Facilitating access to asylum and other forms of refugee protection for the millions displaced by mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq is essential to the implementation of the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). This responsibility, however, has been disproportionately shouldered by several states in the Middle East and Europe. This article explores the challenges associated with refugee responsibility-sharing in the context of RtoP and draws on work in climate justice and political realism to articulate a framework for integrating culpability as a key criterion in allocating states’ responsibilities to protect refugees. An empirical and normative assessment of U.S. responsibilities to protect refugees in the cases of conflict-induced displacement in Syria and Iraq outlines several potential paths of culpability. The article ultimately argues for greater attention to culpability, equity, and legitimacy within the discourse surrounding RtoP and refugee protection. The article also advocates linking the benefits of refugee responsibility-sharing with states’ national interests and highlights several such links with regard to U.S. responsibilities in Syria and Iraq.

Visual documenters made a major contribution to the recording of the Heroic Era of Antarctic exploration. By far the best known were the professional photographers, Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley, hired to photograph British and Australasian expeditions. But a great number of images – photographs and artworks – were also produced by amateurs on lesser known European expeditions and a Japanese one. These amateurs were sometimes designated official illustrators, often scientists recording their research. This paper offers a discursive examination of illustrations from the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897–1899), German Deep Sea Expedition (1898–1899), German South Polar Expedition (1901–1903), Swedish South Polar Expedition (1901–1903), French Antarctic Expedition (1903–1905) and Japanese Antarctic Expedition (1910–1912), assessing their representations of exploration in Antarctica in terms of the tension between emotive/aesthetic and systematic analytic/scientific motifs. Their depictions were influenced by their illustrative skills and their ‘ways of seeing’, produced from their backgrounds and the sponsorship needs of the expedition.

On examine les étapes par lesquelles en français le sujet non exprimé (S0) et le sujet postposé au verbe (VS) ont régressé, sans disparaître, jusqu’à l’état moderne, entre le 9e s. et le premier tiers du 17e s. Dès le milieu du 16e s., les taux d'expression et d'antéposition du sujet au verbe sont comparables à ceux du français moderne, la syntaxe du sujet conservant par ailleurs des constructions archaïques. Sur un corpus de dix-sept extraits de textes diversifiés (11e–20e s.), on analyse dans quel ordre et selon quelle chronologie les facteurs corrélés à S0 ou VS depuis l'ancien français ont disparu, à quel moment les traits régressifs S0 et VS sont devenus des traits distinctifs caractérisant des constructions spécifiques, à quel moment et dans quelles constructions se situent les derniers développements de ce changement, et à partir de quelle période se trouvent des textes offrant – et n'offrant que – la syntaxe du sujet moderne.

Theological explorations of law have sometimes followed a “prophetic” model in which scripture or theological ethics serves as the primary norm for human law. After all, if God has spoken his Law into the world, especially a world beset by sin and oppression, should not human law answer to that Law? Moreover, is not law more authoritative when it is “found” or “discovered” within the framework of divine revelation than when it is “made” autonomously by fallen human beings?

Research partnerships with northern communities hold promise for capacity and resilience against environmental changes. Given their historical ecological and cultural relationship with and, thus, ongoing concern for polar bears, Inuit communities are keen to participate in monitoring programmes. In spite of this, northern communities continue to meet polar bear research and collaborations with some resistance. Here, we summarise and report interviews with Nunavummiut from four communities on Inuit experiences with polar bears and research perspectives. Research interactions reveal ongoing cultural, socio-ecological and ethical barriers to polar bear research projects. Research licenses and standardised ethics procedures do not always guarantee collaborations. Adaptable research methods, mutual understanding and open dialogue are essential to form strong research partnerships with northern communities.

The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) is a unique institution with a history that is closely related to Norwegian policy regarding Svalbard, and to clever development of a highly specialised Arctic university institution by all the Norwegian universities. In practical terms, Norwegian sovereignty on the archipelago as confirmed by the Treaty of Svalbard of 1920 and regulated by the Svalbard Law of 1925, is maintained by the presence of Norwegian civil authorities and communities. Today, the “capital” Longyearbyen with its 2100 inhabitants is a modern hub for industry, education, research, logistics and tourism. Founded in 1993, UNIS has become a main contributor to this community, generating some 20% of the total economic activity. A prime motivation for establishing UNIS was to provide a supplement and alternative to the unprofitable, heavily subsidized coal mining industry, by using the location for research based education. In 2015, the mining company Store Norske Spitsbergen Kullkompani (SNSK) met with deep crisis again and significantly downscaled its coal production and work force. Thus, UNIS may play an even more important role as a cornerstone of the local community in the future. This paper discusses the establishment and development of UNIS, its organisation, capacity, and academic production in terms of student graduation and its scientific output, just as its future potential for growth is evaluated. Finally, we discuss the increasingly important role of science and education in Norwegian Svalbard policy.

This paper argues that key findings from computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research need to be replicated to permit the construction of a valid and reliable evidence-base which can inform the design of future CALL software and activities, together with language teachers’ decisions about their adoption. Through the critical examination of two key studies, the limitations of much current CALL research with respect to the construction of such an evidence-base are highlighted and approaches to replication which may overcome these limitations are discussed. Like much CALL research, both papers are experimental studies. Key issues raised by the two studies are the need to: (1) conduct replications focused on attributes and affordances which transcend multiple technologies which might be employed in CALL, (2) collect process data to increase the explanatory power of studies, and (3) link CALL research to relevant second language acquisition (SLA) theory and research to increase the explanatory power of studies and integrate the findings from individual studies into the CALL and SLA evidence-base more broadly. Emphasis is also placed on the need to conduct replications with different populations in different settings in order to demonstrate the validity and reliability of current findings.

Edward Young, the midshipman who sided with Fletcher Christian during the Mutiny on the Bounty, which took place in 1789, was an English and St Kitts Creole speaker. The influence of Young's Kittitian lexicon and grammar toponyms (placenames) in the Pitcairn Island language – Pitcairn – exists in features such as the use of articles and possessive constructions. Pitcairn was moved to Norfolk Island sixty-six years after the settling of Pitcairn Island in 1790 by the mutineers and their Polynesian counterparts. While Kittitian for ‘for, of’ and Kittitian-derived articles ha/ah only occur in a few documented placenames in Pitcairn, the fer and ar/dar elements of possessive constructions in placenames in Norfolk, the Norfolk Island language still spoken today by the descendants of the Pitcairners, are more common than in Pitcairn placenames. It is argued that the use of the for/fer possessive construction and article forms are key social deictic markers of identity and distinctiveness, especially in Norfolk placenames. Their usage delineates Pitcairn blood heritage and ancestry (Norfolk: comefrom) as either Pitcairner or non-Pitcairner, and has been expanded in and adapted to the new social and natural environment of Norfolk Island. The analysis draws on primary Norfolk placename data and compares it to secondary Pitcairn data.