In alignment with the vision for the future of the European Union (EU) put forth by the European Green Deal in 2020, and EU efforts to tackle global deforestation and forest degradation, the EU Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) was adopted in June 2023. The EUDR is designed specifically as a unilateral, yet transnational, intervention to limit access to the EU market or the exports from the EU of seven key forest-risk commodities whenever they are linked with deforestation, forest degradation, or illegality. Drawing on decolonial and critical food systems scholarship, this article critically examines the EU’s position in combating global deforestation and forest degradation by positioning the EUDR in historically shaped and unequally constructed agri-food chains. Whereas the EU’s plan to decrease deforestation and forest degradation linked with its substantive consumption of products from the global south is an innovative step from the point of view of transnational governance of environmental degradation, we find that the historical amnesia, the emphasis on global trade, and the push for ‘green value chains’ fail to address the root causes of deforestation. Moreover, we contend that the EU legislator overlooked the potential of using transnational governance to rethink agri-food systems, including by promoting re-regionalization in the name of food sovereignty and the right to food.

In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu announces that he would be the happiest of mortals if he could help men cure themselves of their prejudices. Though he demands that we understand prejudice’s role in his work, scholars have not excavated his whole strategy regarding it. Preliminary investigations have concluded that he sought to destroy prejudices because he had a high estimation of popular reason. This article argues that, while he does seek to eliminate prejudices that support despotism, he also encourages salutary ones for liberty. His whole strategy regarding prejudices shows that his use of them reflects a modest assessment of reason. By demonstrating that two of his well-known strategies for political reform—reinterpreting Christianity and encouraging commerce—concern salutary prejudices, this article reveals the centrality of prejudices to his political project overall.

The RNCP/NIAID recommends the creation of a North American Biodosimetry Assessment Networking Group (BANG) by developing a blueprint for integrating the relevant national capabilities to provide emergency biodosimetry assistance in civilian populations following a radiological or nuclear incident. The goals of BANG are to: 1) establish a collaborative network (public/private partnership) and engage its membership to address emergency preparedness, response, and recovery, 2) promote strategic relationships between network members to encourage resource sharing, 3) engage with stakeholders to utilize recommended tools and support training exercises, and 4) advance bioinformatics and machine learning approaches to integrate and utilize the network data for managing emergency situations.

To be adequately prepared for large-scale radiological or nuclear incidents, a coordinated network among well-trained, commercial, hospital, and/or academic laboratories is a critical factor for providing rapid exposure assessments. Interactive and productive collaborations between North American laboratories will improve the capabilities of the network by offering a wider range of complementary biological and physical techniques. BANG would connect community service providers with various biodosimetry capabilities, and enable members to discuss best practices, common goals, emergency planning/ training, and sharing of resources, to increase the nation’s resiliency before, during, and after a radiological public health emergency.

Most theories of sentence structure acknowledge predicates, yet what one understands a predicate to be can vary significantly from one theory to the next, and from one grammarian to the next. This article surveys how the predicate notion is understood in semantics, syntax, and grammar studies quite generally. It scrutinizes the various predicate concepts, and then argues in favor of one particular understanding of predicates in syntax, one that is especially congruent with a dependency grammar (DG) approach to sentence structures. Predicates are catenae, the catena being a concrete unit of syntactic analysis. The catena-based approach to predicates is motivated in three areas: in terms of the synthetic vs. analytic realizations of meaning, in terms of entailment patterns, and in terms of pronoun resolution. The catena-based approach makes insightful generalizations in these areas possible.

Assessing the size of twins at birth using charts developed for singletons may over diagnose small for gestational age in this sub-population. The study aimed to produce international, twin-specific, newborn size normative charts by gestational age and sex. This longitudinal observational study in eight geographically diverse settings prospectively collected data between May 2009 and August 2013 from healthy pregnant women and their newborn twins. The participants were enrolled as part of the INTERGROWTH-21st study, and recruited based on World Health Organization recommendations for evaluation of anthropometric measures. All the women met, in addition to the underlying population characteristics of low perinatal risk, strict individual criteria for a population at low risk of impaired fetal growth. Newborn weight, length and head circumference measures were collected independently in duplicate by two trained anthropometrists within 12 hours of birth using identical equipment and protocols at all sites. From 1034 multiple pregnancies, after exclusions of condition such as smoking, high maternal BMI, and congenital malformations, the final sample was 864 twin newborns. Most of the twins were below the 50th centile of the INTERGROWTH-21st standards for singletons. We present international newborn size normative charts for twins using the same methodological approach adopted to construct the singleton standards.

In this paper we demonstrate how a concentrated mound of 8622 stone artefacts excavated at Walanjiwurru 1 rockshelter in Marra Country, northern Australia, reflects the emotional and spiritual dimensions of sweeping, and moral obligations to maintain Country. While archaeological studies have previously documented sweeping as part of site formation, and the social significance of stone in Australia is well established, few studies have examined how these practices intersect with Indigenous understandings of maintaining Country. Through analysis of stone artefacts combined with Marra knowledge, we demonstrate how sweeping activities 2500–300 cal. bp created a unique expression of ongoing relationships between people, materials and Country, maintained through the practice of sweeping. The mound’s composition shows distinctive patterns in both size distribution and stone type representation, most notably in the concentration of yellow quartzite—a stone type with particular cultural power due to its ancestral connections. These findings contribute to broader discussions about the integration of Indigenous and archaeological knowledge systems, while demonstrating how stone artefacts and sweeping practices remain active participants in maintaining relationships between Country, people and ancestors.

This analysis estimates the tax incidence for leased cropland and pastureland in Oklahoma. Periodic adjustments to agricultural land taxes may lead to an incidence, a share of the property tax burden, passed on to renters as higher rental rates. This pass-through can discourage rental activity, limit renters’ access to land, and jeopardize broader agricultural development goals. There was a statistically significant increase in the incidence for cropland and pastureland renters. The combined pastureland and cropland incidence over the study period was $7.83 million, representing 22% of the total current agricultural use value assessment for the same period.

The use of amnesties in transitional justice remains a contentious issue. The fight against impunity at the international level has left little room for the application of amnesties for international crimes and human rights abuses. Nevertheless, amnesty measures continue to be applied in many jurisdictions and the permissibility of conditional amnesties enacted as part of wider processes of reconciliation remains under debate. This paper argues that the judicial discussion of amnesties under international law has followed dynamics of path dependence, where initial decisions adopted in very specific contexts have strongly determined the subsequent treatment of amnesties in completely different situations. The influence of early decisions rejecting blanket amnesties in the aftermath of autocratic regimes in Latin America pulled domestic and international courts towards a general rejection of amnesties. However, in more recent years, transitional justice ideas have influenced the trajectory of the discussion on amnesties, opening courts to the permissibility of conditional and negotiated amnesties accompanied by alternative mechanisms of accountability. Mapping the judicial dialogue on amnesties, this paper shows a cautious shift in the approach to conditional amnesties. This is significant because international courts have mostly engaged with the most problematic amnesties, leaving some uncertainty around the way conditional amnesties enacted as part of complex transitional frameworks will be evaluated. Reading a significant number of decisions from different jurisdictions, this essay aims to shed some light on the way domestic courts have addressed the discussion of amnesties when they are part of wider efforts to bring peace, reconciliation, and democracy.

Samuel Lebens argues that we may understand God’s act of creation by analogy with an author’s creation of fictional characters. I argue that, in the relevant sense of ‘fictional characters’, authors do not create such beings; rather, they invite us to imagine that such beings exist. I also argue that Lebens’s view would make authorship morally problematic in implausible ways. Along the way I briefly offer an account of the being of fictional characters and consider the relations between truth-in-fiction and truth.

This article examines the poetry of Raïssa Maritain as a distinctive form of theodicy shaped by prayer, suffering, and the catastrophic violence of the twentieth century. Situating Maritain’s poetic work within the context of debates on suffering, this article places her in dialogue with Johann Baptist Metz’s concept of Leiden an Gott (‘suffering unto God’), as well as with the challenges to theodicy articulated by Elie Wiesel and Emmanuel Levinas. While Wiesel’s refusal of theology after Auschwitz and Levinas’s ethical critique of teleological accounts of suffering underscore the crisis of theodicy, Metz offers a theological response that centres on prayer as anguished address to God rather than rational explanation. I argue that Maritain’s poetry anticipates, embodies and extends this insight by functioning as a form of poetic prayer that confronts evil without aestheticising or prematurely redeeming suffering. Through close engagement with poems written before and during the Second World War, I show how Maritain’s poetic language gives voice to accusation, lament, and solidarity with the suffering other, while nonetheless holding open the possibility of redemption. In doing so, her work offers a humane poetic theodicy that both complements and critically deepens Metz’s political theology.

Generalized trust supports social cooperation and institutional performance. Formal education is often assumed to foster trust, but competing theories make opposite predictions: the social-intelligence view holds that education sharpens belief accuracy about others’ pro-social behavior, while the selection/exposure view expects a systematic optimistic bias. We test these mechanisms using an original survey in which 800 respondents in Spain estimated the return rates of “lost wallets” across four countries, based on results from previous cross-national field experiments. Respondents misjudged others’ honesty (overestimating returns when no money was involved and underestimating them when money was present) and predicted a decline in honesty as the amount of money in the wallet increased, while actual return rates rose across those conditions. Higher education does not correct these errors or produce consistent optimism. The findings thus challenge both explanations and suggest that the education–trust link operates through other, yet-to-be-identified, institutional or normative pathways.