Academic defenders of sweatshops argue that disregarding labour rights will result in increased welfare in the developing nations where transnational corporations (TNCs) operate. They argue that TNCs should ignore local labour laws in the best interests of the poor. In this article we criticise this ‘ignore the law’ position regarding sweatshops on three separate grounds. First, it fails to acknowledge the demands for businesses to respect the rule of law as part of the development process. Second, it utilises an inadequate account of voluntary contractual bargaining which overlooks how employment practises operate in sectors prone to utilising sweatshop labour, leading to coercive employment conditions incompatible with human dignity and free choice. Third, it fails to adequately account for labour law and international labour standards, which embody a strong moral conception of dignity at work and observance of fundamental human rights in protecting workers against abuse through the resulting legal duties placed on states and corporate actors. We conclude that poverty reduction requires the support of both private and public actors. Advocating the side-stepping of labour laws distracts from the important work of institution building necessary to protect workers and facilitate economic growth consistent with decent work, sustainable development, fairness and human dignity as embodied in international labour standards.

To understand the timing of deglaciation of the northernmost marine-terminating glaciers of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS), we obtained 26 10Be surface-exposure ages from glacially scoured bedrock surfaces in Prince William Sound (PWS), Alaska. We sampled six elevation transects between sea level and 620 m and spanning a distance of 14 to 70 km along ice flow paths. Most transect age–elevation patterns could not be explained by a simple model of thinning ice; the patterns provide evidence for lingering ice cover and possible inheritance. A reliable set of 20 ages ranges between 17.4 ± 2.0 and 11.6 ± 2.8 ka and indicates ice receded from northwestern PWS around 14.3 ± 1.6 ka, thinned at a rate of ~120–160 m/ka, and retreated from sea-level sites at 12.9 ± 1.1 ka at a rate of 20 m/yr. The retreat rate likely slowed as glaciers retreated into northern PWS. These results are consistent with the growing body of reported deglacial constraints on collapse of ice sheets along the Alaska margin indicating collapse of the CIS soon after 17 ka. These data are consistent with paleotemperature data indicating that a warming North Pacific Ocean caused catastrophic collapse of this part of the CIS.

Debate about the nature of climate and the magnitude of ecological change across Australia during the last glacial maximum (LGM; 26.5–19 ka) persists despite considerable research into the late Pleistocene. This is partly due to a lack of detailed paleoenvironmental records and reliable chronological frameworks. Geochemical and geochronological analyses of a 60 ka sedimentary record from Brown Lake, subtropical Queensland, are presented and considered in the context of climate-controlled environmental change. Optically stimulated luminescence dating of dune crests adjacent to prominent wetlands across North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah) returned a mean age of 119.9 ± 10.6 ka; indicating relative dune stability soon after formation in Marine Isotope Stage 5. Synthesis of wetland sediment geochemistry across the island was used to identify dust accumulation and applied as an aridification proxy over the last glacial-interglacial cycle. A positive trend of dust deposition from ca. 50 ka was found with highest influx occurring leading into the LGM. Complexities of comparing sedimentary records and the need for robust age models are highlighted with local variation influencing the accumulation of exogenic material. An inter-site comparison suggests enhanced moisture stress regionally during the last glaciation and throughout the LGM, returning to a more positive moisture balance ca. 8 ka.

We use a simple energy-conservation model and a model based on Röthlisberger’s theory for steady-state water flow in a subglacial conduit to model water movement between lakes in the Adventure subglacial trench region of East Antarctica during a 1996–98 jökulhlaup. Using available field evidence to constrain the models suggests that water flow would likely be accommodated in a tunnel with a cross-sectional area of 36 m2 and a value for k (the reciprocal of Manning’s roughness parameter) larger than the 12.5 m1/3 s−1 previously calculated. We also use Nye’s theory for time-dependent conduit water flow to model the temporal evolution of conduit discharge, cross-sectional area, water pressure and lake draining and filling during the flood. We initially assume one source and one sink lake. We perform sensitivity tests on the input parameter set, matching modeled source- and sink-lake depth changes with measured surface elevation data. Using a simple function for vertical ice deformation in which surface deformation scales linearly to the lake depth change, we find the scaling factor is of the order 4 × 10−3 of the ice thickness. The most likely value of k lies in the range 55–68 m1/3 s−1, and the ratio of source to sink-lake radii is approximately 1 : 1.4. Finally, we experiment using Nye’s theory to model water movement between one source and three sink lakes. The model fails to produce the observed patterns of water movement as indicated by the surface deformation data.

We consider statistical properties of random integer partitions. In order to compute means, variances and higher moments of various partition statistics, one often has to study generating functions of the form P(x)F(x), where P(x) is the generating function for the number of partitions. In this paper, we show how asymptotic expansions can be obtained in a quasi-automatic way from expansions of F(x) around x = 1, which parallels the classical singularity analysis of Flajolet and Odlyzko in many ways. Numerous examples from the literature, as well as some new statistics, are treated via this methodology. In addition, we show how to compute further terms in the asymptotic expansions of previously studied partition statistics.

In this study, we investigated the prevalence, severity, and organisational factors of risk for psychological injury in a national sample of Australian school teachers, using the Psychological Injury Risk Indicator. We predicted that teachers would report higher levels of risk for psychological injury if working in schools located in rural areas, with a low socioeconomic index, and low psychosocial safety climate. Teachers from across Australia (N = 960) completed an online survey that measured risk for psychological injury and relevant organisational factors. We found a high number of teachers (26%) whose responses showed high risk, indicating the need for professional intervention in order to avoid potentially debilitating psychological injury. Analyses also showed main effects for two organisational factors, indicating that teachers most at risk for psychological injury tended to be employed by schools with low psychosocial safety climate and in areas with a low socioeconomic index. These results highlight the severe levels of work-related psychological injury risk in the Australian teacher population, and the important role for school administration and education departments in maintaining a working environment that supports staff psychologically.

We provide a brief history of the business and human rights discourse and scholarship, and an overview of the articles included in the special issue.

Deep boreholes have been proposed for many decades as an option for permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. Disposal concepts are straightforward, and generally call for drilling boreholes to a depth of four to five kilometers (or more) into crystalline basement rocks. Waste is placed in the lower portion of the hole, and the upper several kilometers of the hole are sealed to provide effective isolation from the biosphere. The potential for excellent long-term performance has been recognized in many previous studies. This paper reports updated results of what is believed to be the first quantitative analysis of releases from a hypothetical disposal borehole repository using the same performance assessment methodology applied to mined geologic repositories for high-level radioactive waste. Analyses begin with a preliminary consideration of a comprehensive list of potentially relevant features, events, and processes (FEPs) and the identification of those FEPs that appear to be most likely to affect long-term performance in deep boreholes. The release pathway selected for preliminary performance assessment modeling is thermally-driven flow and radionuclide transport upwards from the emplacement zone through the borehole seals or the surrounding annulus of disturbed rock. Estimated radionuclide releases from deep borehole disposal of spent nuclear fuel, and the annual radiation doses to hypothetical future humans associated with those releases, are extremely small, indicating that deep boreholes may be a viable alternative to mined repositories for disposal of both high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.