To compare and classify objects on the basis of quantitative indicators is nothing new. Bereft of any direct subjectivity, the quantified method of assessing quality may be a useful tool to avoid or reduce any bias or other forms of human frailties in the assessment. However, the effort to assess the quality of academic output with quantifiable metrics is perhaps a relatively new but increasingly common phenomenon. This article argues that while some higher education rankings can serve laudable purposes, such as sending signals to aspiring students and other stakeholders and giving institutions an opportunity for introspecting on their affairs, the ranking of research outputs on quantifiable metrics alone is an inherently hazardous task. Rankings may be used as an indicium of quality; however, they cannot and should not be the sole proxy for assessing the quality of scholarly outputs. Another main argument of the article is that the university-wide “one size fits all” metric should exhibit more deference to discipline-specific norms, such as law.

The failed 2020 revolution in Belarus and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 served as catalysts for the creation of the Insulted. Belarus Worldwide Readings Project based on a play by Andrei Kureichik. The project provided the material for hundreds of performances in over 30 countries, while dozens of texts by members of Kyiv’s Theatre of Playwrights formed the core of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings, a similar project that generated over 660 performances, refuting Russian president Vladimir Putin’s claim that Ukrainian culture does not exist.

In response to “Origin of ‘Conscientious Objection’ in Health Care: How Care Denials Became Enshrined into Law Because of Abortion,” in which Christian Fiala, Joyce Arthur, and Amelia Martzke trace the origins of “conscientious objection” (CO) policy, this commentary looks at the implications of their arguments for large religious health systems where CO disingenuously constrains care. Within such health institutions, the constraints on standard obstetric care reflect the conscience of bishops who write religious policy, not the beliefs of providers who must implement them, or the patients subject to them.

This year’s BIALL Annual Conference is in Birmingham, and with a packed schedule of fascinating presentations, insights into cutting edge products, fun social events and a very underrated city to explore, it certainly looks like being a good one. Here the LIM co-editors guide you through all the things to look out for in Brum come June the 11th.

The field of global health law has evolved over the past decade to describe new legal and policy instruments that apply to a changing set of public health threats, non-state actors, and regulatory norms that structure the global response to public health challenges. This special issue—bringing together the O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law and the Global Health Law Consortium—examines the expansive evolution of the field of global health law and its continuing development to face new health threats.

Language skills could provide valuable professional and social opportunities for early modern migrants, but little is known of the actual linguistic strategies they employed. This article analyzes how sixteenth-century migrants from the southern Low Countries acted as linguistic brokers, leveraging their knowledge of French language and literature in their German host societies. Even though French was not their native language, members of the Netherlandish migrant community were responsible for the first French-German grammars and dictionaries, and played a pivotal role in introducing French Renaissance poetry to Germany.

In 2023 the Supreme Court of Mauritius cited human rights and public health arguments to strike down a colonial-era law criminalizing consensual same-sex sex. The parliament of Singapore recently did the same through legislative means. Are these aberrations or a shifting global consensus? This article documents a remarkable shift international legal shift regarding LGBTQ+ sexuality. Analysis of laws from 194 countries across multiple years demonstrates a clear, ongoing trend toward decriminalization globally. Where most countries criminalized same-sex sexuality in the 1980s, now two-thirds of countries do not criminalize under law. Additionally, 28 criminalizing countries in 2024 demonstrate a de facto policy of non-enforcement, a milestone towards legal change that all of the countries that have fully decriminalized since 2017 have taken. This has important public health effects, with health law lessons for an era of multiple pandemics. But amidst this trend, the reverse is occurring in some countries, with a counter-trend toward deeper, harsher criminalization of LGBTQ+ sexuality. Case studies of Angola, Singapore, India, Botswana, Mauritius, Cook Islands, Gabon, and Antigua and Barbuda show many politically- and legally-viable pathways to decriminalization and highlight actors in the executive, legislative, and judicial arenas of government and civil society engaged in legal change.

It has been ten years since the publication of Professor Larry Gostin’s pathbreaking contribution to law, medicine, and public health, Global Health Law (Harvard University Press, 2014). As Professor Sofia Gruskin’s review in The Lancet noted, the book “brings attention to critical aspects of law that anyone interested in global health needs to be concerned about…” This sentiment was echoed throughout the academy, civil society, among non-governmental organizations, legislative bodies, and even courts.

Professor Gostin’s legacy fits among those who harnessed their wisdom, expertise, and voices for the betterment of others and who recognized that chief among the worst harms for any people to endure is the denial of healthcare. This year, one decade after the publication of this of Global Health Law and numerous articles, commentaries, and books, it is clear that Professor Lawrence O. Gostin refuses to be silent on matters that concern the health of the most vulnerable in our world. Our planet is better for his very presence and commitment to what is just, kind, and compassionate.

Although scholars agree that Fichte’s earliest political writings are Kantian, they contain a theory of individual emancipation through a culture of perfection that is foreign to Kant’s Doctrine of Right. I argue that Fichte based his theory on Kant’s moral duty and therefore derived the conclusion that individual morality should be the constitution’s aim. As a result, principles of right are not limited to securing relations of external freedom among equals but concerned with creating a society of autonomous individuals. Reaching that end goes through emancipation both from the oppression of sensibility over rationality and from the false consciousness that upholds voluntary servitude to unjust regimes. As an alternative Kantian path, Fichte provides philosophical grounding for movements seeking political emancipation through cultural awakening.