosives. The main legal challenges to the protection of critical offshore infrastructure lie outside the limits of the territorial sea. Relevant treaty law grants stronger legal protections to wrecks, unmanned platforms and floating buoys than to cross-border submarine telecommunications and power cables or gas and oil pipelines. Whilst the legal framework is fragmented and contains significant gaps, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea permits coastal States to enforce their laws for the protection of submarine cables and pipelines outside the territorial sea. Based on the effects doctrine and the protective principle, coastal States can extend their criminal jurisdiction over deliberate damage to submarine cables and pipelines connected to their territory. Furthermore, recent incidents in Europe show that suspected stateless ships can be interdicted by the coastal State.

This essay explores central aspects of the relationship between money and national health policy from the passage of Medicare in 1965 to the present, including the two most sweeping attempts at system reinvention during that period: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), and the failed Health Security Act of the early 1990s. Its point is not that ethical professionalism has prevailed, though it survives on the skill and dedication of nurses, physicians, and other health care workers. Rather, its point is that one should not criticize the morality of change without interrogating the morality of the status quo. In the 1990s, Jerome Kassirer wrote that “a system in which there is no equity is, in fact, already unethical.” The same can be said for a system that overfunds medical care and underfunds other essential social investments, including education. A system that, moreover, cannot be justified by the limited morality of competition in the marketplace because it does not — and could not absent radical change — perform as a functioning market would. In terms of robust market competition with its winners and losers, U.S. health care has been, at worst, a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

In the aftermath of the adoption of the Implementing Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) and in view of the global target to protect at least 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 (30×30), an issue that merits attention is the surveillance of marine protected areas (MPAs) on the high seas. The BBNJ Agreement is remarkably silent on how the relevant management measures in future MPAs will be implemented, despite the fact that enforcement challenges are prevalent in existing MPAs. This article discusses the potential use of maritime domain awareness (MDA) tools, including earth observation tools like satellites, in ensuring effective surveillance and subsequent enforcement of high seas MPAs. The article first introduces the concept of MDA and the use of earth observation tools in that context, highlighting the advantages that such tools may have in ensuring compliance in MPAs. It then explores the legal framework governing the employment of earth observation tools in high seas MPAs. The article argues that States are not merely permitted but also obligated to monitor their vessels’ activities in high seas MPAs. Furthermore, States are under a general obligation of cooperation, including the obligation to share information that is obtained by MDA tools. Finally, the article briefly discusses how evidence, like satellite imagery, could be used for enforcement purposes, including before domestic courts. It concludes that the use of earth observation tools would be instrumental to the effective surveillance and enforcement of high seas MPAs.

This study discusses the changing role of music informants in the printed collections of Greek folk music from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. The earliest collections do not even include the informants’ names, the focus being laid on the information (the ethnographic material) per se. Even in the early-twentieth century, we know little of the sporadically named informants, such as their education or experience. The transfer of information was often carried out with no official permission and financial returns. This study examines the stages of a transformation, from the informant’s anonymity to their moderate appreciation and final rehabilitation.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the antifungal spectrum of activity, synergy, and mode of action of carboxy-terminally amidated antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) derived from tachyplesin-I (T-I) from the horseshoe crab Tachypleus tridentatus and a lysine-rich analogue of magainin-2 (MSI-94) from the clawed frog Xenopus laevis. In vitro antimicrobial tests against 17 fungal strains demonstrated that the modified AMPs exhibited broad antifungal activity, particularly against filamentous fungi and yeasts relevant to aquaculture and agriculture. Additive antimicrobial activity was observed with the combination of T-I and MSI-94 against Candida albicans and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, indicating an enhancement of their antiyeast properties. Furthermore, we found that both peptides target the fungal cell surface, increasing membrane permeability and leading to cell death. Overall, our findings highlight the biotechnological potential of aquatic AMPs in developing novel antifungal therapeutics applicable across various fields.

In its Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled not only that Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territory systematically violated international law, but also that Israel’s ‘continued presence’ (i.e. occupation) as such had become illegal, so that Israel was required to withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories as rapidly as possible. The ICJ’s finding that Israel engaged in a sustained abuse of its position as an occupying power, through annexation of territory and frustration of Palestinian self-determination, was central to its reasoning, as was its holding that the legality of the occupation was to be judged against the jus ad bellum. This article unpacks the concept of an illegal occupation. It argues that, as matter of the jus ad bellum, it is only the right to self-defence that could, in theory, justify Israel’s continued occupation. Curiously, however, the Opinion does not mention self-defence, although it preoccupied many of the judges writing separately. The article argues that two approaches to the occupation’s ad bellum illegality are most persuasive: first, that the occupation could not meet the necessity and proportionality criteria of lawful self-defence; and, second, that even a valid self-defence claim can be vitiated by a predominant ulterior purpose.