EU legal scholarship has a strong tradition of contextual, somewhat theoretical analysis. That tradition has been facilitated by the open nature of EU law, the grand social goals of the EU, and the need to construct legitimating legal stories around these, but also by the interconnected community of EU law scholars and professionals, which have given the field a kind of autonomy from more doctrinal national law. Yet lacking empirical evidence beyond legal texts, EU law’s free-ranging scholarship is suffering a crisis of disillusionment, paralleled by the crisis of the EU itself, which invites scholars to reconsider the nature of their role. In this context, empirical legal studies is enjoying a huge rise in popularity among EU legal scholars, with its promise of answers to important questions, rather than mere commentary. That leads to synergies as well as conflicts – for resources, and about methods – but above all it seems likely to reorientate EU legal scholarship away from its path of the last five decades and towards a new stylistic and methodological mix.

In conflict and conflict-affected areas, the environment can take a backseat to other pressing issues. Whether due to limited capability, capacity, or will, the environment is often neglected during conflict activities, resulting in substantial risks to human health and environmental quality. Understanding how this happens and what can be done is critical to prevention and, where needed, remediation in conflict settings to promote human and environmental flourishing. This chapter explores how and why the environment can become neglected in conflict and what the key implications of this are.

Scholars have noted that many of the surviving tablets from Dodona pose agriculturally related questions of a general manner. My essay suggests this is because agricultural resources were religiously framed in the ancient Greek world. In this context, I argue that oracles functioned as sites where material practices of daily life could be negotiated with the gods in a ritual as well as communal context. Oracles, in other words, presented a way of communicating with the natural world. On the other hand, they were also places where the individual could present himself (or herself) in relation to this world: how he or she depended on its fruits for survival; but also how he (or she) could make or remake the resources it had to offer so that it would flourish. As I want to show, this particular interrelationship between agricultural labour and oracular consultation relied as much on the performative act of enquiry as it did on practical knowledge. In order to illustrate these interconnections, the essay draws on recent trends in environmental history and in resilience studies. It will reconsider the ancient evidence of the Zeus Oracle at Dodona in light of these approaches.

This chapter introduces the central puzzle that motivates the book: why do some South African communities protest far more frequently than others, despite experiencing similar levels of grievances and resource deprivation? It opens with two contrasting vignettes that highlight this variation and set the stage for the book’s theoretical and empirical contributions. The chapter critiques existing theories of protest for their limited ability to explain this localized variation and introduces the core argument – that a fuller understanding of protest requires attention to the “technology of mobilization.” Specifically, it emphasizes the critical role of protest brokers: intermediaries who connect elites seeking to mobilize protest with communities of potential protesters. In the absence of these brokers, it argues, many elites are unable to leverage the local knowledge, trust, and social networks necessary to mobilize effectively, helping to explain where protest happens. Furthermore, the chapter argues that protest brokers are not a monolithic group; their differences help explain not just whether protests occur, but also how they unfold – shaping variation in protest variety, duration, tactics, and the likelihood of violence. This chapter lays the foundation for the rest of the book.

This chapter describes the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) and the mhGAP-Intervention Guide (mhGAP-IG) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), aimed at scaling up suicide prevention and management services to bridge unmet need.The mhGAP-IG is an evidence-based tool for mental disorders with structured and operationalised guidelines for clinical decision-making targeting non-specialist community and primary care workers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The Introduction outlines the central themes of economic history, focusing on the efficient use of resources and its implications for welfare. It explains how societies have historically used natural, human and manufactured resources to improve living standards, exploring the critical roles of technology and institutions in driving efficiency and growth. The chapter introduces the concept of total factor productivity as a measure of economic efficiency, and emphasizes how historical developments have shaped the wealth of nations. It also links economic history to contemporary concerns by discussing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and their relevance to resource management and welfare. By tracing historical improvements in efficiency and productivity, the Introduction sets the stage for understanding how economic history informs modern debates on sustainability and inequality.

This chapter analyses the relationship between population growth and resource constraints in European history, focusing on the Malthusian theory, which posits that population growth leads to stagnation due to finite resources. The chapter challenges this view by examining how technological innovations, agricultural improvements and changes in fertility strategies affected population dynamics. It explores how societies adapted to resource constraints and avoided the Malthusian trap through mechanisms such as the demographic transition. The chapter also uses case studies such as the decline of the Roman Empire to discuss the relevance of simple models for interpreting historical processes and presents nuanced insights into the complex interplay between population, resources and economic development.

The formative years of life provide the most important elements to equip children with the capacity to learn. Therefore, underpinnings for art pedagogy for Australian First Nations early childhood education should ensure that educators and teachers may contribute environmental foundations for children’s learning while ensuring that children have effective resources to prepare them for an ever-changing world. The challenge is balancing the expectations of the home with the expectations of teaching and learning in early childhood educational settings.

Matching available health resources to consumer needs is challenging. Governments and health bureaucracies with finite resources face increasing demands from their client populations, which often have complex health issues. No country prioritises resources to meet every single health need of every citizen; consequently, effective health service planning is critical to maximising population health outcomes and ensuring value for the available money. Due to the inherent contradictions existing between the high demand for and the limited responsive supply capacity by health services, health service planning is often characterised by negotiation, lobbying and compromise among various interest groups. A consensus can best be achieved if stakeholders agree upon a set of core values, and all involved in the process endorse principles and the procedures of planning. This chapter focuses on the practice of health service planning.

War was a regular feature and, at times, a dominant characteristic of international relations between the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the beginning of monarchical Europe’s struggle with Revolutionary France in 1792. At least until the Enlightenment, contemporaries viewed it not merely as an acceptable way of pursuing international rivalries, but as a more normal and natural state of affairs than peace. Periods of open conflict, during which diplomatic representatives would usually be withdrawn, were assumed to be inevitable and, indeed, were frequently the anticipated outcome of the policies adopted by rulers and their advisers. The eighteenth century was significantly more pacific than its seventeenth-century predecessor had been, though in turn much more bellicose than its nineteenth-century successor. According to one calculation, the European ‘great powers’ were engaged in warfare for eighty-eight years of the century 1600–1700, sixty-four years from 1700–1800, and twenty-four years from 1800–1900. During the shorter period between 1700 and 1790, Russia was at war at some point during all nine decades; Austria, France, and Britain during eight; Spain and Sweden during seven; Prussia during six; and the Ottoman Empire during five: figures which underline the ubiquity of armed struggle even during the less bellicose eighteenth century.

This chapter will initially help your familiarisation with the architecture of HASS in the Australian Curriculum and provide guidance for its implementation in the educational setting. Providing real-life experiences using interdisciplinary skills and knowledge is important; therefore, we will discuss different approaches to planning before highlighting the significance of employing an integrated approach. Discussions of planning and assessment will feature prominently, complemented with illustrations of curriculum resources. While the focus in this chapter is on the Australian Curriculum, the significance of planning HASS learning experiences that build on the EYLF are integrated throughout, drawing on the description of the EYLF that was presented in Chapter 1. It is important to recognise the central role of early years educators in promoting a passion for HASS and acquiring the skills and concepts.

This chapter discusses the role of palliative care in the management of respiratory problems in neurological disease. To realize the right to live and to enjoy equal participation for neurological patients with respiratory symptoms may be complex and require extensive human, technical and financial resources, and, especially in low- and mid-income countries these resources may not be present. National and cultural differences in the role of palliative care are discussed, furthermore specific problems of palliative care in respiratory therapy such as correct indications, informed consent issues, therapy restriction physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, in care settings such as critical care. The authors suggest a pathway to decision-making and introduce treatment strategies with a focus on respiratory symptoms.

Chapter 2 explores economic views of sustainability, defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). This implies the current population’s needs are met, and future generations have access to at least the same economic opportunities and well-being as today. The systems approach to sustainability optimizes goals across environmental, economic, and social systems. The economists’ capital approach treats nature as capital. Natural, physical, and human capital form a portfolio of assets representing an economy’s wealth, which determines economic opportunities and human welfare. “Weak” sustainability assumes that maintaining and enhancing the overall stock of all capital is sufficient to achieve sustainable development. “Strong” sustainability asserts that preserving essential, irreplaceable, and non-substitutable natural capital is also necessary. The “resource curse” hypothesis and the environmental “Kuznet’s curve” hypothesis (EKC) are explained. Achieving sustainable development requires addressing extreme poverty, inequality, and unsustainable resource use.

The First World War was the first large-scale industrial war which saw its belligerents grapple with modernity. By the beginning of 1918 the British were faced with a particularly challenging strategic picture. Their Russian partners had withdrawn from the war and were negotiating a settlement with the Central Powers. The French were recovering from a series of strikes which fuelled British concern over how worn out the French Army might be. The Italians were regrouping after a devastating attack by the Central Powers at Caporetto. While the United States had entered the war on the side of the Entente, they were arriving too slowly to reassure their partners that they could tip the balance of the war in the Entente’s favour in the near term.