‎101011 manuscripts: Perl and the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa‎

The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa is a twelfth-century Armenian history that survives in 43 manuscripts, held in ten libraries in eight countries. My task is to create a definitive text that is based on all of them. I will talk about the problems of medieval text editing, the ways in which Perl and phylogenetics have come to my rescue, and show a few pretty pictures of manuscripts

The closing door of climate targets

Robust evidence from a range of climate–carbon cycle models shows that the maximum warming relative to pre-industrial times caused by the emissions of carbon dioxide is nearly proportional to the total amount of emitted anthropogenic carbon (1, 2). This proportionality is a reasonable approximation for simulations covering many emissions scenarios for the time frame 1750 to 2500 (1). This linear relationship is remarkable given the different complexities of the models and the wide range of emissions scenarios considered. It has direct implications for the possibility of achieving internationally agreed climate targets such as those mentioned in the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreements (3, 4). Here I explain some of the implications of the linear relationship between peak warming and total cumulative carbon emissions.

Health literacy builds resilience among individuals and communities

Health is created in the context of everyday life, and health literacy originates in and helps shape the sociocultural context in which people live. Empowerment, equity, co-production and cultural capital have been shown to be positively associated with people’s health.

Food Security and Agri-Foreign Direct Investment in Weak States: Finding the Governance Gap to Avoid ‘Land Grab’

Food security is important. A rising world population coupled with climate change creates growing pressure on global world food supplies. States alleviate this pressure domestically by attracting agri-foreign direct investment (agri-FDI). This is a high-risk strategy for weak states: the state may gain valuable foreign currency, technology and debt-free growth; but equally, investors may fail to deliver on their commitments and exploit weak domestic legal infrastructure to ‘grab’ large areas of prime agricultural land, leaving only marginal land for domestic production. A net loss to local food security and to the national economy results. This is problematic because the state must continue to guarantee its citizens’ right to food and property. Agri-FDI needs close regulation to maximise its benefit. This article maps the multilevel system of governance covering agri-FDI. We show how this system creates asymmetric rights in favour of the investor to the detriment of the host state’s food security and how these problems might be alleviated.

The WTO and Food Security: What’s Wrong with the Rules?

The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) is the predominant multilateral legal framework governing agricultural trade. The objective of the AoA is to liberalise trade in agriculture through reductions in tariffs, domestic support and export subsidies. The AoA has not, however, ‘levelled the playing field’ and has not resulted in the equitable distribution of food, particularly for the poorer developing countries. On the other hand, support for small farmers does not ensure food security for the poor. While food security has no simple solutions such as “free trade is good for you”, reform proposals for trade rules which only address agricultural policy instruments fail to account for consumer and other interests: neither tariff reductions and subsidy disciplines, nor safeguards and other measures of producer protection can automatically increase food security. Rather, what is needed is the full and proper implementation of a number of commitments which the international community has already entered into in various human rights treaties, but which even the envisaged results of the now failed Doha Round negotiations could not ensure without revisiting relevant multilateral trade and investment rules.

Loss to follow-up of HIV-infected women after delivery: The Swiss HIV Cohort Study and the Swiss Mother and Child HIV Cohort Study.

INTRODUCTION HIV-infected pregnant women are very likely to engage in HIV medical care to prevent transmission of HIV to their newborn. After delivery, however, childcare and competing commitments might lead to disengagement from HIV care. The aim of this study was to quantify loss to follow-up (LTFU) from HIV care after delivery and to identify risk factors for LTFU. METHODS We used data on 719 pregnancies within the Swiss HIV Cohort Study from 1996 to 2012 and with information on follow-up visits available. Two LTFU events were defined: no clinical visit for >180 days and no visit for >360 days in the year after delivery. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for a LTFU event after delivery. RESULTS Median maternal age at delivery was 32 years (IQR 28-36), 357 (49%) women were black, 280 (39%) white, 56 (8%) Asian and 4% other ethnicities. One hundred and seven (15%) women reported any history of IDU. The majority (524, 73%) of women received their HIV diagnosis before pregnancy, most of those (413, 79%) had lived with diagnosed HIV longer than three years and two-thirds (342, 65%) were already on antiretroviral therapy (ART) at time of conception. Of the 181 women diagnosed during pregnancy by a screening test, 80 (44%) were diagnosed in the first trimester, 67 (37%) in the second and 34 (19%) in the third trimester. Of 357 (69%) women who had been seen in HIV medical care during three months before conception, 93% achieved an undetectable HIV viral load (VL) at delivery. Of 62 (12%) women with the last medical visit more than six months before conception, only 72% achieved an undetectable VL (p=0.001). Overall, 247 (34%) women were LTFU over 180 days in the year after delivery and 86 (12%) women were LTFU over 360 days with 43 (50%) of those women returning. Being LTFU for 180 days was significantly associated with history of intravenous drug use (aOR 1.73, 95% CI 1.09-2.77, p=0.021) and not achieving an undetectable VL at delivery (aOR 1.79, 95% CI 1.03-3.11, p=0.040) after adjusting for maternal age, ethnicity, time of HIV diagnosis and being on ART at conception. CONCLUSIONS Women with a history of IDU and women with a detectable VL at delivery were more likely to be LTFU after delivery. This is of concern regarding their own health, as well as risk for sexual partners and subsequent pregnancies. Further strategies should be developed to enhance retention in medical care beyond pregnancy.

Seals and the Need for more Deference to Vienna by WTO Adjudicators

This paper asks how World Trade Organization (WTO) panels and the Appellate Body (AB) take public international law (PIL) into account when interpreting WTO rules as a part of international economic law (IEL). Splendid isolation of the latter is not new; indeed it is intended by the negotiators of the Understanding on the Settlement of Disputes (DSU). At the same time, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) is quite clear when it provides the general rules and the supplementary means of treaty interpretation. Despite such mandatory guidance, WTO adjudicators (when given a choice and assuming they see the conflict) prefer deference to WTO law over deference to Vienna and take a dogmatic way out of interpretation quandaries. The AB and panels make abundant reference to Vienna, though less so to substantive PIL. Often times, however, they do so simply in order to buttress their findings of violations of WTO rules. Perhaps tellingly, however, none of the reports in EC – Seals contains even a single mention of VCLT, despite numerous references to international standards addressing indigenous rights and animal welfare. In the longer term, and absent a breakthrough on the negotiation front, this pattern of carefully eschewing international treaty law and using PIL just for the sake of convenience could have serious consequences for the credibility and acceptance of the multilateral trading system. Following the adage ‘negotiate or litigate’ recourse to WTO dispute settlement increases when governments are less ready to make treaty commitments commensurate with the challenges of globalisation. This is true even for ‘societal choice’ cases on the margins of classic trade disputes. We will argue here that it is precisely for cases such as these that VCLT and PIL should be used more systematically by panels and the AB. Failing that, instead of building bridges for more coherent international regulation, WTO adjudicators could burn those same bridges which the DSU interpretation margin leaves open for accomplishing their job which is to find a ‘positive solution’. Worse, judicial incoherence could return to WTO dispute settlement like a boomerang and damage the credibility and thus the level of acceptance of the multilateral trading system per se.