The doctrine of command responsibility in the midst of war : legal fallacy or reflection of reality

The history of war is blighted with astonishing reminders of man’s ability to cast his sense of humanity aside and inflict unspeakable harm upon one another. The ruthless bombing of Dresden, the callousness of the Nazi concentration camps and the massacre of the Tutsis are but a few of the atrocities that have haunted our past. In response to these atrocities, society has imposed an ever-increasing number of laws and rules to regulate warfare. Amongst these is the doctrine of command responsibility. The doctrine of command responsibility states that a commander is criminally liable for the crimes of his subordinates if he knew or should have known of their crimes. This paper will examine whether the doctrine is an appropriate and realistic legal standard to hold commanders accountable to or whether the doctrine is more a reflection of social sentiment and legal rhetoric. If the doctrine, and indeed the law of war in general, is unrealistic then the law cannot fulfil its purpose - that is, the prevention of atrocities. Instead of being solely a reflection of moral authority and social sentiments the law must also be a tool that guides and shapes the decisions and actions of the military through the chaotic and brutal nature of war...

Personal preferences for end-of-life care among Taiwanese community city dwellers : an inductive approach for qualitative data

Background: As an increasing number of Taiwanese people live out the final stages of their lives with chronic and complex conditions. Care decisions at the end of life can also be complex, overwhelming and stressful for an individual, family and health professionals. Understanding individuals’ wishes for end-of-life care and factors which influence individuals' decisions is important so that the provision of quality end-of-life care for all can be promoted and ensured.

Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 s 27(1) – duty of respondent to give information and documents

In Hare v Mount Isa City Council [2009] QDC 39 McGill DCJ examined the scope of s 27(1) of the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) and its interpretation by the Court of Appeal in Haug v Jupiters Ltd [2008] 1 Qd R 276. The judge expressed a number of concerns about the Act and the Regulation made under it, that are worthy of consideration by the Legislature.

Corporate governance as social responsibility : a meta-regulation approach to raise social responsibility of corporate governance in a weak economy

Corporate governance (CG) denotes the rules of business decision-making and directs the internal mechanism of companies to follow the output of the rules. It includes the customs, policies, laws and institutions as a set of processes that affects the way in which a corporation is directed, administered or controlled.

Indoor aerosols : from personal exposure to risk assessment

Motivated by growing considerations of the scale, severity and risks associated with human exposure to indoor particulate matter, this work reviewed existing literature to: (i) identify state-of-the-art experimental techniques used for personal exposure assessment; (ii) compare exposure levels reported for domestic/school settings in different countries (excluding exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and particulate matter from biomass cooking in developing countries); (iii) assess the contribution of outdoor background vs indoor sources to personal exposure; and (iv) examine scientific understanding of the risks posed by personal exposure to indoor aerosols. Limited studies assessing integrated daily residential exposure to just one particle size fraction, ultrafine particles, show that the contribution of indoor sources ranged from 19-76%. This indicates a strong dependence on resident activities, source events and site specificity, and highlights the importance of indoor sources for total personal exposure. Further, it was assessed that 10-30% of the total burden-of-disease from particulate matter exposure was due to indoor generated particles, signifying that indoor environments are likely to be a dominant environmental factor affecting human health. However, due to challenges associated with conducting epidemiological assessments, the role of indoor generated particles has not been fully acknowledged, and improved exposure/risk assessment methods are still needed, together with a serious focus on exposure control.

Communicating personal amnesty : a dismodernist approach to arts intersections between disability, personal stories and well-being

This thesis investigates the role of narrative devices in the process of improving an individual’s psychological and physiological experience of health and well-being using two methods of inquiry: a theoretical research project and a comparative analysis of two case studies. Through these two approaches the research examines how the health status of people experiencing disability can be re-positioned and re-designed to develop creative, narrative-based approaches to strengthen communication between the mainstream community and those marginalised by pathological, social and biological illness-centric policy. The theoretical section of the thesis examines two different, but complementary bodies of research: health and well-being, and narrative reconstruction. By invoking Antonovksy’s (1985a) theory of salutogenesis and Davis’s (2002) theory of dismodernism, the study examines the role of language and narrative in the defining of health in social, pathological and ableist spheres. The research positions health and well-being as disparate from historical and contemporary readings of illness and disability and presents literature to support the potential to improve health well-being through a creative re-narration of the experience of disability. The research examines the theoretical concepts of resilience, autonomy and social inclusion through a detailed examination of narratology and the amnesty narrative. The study links these theoretical approaches to a practical Arts-Health intersection program developed for the research project called Communicating Personal Amnesty. Through a comparative analysis of a Pilot Study and Major Case study, the research presents findings derived from theory-building participatory action research showing the efficacy of the program. The research provides a detailed analysis of key narrative structures through a variety of experimental methodological approaches to encourage an important dialogue between the creative components of the thesis and the more traditional health-based academic critique. The research is an example of emergent translational health methodologies, in disability studies.

Individual, environmental, and meteorological predictors of daily personal ultraviolet radiation exposure measurements in a United States cohort study

Background Individual exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is challenging to measure, particularly for diseases with substantial latency periods between first exposure and diagnosis of outcome, such as cancer. To guide the choice of surrogates for long-term UVR exposure in epidemiologic studies, we assessed how well stable sun-related individual characteristics and environmental/meteorological factors predicted daily personal UVR exposure measurements. Methods We evaluated 123 United States Radiologic Technologists subjects who wore personal UVR dosimeters for 8 hours daily for up to 7 days (N = 837 days). Potential predictors of personal UVR derived from a self-administered questionnaire, and public databases that provided daily estimates of ambient UVR and weather conditions. Factors potentially related to personal UVR exposure were tested individually and in a model including all significant variables. Results The strongest predictors of daily personal UVR exposure in the full model were ambient UVR, latitude, daily rainfall, and skin reaction to prolonged sunlight (R2 = 0.30). In a model containing only environmental and meteorological variables, ambient UVR, latitude, and daily rainfall were the strongest predictors of daily personal UVR exposure (R2 = 0.25). Conclusions In the absence of feasible measures of individual longitudinal sun exposure history, stable personal characteristics, ambient UVR, and weather parameters may help estimate long-term personal UVR exposure.

Legal regulation of corporate social responsibility : evidence from Bangladesh

The business corporations' internal strategies in weak economies merely respond to the public policy goals for social development. The role of corporate self-regulation in Bangladesh is not an exception. The extent to which legal regulations related to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Bangladesh could contribute to including CSR notions at the core of self-regulated corporate responsibility is the focus of this paper. It explains that the major Bangladeshi laws related to corporate regulation and responsibility do not possess recurrent features to compel corporate self-regulators to contribute to developing a socially responsible corporate culture in Bangladesh. It suggests that, instead of relying on the prescriptive mode of regulation, Bangladesh could develop more business-friendly but strategic legal regulations.

On the perspectives of the implementation of 'corporate social responsibility'

In the face of changes in corporate regulation scholarship, the percepts of corporate governance and legal policies have minimized the controversies over the potentials and limitations of corporate accountability mechanisms. In the contemporary scholarly works on the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR), there are evidences that support CSR principles to be implemented through legal regulation. Scholars and current practices, however, emphasize that this implementation should not be based on any single strategy. From this perspective, this article argues that the regulatory strategies for this implementation should be based on a fusion of legal sanction, market incentives and the demand of private ordering.

Raising corporate social responsibility - The 'legitimacy' approach

Discussing the normative arguments for the development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is difficult but important. It is difficult/ as any argument for this development could be detrimental if it seems that it could narrow the scope of innovation in business and becomes a barrier to companies' usual business cases. It is important, as the civil society actors need the theoretical basis to further the instances of corporate irresponsibility to societies in an articulated way. Given this background, this article presents a detailed discussion on the 'legitimacy' argument as a normative basis for rising CSR. It is an analysis that runs counter to the functionalist economic arguments that mostly focus on the financial stakeholders and consider only the (allegedly free) 'market' outcomes.

The BRICS and the responsibility to protect : lessons from the Libyan and Syrian crises

The emerging ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) principle presents a significant challenge to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) states’ traditional emphasis on a strict Westphalian understanding of state sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs. Despite formally endorsing R2P at the 2005 World Summit, each of the BRICS has, to varying degrees, retained misgivings about coercive measures under the doctrine’s third pillar. This paper examines how these rising powers engaged with R2P during the 2011–2012 Libyan and Syrian civilian protection crises. The central finding is that although all five states expressed similar concerns over NATO’s military campaign in Libya, they have been unable to maintain a common BRICS position on R2P in Syria. Instead, the BRICS have splintered into two sub-groups. The first, consisting of Russia and China, remains steadfastly opposed to any coercive measures against Syria. The second, comprising the democratic IBSA states (India, Brazil and South Africa) has displayed softer, more flexible stances towards proposed civilian protection measures in Syria, although these three states also remain cautious about the implementation of R2P’s coercive dimension. This paper identifies a number of factors which help to explain this split, arguing that the failure to maintain a cohesive BRICS position on R2P is unsurprising given the many internal differences and diverging national interests between the BRICS members. Overall, the BRICS’ ongoing resistance to intervention is unlikely to disappear quickly, indicating that further attempts to operationalize R2P’s third pillar may prove difficult.

Convergence of corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in weak economies : the case of Bangladesh

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance (CG) has changed the corporate accountability mechanism. This has developed a socially responsible ‘corporate self-regulation’, a synthesis of governance and responsibility in the companies of strong economies. However, unlike in the strong economies, this convergence has not been visible in the companies of weak economies, where the civil society groups are unorganised, regulatory agencies are either ineffective or corrupt and the media and non-governmental organisations do not mirror the corporate conscience. Using the case of Bangladesh, this article investigates the convergence between CSR and CG in the self-regulation of companies in a less vigilant environment.

A qualitative analysis of stress, uplifts and coping in the personal and professional lives of Singaporean nurses.

Aim. This paper is a report of a descriptive study of nurses’ experiences of daily stress and coping. Background. Much of the research on stress in nursing is quantitative and has focused on only work stressors. Moreover, few studies have examined the uplifting side of living and the role it may play in moderating stress. A theoretical framework on stress and coping, ‘hassles’ and ‘uplifts’ was used to examine nurses’ experiences across their personal and professional lives from a qualitative perspective. Methods. A purposive sample of Singaporean hospital nurses (n = 23) identified using a snowball sampling technique, participated in two sets of email interviews in 2009. The qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results. Three themes were identified as constituting daily hassles: (i) time pressures, (ii) nature of nursing work and (iii) multiple roles. Uplifts were expressed in relation to one main theme of feeling good extending across nurses’ personal and professional lives. Three themes were identified as ways of coping: (i) taking time out, (ii) seeking emotional support and (iii) belief systems. Conclusion. The interaction between personal and professional life plays a major role in Singaporean nurses’ experiences of stress and coping. However, stress may be ameliorated through effective management and strong familial support. Nurses and employers are recommended to use uplifts and identify ways of coping to minimize attrition and contribute to the development of a healthy workforce.