The idea of ‘human dignity’ is, notoriously, as ambiguous as it is compelling. Notwithstanding the absence of any clear or settled definition of human dignity, either in the abstract or in terms of what it means in practice, it is an idea which takes pride of place in international legal documents, in judicial reasoning, and in scholarship across a range of disciplines, where it seems, particularly in recent years, to have become the focus for an explosion of academic interest and an accompanying proliferation of literature. Much of the existing literature attempts to uncover the meaning, or multiple meanings, of ‘human dignity’, focusing on the uncertainty surrounding the substance or content of the idea and trying to compose a catalogue of use-types. In this paper, my primary aim will be to address another type of uncertainty, namely uncertainty about the role, function or status within legal frameworks of the ‘dignity norm’ – the norm requiring respect for human dignity. I want to explore several possibilities: first, that the dignity norm is simply a proxy for respect for autonomy; second, that it is a right in the sense that we can speak of a specific ‘right to have dignity respected’; and third, that it is a legal principle. Having problematised each of these in turn, I will contend that the function of the dignity norm is best captured by describing it as the ‘substantive basic norm’ of the legal systems wherein it appears.

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the viability and potential of conceptual analysis as a methodological tool. It is argued that conceptual analysis represents a flexible and open method for connecting public law with analyses that are different, and even incommensurable with its own epistemology. The particular area that this paper seeks to connect public law with is that of feminist critiques. It is a journey that does not occur without some difficulty. Conceptual analysis is unknown within public law and therefore the notion requires defining and explaining. Public law has also been particularly resistant to the inclusion of feminist critiques and therefore the task of identifying suitable concepts is not straightforward. The outcome is, however, not only the identification of a new methodological tool for public lawyers but the capacity to broaden the range of material that can be incorporated within their analyses.

This paper examines the regulation of ‘personhood’ through the granting or denying of legal capacity. It explores the development of the concept of personhood through the lens of moral and political philosophy. It highlights the problem of upholding cognition as a prerequisite for personhood or the granting of legal capacity because it results in the exclusion of people with cognitive disabilities (intellectual, psycho-social, mental disabilities, and others). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) challenges this notion by guaranteeing respect for the right to legal capacity for people with disabilities on an equal basis with others and in all areas of life (Article 12). The paper uses the CRPD to argue for a conception of personhood that is divorced from cognition and a corresponding recognition of legal capacity as a universal attribute that all persons possess. Finally, a support model for the exercise of legal capacity is proposed as a possible alternative to the existing models of substituted decision-making that deny legal capacity and impose outside decision-makers.

Asylum applicants in the UK must show, to a ‘reasonable degree of likelihood’, a well-founded fear of persecution, on the basis of race, religion, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, in the event of return ‘home’. This requirement presents myriad challenges both to claimants and decision-makers. Based on findings from a three-year national study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, this paper explores those challenges as they relate to women seeking asylum in the UK whose applications include an allegation of rape. The study explored the extent to which difficulties relating to disclosure and credibility, which are well documented in the context of women's sexual assault allegations in the criminal justice system, might be replicated and compounded for female asylum-seekers whose applications include a claim of rape. Findings suggest that the structural and practical obstacles faced in establishing credibility, and the existence of scepticism about rape claims and asylum-seeking more generally, mean that decision-making can often be experienced as arbitrary, unjust, uninformed or contradictory, making it difficult for women asylum applicants who allege rape to find refuge in the UK.

This paper pushes against the successful rhetoric of formal equality by which same-sex couples are the same as different-sex couples and opening existing regimes of marriage to them best recognises their equal moral worth. Drawing on social science research that indicates differences in the economic organisation of same-sex couples, the paper explores the possibility that a different marriage regime for the spouses' reciprocal duties might combine recognition of their equal moral worth with sensitivity to their needs. The study sharpens the understanding of contemporary investments in marriage law for everyone and offers a better justification for formal equality: same-sex couples may be treated identically to different-sex couples not because they are the same, but despite their differences.

Whatever else one might say concerning the legality, morality, and prudence of his actions, Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, is right about the notion of publicity and informed consent, which together constitute the hallmark of democratic public policy. In order to be morally justifiable, any strategy or policy involving the body politic must be one to which it would voluntarily assent when fully informed about it. This, in essence, was Snowden's argument for leaking, in June 2013, the documents that revealed the massive NSA surveillance program:

Public access to environmental information is a recurring theme in many international environmental law regimes. Nigeria has ratified and committed itself to many such regimes over the years. And yet, until recently, it had a culture of secrecy in (environmental) governance that was sustained by legislation, with the attendant harm to the environment and public well-being. This changed in 2011, with the enactment of the Nigerian Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. This article uniquely assesses the value of the Nigerian FOI Act in relation to what may largely be considered international best practice principles on public access to environmental information as generally reflected in the UNECE’s Aarhus Convention. Even though Nigeria is not a party to it, it is argued that the Convention is still legally and politically relevant to Nigeria. This comparative analysis will reveal areas where the Nigerian FOI Act aligns with, probably goes beyond, but also falls short of best practice, thus leading to some suggestions for improvement in the Act in order to ensure better public access to environmental information.

When policies are adopted, it seems reasonable to assume that they address a certain issue and provide means to mitigate specific problems. This seems the case with the EU's regime on trade in seal products, but it becomes evident that the goal formulation in this case is blurry and unclear. Taking animal welfare, the so-called ‘Inuit exemption’, and internal market harmonisation into account, this article examines the goals of the seal products trade regime and how they are applied. It becomes clear that the attainment of goals bears consequences that are unprecedented due to conceptual and formulation difficulties. Given the indistinct goal formulation during the policy-shaping process and the goal formulation in the policy itself, it seems fair to say that the regime does not aim to improve animal welfare standards in the commercial seal hunt, but rather aims to shut down the commercial hunt completely. This, however, affects Inuit and non-Inuit seal hunters equally and is inconsistent with secondary goals that are formulated in the EU's documents relating to the Arctic. Therefore, the seal products trade regime has consequences that challenge the EU's ambitions in the north.

With the completion of a careful study of a photographic copy of the original notebook Frederick Cook kept on his attempt to reach the North Pole in 1908, now in Copenhagen, Denmark, many new details have been added that allow a more accurate account of his actual movements and timetable than has been possible previously. Because some records were altered or destroyed by Cook, however, a complete account still necessarily contains an element of speculation, which must be the case when based on the only records that exist of an unwitnessed assertion. But this uncertainty can be controlled to a reasonable degree by the notebook's remaining content in concert with the several other accounts Cook wrote of his expedition. One thing is sure, however: Cook was far behind his published timetable. At the outset, he set his start date back by one full week. He failed to report a number of delays in his journey and left out a lengthy detour that prevented him from reaching land's end at Cape Thomas Hubbard until well past 1 April 1908. This ruled out any chance to reach the North Pole in 1908. Frederick Cook was no fool; he was a veteran explorer. He knew any attempt that late in the season would be suicide. Furthermore his efforts to lay caches that would separate his own return route from that of his Inuit support party indicate that not only had he already given up the idea of making a serious attempt, but also that he was preparing for his eventual hoax of claiming to have reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908 long before he reached the Arctic Ocean.

This article follows the administrative usage of the term “labour” and its political effects in the period from roughly 1918–1924 in Madras Presidency, India. In this short period, I will argue, fundamental tensions in the ability of the concept to refer coherently to its object came violently to the surface. The prevailing tension in both governmental discourse and in the sphere of political representation concerned the extent to which either caste status or economic class were to be understood as the primary determinant of the meaning of labour. At the nub of this conflict lay the contested status of the descendants of hereditarily unfree labourers who supplied the bulk of the Presidency's labour requirements and were referred to in this period as Adi-Dravidas. Should they be construed as ritually disadvantaged caste subjects who also happened to labour, or as paradigmatic labourers who were also subjected to caste discrimination? Adi-Dravidas provoked both the anxiety of the elite political classes who wished to incorporate them into larger nationalist projects, as well as the reformist zeal of the colonial state, throwing the category “labour” into crisis. By navigating the use to which “labour” was put by caste elites, state officials, and Adi-Dravidas themselves, I will reflect on the coherence of caste and class as analytic concepts for political and social struggles of the kind I am describing.

This article explores the chasm between party leaders and rank-and-file workers within the postwar Italian Socialist Party and Polish Socialist Party between 1944 and 1947. So far only studied in the context of communist parties, existing historiography on this theme has observed a deep rift between the radicalization amongst grassroots activists defending the self-management workers had won during the final days of World War II and the moderation practised by party leaders desperate to demonstrate their trustworthiness as government partners. Based on an analysis of the sentiments amongst socialist workers in Łódż and Sesto San Giovanni, and of the visions espoused by provincial and national socialist leaders, this article argues that the dynamics within socialist parties were exactly the other way around. Whereas socialist leaders ascribed a crucial role to grassroots participatory structures in their efforts to teach the working classes democracy, socialist workers were more concerned with day-to-day survival than with participation, self-management, or any other question.

An anadromous Arctic char (male) was recorded in southwestern Spitsbergen, in a very muddy glacial river, in August 2008. This is apparently the first specimen of this species observed in such an unfavourable habitat in Svalbard.

Between 1411 and 1416, Gdansk was the scene for a complex conflict between town population, council and landlord, eventually resulting in violent riots. The peculiar character of these riots becomes apparent when the Gdansk chronicles are compared to the historical accounts from other, better-known conflicts, particularly sources depicting the Lübeck Knochenhauer rebellion, the Hamburg brewer's rebellion of 1481 and the 1449–53 Gentse opstand. A key difference is the extent to which chroniclers understood and portrayed the ritualized action that occurred in the urban uprisings. Comparing the contemporary chronicles of the Gdansk events with the town's urban historiography 100 years later also shows that this early conflict with the landlord later played a significant role in urban self-definition.

This article investigates the recently developed adjectival properties of the French noun clé ‘key’, as attested in for instance un poste très clé ‘a really key position’ and Cette mesure est-elle vraiment clé? ‘Is this measure really key?’. The main purpose of this study is triple: it consists in analysing (i) which adjectival uses can be found in modern French, (ii) to what extent they are accepted by native speakers (from different geographical varieties) of French, and (iii) how they can be accounted for within the framework of Construction Grammar and Construction Morphology. It will be hypothesised that French clé is subject to categorial gradience as a consequence of an ongoing constructionalisation process.

Dans cet article, nous analysons l'influence de la valeur aspectuo-temporelle attribuée aux formes composées sur la fréquence d’accord du participe passé (APP). On sait que l'APP est variable dans les usages de la langue parlée, notamment lorsqu’il est employé avec l'auxiliaire avoir. Partant de l'observation de corpus de langue parlée, et d’une approche variationniste, nous évaluons la fréquence d’accord des participes féminins potentiellement audibles, en fonction de l'effet de sens qui est attribué à la séquence [avoir (pres) + PP], selon qu’il est évalué comme ‘résultant’ ou ‘événementiel’ selon la terminologie de Desclés et Guentcheva (2003). Les résultats de cette analyse laissent entrevoir une influence faible mais relativement constante de ce facteur sémantique sur l'APP, et soulèvent plus avant la question de la présence d’éléments spécifiques au médium oral comme facteurs d’influence sur le marquage morphologique du genre; en d’autres termes, de l'existence d’une grammaire spontanée de l'oral (Branca-Rosoff, 2005).