The notion of corporate success lies at the heart of directors’ duties in many corporate laws. Freedom of incorporation conferred considerable discretion on companies to determine the nature of their success and create financial value for their investors, subject to conforming with laws and regulation. However, this increasingly came into conflict with the interests of other stakeholders, in particular employees, supply chains, the environment and societies, and addressing the problem through specific regulatory rules proved inadequate to the task. This raises questions about the nature of the financial incentives that drive and resource corporate activities, namely profits, and the need to align these with the role of business in solving not creating problems for others. In the absence of such an alignment then markets fail and competition can intensify rather diminish the failures. There are three aspects to addressing the problem. The first is the use of corporate law to require companies to consider the interests of stakeholders other than their shareholders. This is already a feature of many corporate laws. The second is corporate governance codes that promote corporate purposes of profiting from solving not causing problems for others. This too is already a feature of some countries’ corporate governance arrangements. The third is the adoption of international standards and firm specific measures of performance that promote accounting and reporting on corporate social and environmental benefits and detriments. These are in the process of being established but need to be more closely related to accounting for specific firm measures of performance that ensure profits derive from solving not creating problems for others.

In medical ethics, there is a well-established debate about the authority of advance directives over people living with dementia, a dispute often cast as a clash between two principles: respecting autonomy and beneficence toward patients. This chapter, in highlighting underexplored issues of power and social status, argues that there need be only one principle in substitute decision-making: determining authenticity. This principle favours a substituted judgment standard in all cases and instructs decision-makers to determine what the patient would authentically prefer to happen – based not merely on the patient’s decisions but also on their present settled dispositions. Adhering to this principle entails that, in a significant range of cases, an advance directive can (and indeed ought to) be overruled.

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s key findings, methodology and structure. It also introduces the principal questions the book seeks to address. How have agents, operating at national, international and transnational levels, attempted to institutionalise the norm of corporate accountability for human rights violations linked to transnational corporate activity? What do these initiatives reveal about the nature of transnational legalisation, and how legalisation should be framed or conceptualised in the twenty-first century? Finally, could a revised framework of legalisation help explain when transnational litigation and soft law initiatives are more likely to succeed in the future?

Grace and providence, much like the sacraments (which are instruments of grace), are pervasive in the Confessions. Yet we learn about them, not from any explicit theorizing or argumentation on Augustine’s part, but by examining their role in the dual narrative: the personal narrative of Augustine’s life and the cosmic narrative of creation and redemption. This chapter considers how grace (God’s unmerited favor) and providence (God’s directing of the course of events in the service of his own ends) shape, but do not determine, Augustine’s life. Although there is no explicit consideration in the Confessions of the relationship between grace and free choice, the overwhelming message of the work seems to be that grace is indispensable but not irresistible: God makes Augustine into the kind of person who can accept grace, but not someone who cannot help but accept it.

This chapter explores the grounds for thinking that a social group such as Britain's internally diverse ethnic minorities or, indeed, even specific minority sub-groups constitute a sufficiently distinctive political constituency. It begins by tracking the broad voting patterns of ethnic minorities over the period for which there is usable empirical data. The chapter examines rival and complementary interpretations as to why minority participation patterns, especially in terms of voting choice, have differed from the white 'norm' or base line. It highlights essential implications for political parties generally and for the strategy pursued by the Labour Party in particular. Finally, the political constituency question is considered in terms of its relevance to ethnic minority political activists. The role of candidates and elected representatives is singled out principally because of the special pressures - and opportunities - facing them in translating various political constituency type claims into practical politics.

Postvention describes the support offered after suicide bereavement to mitigate the risk of suicide in those affected by the loss. In this chapter we describe the international epidemiological evidence about the impact of suicide on relatives, friends, and other close contacts of the deceased. This includes an elevated risk of depression and suicide, and other adverse physical health and social outcomes. We describe the practice of postvention as it applies to recommended responses to suicide in clinical and community settings, and the evidence to support this. Whilst there is a lack of evidence to support the effectiveness of postvention in preventing suicide specifically, there is evidence that it improves the mental health and social outcomes likely to mediate suicide risk. Clinicians who encounter suicide-bereaved individuals should be aware of resources available to people affected by suicide loss, described here, including digital resources in the public domain.

This chapter addresses the evidence for the burial of moneyed laymen. The latter are, perhaps not unexpectedly, both ubiquitous and largely invisible in this collection. The necrosima includes only one hymn specifically addressing the death of a husband and father. By contrast, the majority of its forty “generic” hymns contemplate a male lay Christian subject, mourned by his children, anxious about abandoning his family, and plagued by anticipation of the harsh judgement he might receive. These hymns become a site for working out the necrosima’s theology of possessions – a topic that appears explicitly in some of the collection’s most paraenetically focused hymns, including, for example, madrāshâ 28 (“In funere principum, & Divitis cuiusque”/“On the burial of a prince or some kind of rich man”), but is a prominent theme in much of the corpus. This chapter accordingly examines anxieties about wealth and poverty, and the ethical pedagogy inherent in the necrosima, including its emphasis on charity.

Post-COVID condition (PCC) describes new or worsening symptoms that develop after initial SARS-CoV-2 infection and are persistent for months without alternative explanations. Common PCC symptoms include post-exertional malaise, fatigue, breathlessness, cough, dizziness, “brain fog,” and gastrointestinal symptoms, and they may occur in upwards of 10% of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. The physical, cognitive, and mental health sequalae seen in post-intensive care syndrome (PICS) are also common in PCC, particularly in COVID-19 patients that have survived critical illness. The pathophysiology of PCC remains poorly understood. Patients’ symptoms should be managed aggressively; management has significant overlap with the treatment approach to PICS patients. Dedicated PCC clinics or combined PICS/PCC clinics should include specific expertise in the diagnosis and management of symptoms relating to COVID-19, including fatigue, dyspnea, exertional intolerance, GI discomfort, psychological sequelae, and cognitive dysfunction, and actively collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of clinicians and staff with PCC expertise.

As discussed in Chapter 1, the primary focus of this book is on the potential of neurotechnology to support the rehabilitation of convicted persons by improving risk assessment and risk management – rather than on its potential for diagnosing and treating mental or brain disorders. Still, in some cases, neurorehabilitation might well become conducive or even crucial to the improvement of mental health in forensic populations. Brain stimulation to attenuate aggressive impulses might serve to reduce the mental distress experienced by some persons subject to these impulses. Furthermore, aggression can be a symptom of a recognised mental illness, such as a psychotic disorder, or may be a core feature of a disorder, as in intermittent explosive disorder. Diminishing aggression using neurotechnology could in such cases be relevant to the person’s mental health, which appears to be an interest protected by human rights law. For example, Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises a “right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.

This chapter tracks the importance and resilience of CPC ideology by examining the development of Mao Zedong Thought from his early Communist writings (1927–1940) through to Yan’an Rectification (1942–1945) and then during his reign as Supreme Leader (1949–1976). It then explores Mao Zedong Thought’s importance for the CPC today. CPC leaders since Mao’s death have invoked, and continue to invoke, Mao Zedong Thought for legitimation and to exhibit continuity despite shifts away from the ideology and practice of the Mao era. Mao Zedong Thought thus fulfills a legitimative need rather than a social one; CPC leaders must acknowledge, and often reference, Mao Zedong Thought to project continuity even if the ruptures since Mao’s death have resulted in an un-Maoist Party-state.

The introductory chapter outlines the book’s central premise: disabled people have as much right to live in the world as the non-disabled. It introduces the human rights and critical disability studies methods used to interrogate the problem of disability discrimination throughout the life cycle, especially at the beginning and end of life. Along with providing an overview, the introductory chapter argues that the book is particularly needed because disability equal rights struggles remain marginal in mainstream bioethics and law.

This section explores integrating multicultural frameworks into migration management in South America, focusing on how various countries have embraced and implemented multiculturalism, interculturalism, and pluriculturalism. Argentina’s Migration Law emphasizes multiculturalism, promoting immigrant integration and respect for cultural diversity. Chile and Bolivia, on the other hand, have integrated interculturalism, focusing on immigrant and native population interactions. Paraguay’s pluriculturalism highlights the diversity inherent to South American nations, focusing on existing cultural differences. Through empirical studies, the section also examines the practical application of these frameworks, discussing how immigrants’ strategies – ranging from assimilation to multiculturalism – impact their integration outcomes. Political discourse and economic concerns are also discussed, highlighting the role of national rhetoric, media, and socioeconomic factors in shaping public attitudes toward immigration in the region. Together, these findings illuminate how South American countries navigate the complexities of migration, identity, and social inclusion.

Robert Schumann’s father August ran a publishing company; Robert grew up surrounded by books. As a teenager, he founded a literary society; as an adult, he made annotated reading lists filled with strong opinions. His early years belonged to the Age of Goethe, whose works he loved throughout his life, and he was captivated by the radical novelty that was Heinrich Heine. Other Romantic and contemporary poets, from Eichendorff to Adelbert von Chamisso, Rückert, and Robert Reinick, provided him with texts for songs, as did Robert Burns. He and Clara lived through the Revolution of 1848, and their liberal political convictions are inscribed in selected lieder. Later in his life, Robert discovered the poems of Nikolaus Lenau and Eduard Mörike, Emanuel Geibel, Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, and Elisabeth Kulmann. Both composers’ engagements with the literature of their day had massive impacts on their musical imaginations throughout their lives.

Telework presents two quite distinct faces: longer, more irregular work schedules; yet potentially a better reconciliation of work and family life, provided it is promoted. Yet the outcomes are clearly ambivalent. Teleworking in itself is no guarantee of co-responsibility or the transformation of gender roles. There is a risk that it is perceived as the most ‘appropriate’ working arrangement for women, in a way that perpetuates gender roles and, even, widens the labour gap. To address this danger, socio-economic and cultural alliances, policies and regulations must all row in the same direction and take steps to eliminate patriarchal structures and systemic discrimination This contribution emphasizes that telework is not gender-neutral because it brings paid work into the domestic sphere, a traditionally feminine domain where productive and reproductive spaces overlap. The chapter analyses the impact that labour legislation and business practices have on women, and explores issues to which teleworking gives rise in relation to working time and work–life balance. Additionally, and with the focus more firmly on business practices, the work addresses the opportunities afforded by telework as a working-time arrangement.