The EU’s Biopolitical Governance of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products

This paper focuses on the specific example of the newly operational Regulation on Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products to explore the potential for biopolitics, an arena in which biocitizens can demand and contest the exercise of EU power over life. The paper shows how the discourses producing, organizing and orchestrating citizen participation in the EU’s governance of advanced therapies from above figure a ‘deficit model’ of citizens in need of education inter alia through their membership of patients’ associations who have membership of the Committee on Advanced Therapies established by the Regulation. Biocitizens are shown to be incorporated to service the EU’s legitimacy needs. The paper then warns against assuming biocitizens’ (self-) reflexivity ensures they do not reiterate and reinforce their construction within the ‘deficit model’ by unwittingly deploying the terms of their subjection. After which the paper highlights some elements that provide a rhetorical and operational opening for participation, and which therefore can be used by biocitizens to reconstruct their engagement with EU governance from below, the wider governance of advanced therapies, as well as in their self-governance.

On How to Build a Positive Understanding of the Child’s Right to Freedom of Expression

This article looks at the child’s right to freedom of expression under UN treaties. It defines the legal basis, the scope and the extent of the child’s right and it compares it with the adult’s right to freedom of expression. It argues that freedom of expression has both a developmental and an autonomy aspect, and that Article 12 UNCRC does a better job at encapsulating the child’s right than Article 13. It concludes that the child’s right is very much based on the positive obligations of the state, to the difference of traditional international law on freedom of expression.

And We’d Like to Thank…::Romania’s Integration into the European Union, 1989-2007

Conditionality is formally a key determinant of many non-member states’ relations with the EU. It is particularly so for states intent on membership. As the case of Romania shows, the EU’s use of conditionality is far from consistent. Relations can develop and accession take place without the requisite conditions being met. This follows from the use the EU makes of the flexibility evident in its evolving and generally vague definitions of the conditions that need to be met. Hence it was often extraneous factors over which Romania had either limited or no influence that were responsible for key developments in relations. These factors include the geopolitical and strategic interests of the EU and its member states, the actions of the Commission and the agenda-setting and constraining effects of rhetorical commitments and timetables, and the dynamics of the EU’s evolving approach to eastern enlargement.

Revisioning assessment through a children’s rights approach: implications for policy, process and practice

The linkage between the impact of assessment and compliance with children’s rights is a connection, which although seemingly obvious, is nonetheless rarely made, particularly by governments, which, as signatories to the relevant human rights treaties, have the primary responsibility for ensuring that educational practice is compatible with international children’s rights standards. While some jurisdictions are explicit about an adherence to children’s rights frameworks in general policy documentation, such a commitment rarely features when the focus is on assessment and testing. Thus, in spite of significant public and academic attention given to the consequences of assessment for children and governments committed to working within children’s rights standards, the two are rarely considered together. This paper examines the implications for the policy, process and practice of assessment in light of international human rights standards. Three key children’s rights principles and standards are used as a critical lens to examine assessment policy and practice: (1) best interests; (2) non-discrimination; and (3) participation. The paper seeks new insights into the complexities of assessment practice from the critical perspective of children’s rights and argues that such standards not only provide a convenient benchmark for developing, implementing and evaluating assessment practices, but also acknowledge the significance of assessment in the delivery of children’s rights to, in and through education more generally.

From rhetoric to reality: advancing literacy by cross-curricular means

Cross-curricularity, literacy and critical literacy are currently promoted as components of a curriculum appropriate for the 21st century. The first two in particular are prescribed elements of classroom experience in Northern Ireland, which is the immediate context of this article, but also more widely in the UK. Teachers are implementing cross-curricular and inter-disciplinary initiatives, but rhetorical imperatives can translate into superficial realities. The reasons for this are explored, as are the reasons why inter-disciplinary studies, literacy across the curriculum and critical literacy are deemed to be of significance for education at the present time. The ‘Making Science: Making News’ project is described, in which Key Stage 3 Science and English classes worked together, with input from a research scientist and a journalist, to produce articles on space science which were published in local newspapers. The outcomes of the project are discussed from the perspectives of both teachers and learners. It is argued that this project is an example of genuine inter-disciplinary activity; that it went beyond literacy skills to a deeper development of scientific discourse; and that, through its media connection, there was potential for building an ongoing awareness in pupils of critical literacy and scientific literacy.

On the ability to metaphorize: Talking trees and singing tigers in the English classroom

This article reviews and discusses how metaphor as a trope has been regarded as an essential element in rhetorical approaches to reading and to writing. In addition it considers the extent to which, while metaphor-making is a fundamental cognitive capacity, a metaphorizing habit of mind may be especially pertinent to some aspects of aesthetic activity in English and it has salience also in a multimodal environment. There is exploration of how contemporary practice in the English classroom could accommodate and consolidate the ability to metaphorize.

Regenerative Medicine and New Labour Life Science Policy: Rhetorics of Success, Narratives of Sustainability and Survival

Advances in stem cell science and tissue engineering are being turned into applications and products through a novel medical paradigm known as regenerative medicine. This paper begins by examining the vulnerabilities and risks encountered by the regenerative medicine industry during a pivotal moment in its scientific infancy: the 2000s. Under the auspices of New Labour, British medical scientists and life science innovation firms associated with regenerative medicine, received demonstrative rhetorical pledges of support, aligned with the publication of a number of government initiated reports presaged by Bioscience 2015: Improving National Health, Increasing National Wealth. The Department of Health and the Department of Trade and Industry (and its successors) held industry consultations to determine the best means by which innovative bioscience cultures might be promoted and sustained in Britain. Bioscience 2015 encapsulates the first chapter of this sustainability narrative. By 2009, the tone of this storyline had changed to one of survivability. In the second part of the paper, we explore the ministerial interpretation of the ‘bioscience discussion cycle’ that embodies this narrative of expectation, using a computer-aided content analysis programme. Our analysis notes that the ministerial interpretation of these reports has continued to place key emphasis upon the distinctive and exceptional characteristics of the life science industries, such as their ability to perpetuate innovations in regenerative medicine and the optimism this portends – even though many of the economic expectations associated with this industry have remained unfulfilled.

Textbook (non-) adoption motives, legitimizing strategies and academic field configuration

Textbooks are an integral part of structured syllabus coverage in higher education. The argument advanced in this article is that textbooks are not simply products of inscription and embodied scholarly labour for pedagogical purposes, but embedded institutional artefacts that configure entire academic subject fields. Empirically, this article shows the various ways that motives of the (non-) adoption of textbooks have field institutional configuration effects. The research contribution of our study is threefold. First, we re-theorise the textbook as an artefact that is part of the institutional work and epistemic culture of academia. Second, we empirically show that the vocabularies of motive of textbook (non-) adoption and rhetorical strategies form the basis for social action and configuration across micro, meso and macro field levels. Our final contribution is a conceptualization of the ways that textbook (non-) adoption motives ascribe meaning to the legitimating processes in the configuration of whole subject fields.

GSP+ and Human Rights::Is the EU's Approach the Right One?

Among the purposes of the EU’s GSP+ programme is to link human rights to trade incentives, with the idea of using such incentives to promote developing countries’ adoption of the values found in core human rights treaties. With the re-renewal of the GSP (and GSP+) programmes to take effect in January 2014, it is fruitful to examine their efficacy and consistency with WTO law. In this article, I argue the GSP+ programme is not only ineffective in obtaining an improvement in human rights conditions for the vast majority of the world’s population, but it is also incompatible with WTO law. A stick-based regime where human rights abuses are linked to trade sanctions is a better way to proceed. After outlining the GSP+ system, and its linkage of human rights and trade, I analyse its efficacy and WTO consistency. Having shown that it is ineffective and contrary to WTO law, I argue that trade sanctions based on a PPM distinction and/or GATT XX(a) may be the appropriate means of linking trade and human rights. The article ends with some concluding remarks on the need for the careful design of such a system.

Crisis Cartels:Non-Economic Values, the Public Interest and Institutional Considerations

This paper considers the use of non-economic considerations in Article 101(3) analysis of industrial restructuring agreements, using the Commission's Decisions in Synthetic Fibres, Stichting Baksteen, and the recent UK Dairy Initiative as examples. I argue that contra to the Commission's recent economics-based approach; there is room for non-economic considerations to be taken into account within the framework of the European Treaties. The competition law issue is whether the provisions of Article 101(3) can save such agreements.
I further argue that there is legal room for non-economic considerations to be considered in evaluating these restructuring agreements, it is not clear who the appropriate arbiter of these considerations should be given the institutional limitations of courts (which have no democratic mandate), specialised competition agencies (which may be too technocratic in focus) and legislatures (which are susceptible to capture by rent-seeking interest groups).

Inter-Agency Evidence Sharing in Competition Law Enforcement

While transnational antitrust enforcement is becoming only more common, the access to foreign-based evidence remains a considerable practical challenge. This article appraises considerations and concerns surrounding confidentiality, and looks into ways of their possible accommodation. It further identifies and critically evaluates the existing mechanisms allowing for inter-agency confidential information/ evidence sharing in competition law enforcement. The article outlines the shortcomings of the current framework and points to novel unilateral approaches. In the latter regard the focus is devoted to Australia, where the competition agency is empowered to share confidential information with foreign counterparts, also without any underlying bilateral agreement and on a non-reciprocal basis. This solution shows that a pragmatic and workable approach to inter-agency evidence sharing can be achieved.

The majority-minority conundrum in Northern Ireland::An Orange Order perspective

Researchers have argued that, depending on the framing of the Northern Ireland conflict, each group could either be a minority or a majority relative to the other. This complicates macrosocial explanations of the conflict which make specific predictions on the basis of minority or majority positions. The present paper argues that this conundrum may have arisen from the inherent variability in microidentity processes that do not fit easily with macroexplanations. In this paper the rhetoric of relative group position is analysed in political speeches delivered by leading members of an influential Protestant institution in Northern Ireland. It is apparent that minority and majority claims are not fixed but are
flexibly used to achieve local rhetorical goals. Furthermore, the speeches differ before and after the Good Friday Agreement, with a reactionary “hegemonic” Unionist position giving way to a “majority-rights power sharing” argument and a “pseudo-minority” status giving way to a “disempowered minority” argument. These results suggest a view of the Northern Ireland conflict as a struggle for “symbolic power,” i.e., the ability to flexibly define the intergroup situation to the ingroup’s advantage.

Reconstructing apology: David Cameron's Bloody Sunday apology in the press

While there is an acknowledgement in apology research that political apologies are highly mediated, the process of mediation itself has lacked scrutiny. This article suggests that the idea of reconstruction helps to understand how apologies are mediated and evaluated. David Cameron's apology for Bloody Sunday is examined to see how he constructs four aspects of apology: social actors, consequences, categorization, and reasons. The reconstruction of those aspects by British, Unionist, and Nationalist press along with reconstructions made by soldiers in an online forum are considered. Data analysis was informed by thematic analysis and discourse analysis which helped to explore key aspects of reconstruction and how elements of Cameron's apology are altered in subsequent mediated forms of the apology. These mediated reconstructions of the apology allowed their authors to evaluate the apology in different ways. Thus, in this article, it is suggested that the evaluation of the apology by different groups is preceded by a reconstruction of it in accordance with rhetorical goals. This illuminates the process of mediation and helps to understand divergent responses to political apologies.

Re-embedding economic and social constitutionalism: Normative Perspectives for the E

This chapter proposes a social re-embedding of European constitutionalism by offering a coherent interpretation of EU constitutional principles as contained in the initial articles of the Treaties and the EU’s economic and social constitution as developed by the Court of Justice. It starts from the assumption that European integration is not merely an inter-state endeavour, but also a process that affects social and economic actors, in other words societies all over Europe. It may well ultimately engender a European society – if we are prepared to conceive of a poly-centric society, consisting of diverse components from a wide range of regions, social actors and cultures. Proceeding from the assumption that constitutionalism can be a relevant notion for such a holistic approach to European integration, the chapter develops elements of European constitutionalism relating to socio-economic reality. As national constitutional law, European constitutional law is presented as necessarily incomplete. European constitutionalism will thus have to offer modes of adapting open norms to an ever changing and developing societal reality. The chapter outlines a framework for such constitutionalism which, at the same time, offers opportunities for reconciling the social and economic dimensions in the European integration project through a re-configured notion of constitutionalism.

'Pues tanto se esconde': Elusion at (inter)play in Ana Caro's El conde Partinuplés

El conde Partinuplés (first published 1653) is one of only two extant plays written by the Sevillan poet/dramatist Ana Caro Mallén de Soto (‘la décima musa sevillana’). Despite McKendrick's dismissal of the play as ‘extremely bad’, it has been the object of substantial critical scrutiny since the 1970s, impelled in great part by the production of modern editions (Luna and Delgado) and by Kaminsky's bio-biographical study (1973). Two responses have dominated: analysis of the play's imaginative reconceptualization of source material (most notably the Classical myth of Cupid and Psyche as contained in Apuleius and transmitted via the anonymous French chivalric romance Portonopeus de Blois; and more contemporary models, such as Calderón's La vida es sueño); discussions of the play from a gender/feminist perspective. There is some inevitable entanglement in these approaches, areas of ideological concurrence, but also of contradiction. This article will offer a critical synthesis of these lines of enquiry around an analysis of the play's patterns of non-identical repetition and, following Hubert's theory of ‘double movement’, will move beyond these to consider the generative and potentially transcendent nature of the interplay of inscription (text) and transcription (interpretive performance). A subversive strategy of elusion underpins this interference, a dynamic, mobile frame within which ‘envidia’ (‘celos’) functions as a prominent dramatic catalyst, directed outwards, and mobilized both as a potent catalyst for the female dramatist's artistic creativity and as an antagonistic interrogation of broader socio-cultural forms of inequality. The play's (new) marvellous versions and inversions expand the functions of the sign beyond Renaissance resemblance and repetition, challenging its promotion of unity and stable identity, and opening up an interactive space between the represented (world/product) and the representing (stage/process). The power of authorities, as figured in/through the dramatic and rhetorical devices of the play, is self-consciously precarious, but it is this very anxious articulation that challenges the very authority of power.