The Roman Curia is the body of institutions that assist the pope in his ministry as supreme pastor of the Catholic Church. The much-awaited reform of the curia, by means of the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, gave rise to strong hopes of decentralization and efficiency at the Vatican and the church. However, a close reading of this new norm does not immediately lead to concluding that any more ecclesiastical competences of the Holy See have been transferred to particular churches. Instead, the reform may be characterized as a decentralization of procedures, rather than competences, and a passionate call for the spiritual conversion and professionalism of Vatican officials. The reform is also in line with the type of synodal church that Pope Francis announced from the beginning of his pontificate, in which decisions are made after listening to everyone who is affected by that decision and by everyone who has something to contribute to the discussion. In this article, the author offers, for readers who are not experts in the law or doctrine of the Catholic Church, a discussion of the main changes brought by the reform, their significance, and possible consequences, as well as some recent changes introduced after the election of Pope Leo.

Despite the exponential rise in the number of couples cohabiting, across Europe, cohabitants are unable to access comprehensive legal protections. To strengthen calls for reform, this paper advocates for the adoption of a human rights framing and traces its potential development. It begins with an analysis of the current discourse and offers an explanation as to why there is limited engagement with human rights argumentation. The focus will then shift to the need for a human rights framing. Through an analysis of the merits of such, it will be demonstrated that the common criticisms of a human rights framing are not applicable in the cohabitation context. Moreover, it will be argued that, owing to a previous judicial recognition of human rights infringements, the debate is primed for the adoption of a novel framing. This paper will conclude by considering how a human rights framing could be applied in practice.

It is widely held that theories of well-being must satisfy the criterion of descriptive adequacy. According to the criterion, an adequate theory of well-being must optimally fit our everyday experiences and judgments relating to well-being. This article argues that there is no such criterion that constrains theories of well-being. First, it examines in detail the reasons for which the criterion was originally introduced. Second, it argues against the criterion, on the grounds that well-being is essentially normative and normative theories more generally are not subject to any such constraint. Third, it considers two objections relating to reflective equilibrium and thick normative concepts. Finally, it explores the implications of rejecting the criterion for evaluating theories of well-being and for integrating the philosophy and science of well-being. A positive lesson of the article is that taking the normativity of well-being seriously from a meta-ethical perspective has implications for first-order theorizing about well-being.

Since the first attempts to organize as a collective in the mid-1980s, with the surge of the new management models in a democratic and decentralized Spain, both archaeology and labor have changed considerably. Although many old battles to recognize the profession are still alive, other initiatives have strengthened the archaeological ecosystem in the country. On the horizon, addressing the structural challenges of work precarity in archaeology. Temporary contracts, low salaries, lack of legal, and administrative recognition, and deficiencies in basic rights (for example, in health and safety) are some of the problems we have been facing for decades, and now we are closer to counteracting them. This paper will review (1) the recent history of Spanish archaeology and the formation of the current archaeological ecosystem; (2) collective action to improve working conditions in Spanish archaeology over the last decades; (3) the latest actions from the Spanish Platform of Professional Archaeologists (PEPA) to overcome hindrance; and (4) the dream of a common front in Europe (and beyond) to achieve the profession we want to have. Although sometimes this struggle is frustrating, a retrospective view of the events and the achievements gained over the years brings hope for the future and some significant steps forward.

This article argues for the importance of motherhood as a category of historical analysis. This review will explore trends in the historiography of motherhood in modern Britain, first examining maternalist literature, then the turn towards maternity policy, examinations of motherhood and activism, and finally the recent turn towards experiential histories of motherhood. It suggests that these approaches have grown more expansive, but often remain disconnected. The article argues that motherhood is not a fixed identity; it has been defined, challenged, and performed in response to specific historical moments. In drawing these together, the article offers new ways to understand the histories of motherhood and mothering, and opens up potential avenues for future exploration.

Groups often agree that change is needed, but differing preferences and information may still lead to difficulty coordinating on a particular alternative. In a laboratory experiment, we study coordination and information aggregation in a divided-majority voting game with public information and conflicting preferences. Voters observe private signals and a public signal about whether alternative $A$ or $B$ is socially optimal. Unless sufficiently many voters agree, an inferior default $C$ occurs. When the public signal is more accurate than the private signal and voters have common preferences, most voters coordinate on the public signal. However, when public-signal accuracy is reduced or preferences conflict, voters follow the public signal less frequently. While reduced public-signal accuracy substantially increases the frequency of coordination failure, conflicting preferences between subgroups do not. These results highlight the importance of accurate public information in achieving collective action.

We prove that Grothendieck-Witt spaces of Poincaré categories are, in many cases, group completions of certain moduli spaces of hermitian forms. This, in particular, identifies Karoubi’s classical hermitian and quadratic $\mathrm K$-groups with the genuine Grothendieck-Witt groups from our joint work with Calmès, Dotto, Harpaz, Land, Moi, Nardin and Nikolaus, and thereby completes our solution of several conjectures in hermitian K-theory.

The method of proof is abstracted from work of Galatius and Randal-Williams on cobordism categories of manifolds using the identification of the Grothendieck-Witt space of a Poincaré category as the homotopy type of the associated cobordism category. In memory of Bruce Williams.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brazil Supreme Court (STF) decided numerous legal claims seeking to compel the federal government to create and implement policies to protect public health during the crisis. The STF, in strong terms, condemned the federal government’s inaction and lack of commitment to protecting rights. However, the STF opted for a combination of “weaker” orders and juxtaposed a rights-based and federalism-based review of constitutionality to sideline the federal government and allocate decision-making to subnational governments. Building on both the literature on social rights and on judicial behavior, this Article argues that the STF strategically utilized these solutions to advance its preferred policies and affirm its commitment to rights while avoiding the costs associated with making policy and controlling policymakers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Pandemic Agreement in May 2025. The contentious Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system was incorporated as an Annex, to be negotiated at a later date. Access and benefit-sharing (ABS) was introduced into international environmental law to make access to genetic resources conditional on, or ‘linked’ to, the sharing of benefits associated with using those resources. The negotiation for a multilateral PABS system represents a continuation of more than 30 years of ABS discussions, negotiations, diplomacy, and scholarly literature in international environmental law. This article takes a closer look at the term ‘delinking’, which was frequently used in the three years of negotiations for the Pandemic Agreement. We find that the terms ‘delinking’ and ‘decoupling’ have been used interchangeably to refer to at least three different scenarios in the operationalization of multilateral ABS models: where the country of origin of the materials is not necessarily the recipient of benefits; where the type and quantity of benefits are not linked to the use of a specific sample of genetic resources, or in situations that combine these two models. We propose an ‘ABS Modalities Spectrum’ as a useful tool for assessing ‘delinking’ proposals. Our analysis serves as a reminder to WHO member states about to embark on negotiations for the PABS Annex that multilateral ABS systems exist on a spectrum, and do not have to default to the contract-based multilateral models that have been favoured to date.

Oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are essential adjuncts in managing malnutrition in hospitalised older people. This study aimed to explore the adherence and palatability of a new porridge supplement (PS) compared to a standard drink-based supplement (DS) in hospitalised older adults. A single-centre multi-method randomised controlled crossover study was conducted on adults aged ≥65 years at risk of malnutrition (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool score 1–4). Each participant was prescribed PS (16 g protein; 249 kcal) and DS (18 g protein; 306 kcal) twice per day for 4 days in crossover sequence. ONS leftovers were weighed, and adherence calculated (% consumed). Palatability ratings were assessed with a 7-point Likert scale, and interviews were conducted with 9 older adults and 5 staff to explore product acceptability. Twenty-seven older people (mean age 80 years, 17 female) participated. Median daily PS intake (26.31% [IQR 10.23–48.02]) was significantly lower compared to DS (66.8% [IQR 26.29–75.37]), and texture of PS was significantly disliked compared to DS. There were no significant differences in the absolute volume consumed between products, and supplements did not replace normal dietary intake. Changes in physical ability and appetite, the hospital culture (e.g., staff attitudes), and palatability (e.g., thickness and taste) of products influenced ONS acceptability. To improve patient-centred nutritional care, participants requested a wider in-hospital range of food-based supplementation with natural ingredients and enhanced training for staff in nutritional care.

This essay examines media bias, U.S. foreign policy, and the selective application of international law in the context of the Gaza Genocide. The author argues that Western governments and mainstream media outlets have consistently misrepresented Israel’s actions, framing them as defensive while erasing a history of Palestinian suffering and rights. Headlines, reporting practices, and editorial decisions shape public perception, creating a persistent disconnect between what occurs on the ground and what is widely understood in the West. Drawing on media analysis, the author highlights how firsthand reporting, social media, and grassroots activism have challenged entrenched narratives. Ultimately, the Gaza Genocide exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called rules-based international order and the notion of a free press, and underscores the need for an accountable media in confronting atrocities.

This study examines whether centralisation of environmental regulatory authority improves air quality by addressing governance failures in decentralised systems. Exploiting the staggered provincial implementation of China’s environmental regulatory centralisation reform as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a difference-in-differences framework with granular grassroots-level data to identify causal effects. Results demonstrate that centralisation substantially reduces particulatematter concentrations through three mechanisms: reducing elite capture by insulating decisions from local networks and corruption, correcting incentive-driven data manipulation as evidenced by convergence between satellite and official measurements, and internalising cross-jurisdictional externalities by aligning regulatory scope with pollution diffusion. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that pollution reductions are concentrated in regions with greater pollution severity and deeper corruption, whereas differences in economic development and industrial structure play a comparatively modest role. These findings advance institutional economics by providing causal evidence that governance structure reforms addressing elite capture and principal-agent problems can generate marked environmental improvements, with implications for regulatory design in developing economies facing weak local institutional capacity.

This article discusses the legal and jurisdictional challenges to safeguarding Indigenous cultural property, understood as bioculture, and the extent to which colonialism influences the law, arguing that the current, arguing that the current legal system is inherently a colonial technology formed during the 1491 encounters era in the Americas and metastasized into contemporary society. The starting proposition is that a lack of safeguards is not the challenge, given the of institutionalization of the Rights of Nature framework, adopted and adapted by the Ecuadorian Constitution since 2008 (reaffirmed November 2025). The challenge is its implementation. The article attributes this operationalizing problem to the clash that arises when a Rights of Nature framework is adapted within a Western legal paradigm that upholds Western notions of “property” on Indigenous economy functionality of biocultural assets. We examine the Ecuador v. Tagaeri and Taromenane case, decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2025, to illustrate this tension. Because, in its material and abstract expressions, the understanding production of property echoes the colonial legacy of Indigenous dispossession, the article suggests that a critical view of “property” is necessary to complement the Rights of Nature framework to address implementation issues.