Legal regimes for seabed hard mineral mining: Evolution at the federal and state levels

Abstract

During the last decade U.S. government and industry interest in seabed hard minerals has shifted from areas beyond national jurisdiction to those within national jurisdiction. A variety of factors—technical, economic, political, legal—are behind this trend. This article focuses on the legal aspects of federal and state efforts to encourage and regulate seabed minerals exploration activities, prospective avoidance of conflicts between seabed mining and other ocean uses, federal‐state relations in seabed minerals development, and the special situation of mineral deposits spanning the federal‐state boundary offshore.     

German government investigates anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism in Germany has a long tradition. It dates back to religious anti-Semitism many centuries ago culminating in the Holocaust. More recently, anti-Semitism was rising again in Germany. At least partly, it was encouraged by recent news reports on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This occurred at the time when a new Anti-Semitic party – the Alternative for Germany – emerged at Germany's political scene. To ascertain the prevalence of anti-Semitism, Germany's federal parliament set up an independent commission in 2012. In 2017, the commission reported its findings. This review discusses the commission's results focusing on a definition of anti-Semitism; hate crimes based on anti-Semitism; the extend of anti-Semitism in Germany's political centre; anti-Semitism in the media, social movements and racist organizations; an evaluation of anti-Semitism based on surveys and interviews; anti-Semitism in Germany's political parties; and finally, anti-Semitism of refugees and migrants. The report concludes recommendations seeking to prevent anti-Semitism.     

Are legislative frameworks in Canada and Ontario up to the task of addressing invasive alien species?

As a signatory to the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Canada has committed to prevent, control, and eradicate invasive alien species (IAS). Yet, despite developing policy on biodiversity and IAS, the federal government has been criticized for its inaction on biological invasions over the past decade. In Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, similar concerns have been raised about the provincial government’s approach to dealing with IAS. The ongoing criticism of government response suggests that an effective legislative framework to guide and coordinate action on IAS may be lacking in Canada. In this paper, we examined how well existing legislation at the federal and Ontario levels addresses IAS threats, and thus contributes to CBD commitments. We reviewed a total of 98 pieces of legislation, comprised of 55 federal acts, two federal omnibus bills, and 41 Ontario acts. Of these, 20 federal and 12 Ontario acts were found to cover IAS either intentionally or incidentally, but IAS was not the central focus of most legislation. No consistent terminology existed across legislation referring to IAS, further highlighting a lack of focus on the issue. Legislation on IAS was administered by several different ministries both federally and in Ontario, but coordination of action among agencies was not explicitly addressed in laws and regulations. While many acts provided broad powers of enforcement, most provisions were not directly linked to IAS prevention and management. In general, Canada’s legislative framework on IAS is fragmented, and this complicates the development of a coordinated approach to the problem.     

The failure of the 1976 swine influenza immunization program

The program to immunize 210 million Americans against swine flu failed. It set back the Federal government''s relations with state health agencies, private physicians, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the insurance industry. It increased mistrust of immunization programs and of government health programs in general.The well-intentioned plan had far-reaching consequences because its scope and the speed with which it was implemented were overreactions to the threat. Its size magnified every one of its faults, legal, medical and political. Organizational and scientific capacity were less than expected. Local health agencies could not administer the program with the inadequate funds from HEW and pharmaceutical companies could not produce a safe, effective children''s vaccine.Because of the urgency given the program, Congress neglected the opposition of consumer advocates and state health officials, and did not spend time trying to include immunization against childhood disease in the swine flu program.The failure illustrates the dangers of hasty decisions, of considering only direct medical costs and benefits and not social and political effects on health policy, of launching a public health program whose scientific basis is weak and whose administrative requirements are untested.     

Public versus private care: philosophy,not economics,is shaping the debate

A debate is brewing on the future of private health care within Canada''s medicare system, and even though the federal government professes its intention to defend the existing public system, the growing rightward trend of Canadian voters may mean they are willing to consider more private care. Citizens may continue to express undying support for medicare as an “untouchable” public good, says Charlotte Gray, but they are less and less willing to pay for it through taxes.     

PROFITS AND PLAGIARISM: THE CASE OF MEDICAL GHOSTWRITING

This paper focuses on medical ghostwriting in the United States. I argue that medical ghostwriting often involves plagiarism and, in those cases, can be treated as an act of research misconduct by both the federal government and research institutions. I also propose several anti‐ghostwriting measures, including: 1) journals should implement guarantor policies so that researchers may be better held accountable for their work; 2) research institutions and the federal government should explicitly prohibit medical ghostwriting and outline appropriate penalties; and 3) a publicly available database should be created to record researchers' ethics violations.     

‘… Another important group that needs more cultivation’: The council on foreign relations and the mobilization of Black Americans for interventionism, 1939–19411

This article explores the role and influence of the elite US east coast organization, the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR], on the mobilization of Black Americans for aiding the Allied war effort in 1939–41. It examines the Council's wide-ranging campaign, arguing that the CFR, through two ad hoc organizations, the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies and Fight For Freedom, mobilized blacks despite their political and economic marginality, because the rhetoric of freedom and democracy which characterized the war against Hitler brought into focus America's own racist practices. This denotes the first time that US elites recognised the foreign policy implications of domestic racism. Attempts were therefore made to mobilize blacks as part of a war campaign that also demanded domestic racial reform, prefiguring the Black-led ‘Double V’ programme of victory over racism at home and abroad.     

Black Catholicism and Black Lives Matter: the process towards joining a movement

This ethnographic study examines how Black Catholics identify with and respond to the Black Lives Matter movement. The study follows several national Black Catholic gatherings since the death of Mike Brown. Using an adaptation of Scott Hunt, Robert D. Benford, and David Snow's social movement frame analysis, I explore how Black Catholics define and construct the ongoing political issues within the Black Lives Matter movement. I discuss the conditions which contribute to Black Catholic’s participation, or lack thereof, in this social movement through the processes of diagnostic framing, prognostic framing, and motivational framing. I position the larger Black Catholic belief system within frame analysis, examine the relevance of the frames with the Black Catholic community, and analyse the frames’ timing with the Black Lives Matter cycle of protest. This research has implications for intragroup meaning making as Black Catholics start the process towards identifying with the Black Lives Matter social movement.     

The National Forum reports: Crisis? What crisis?

The National Forum on Health''s final report appears to have said what Canadians--and the federal Liberal government wanted to hear about the health care system. It called for preservation of the single-payer model and the 5 principles of the Canada Health Act, and also recommended that medicare be expanded to embrace pharmaceuticals and home care. Edmonton internist Tom Noseworthy, chair of the forum''s steering committee, said public anxiety about medicare is caused by the rapid pace of change, not its direction. However, the CMA''s Dr. Judith Kazimirski was quick to challenge Noseworthy and his criticism of those who say a crisis exists.     

A Moist Heart: Love,Politics and China's Neoliberal Transition in the Films of Jia Zhangke

The human dimension of the sweeping reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping since the late 1970s and the struggles imposed upon the country's huge marginalized population, especially on the rural and migrant working classes, are a central theme of Jia Zhangke's films. Working as an independent filmmaker within the constraints of government funding and the commercial demands of the Chinese market, Jia makes this critique poignantly and ironically through popular music. In Jia's hands, popular music turns into a political investigation and expression of the changing political economy of love, carefully yet boldly challenging mainstream ideologies and practices currently reinventing notions of Chinese identity, history and progress.     

The United States of America and Scientific Research

To gauge the current commitment to scientific research in the United States of America (US), we compared federal research funding (FRF) with the US gross domestic product (GDP) and industry research spending during the past six decades. In order to address the recent globalization of scientific research, we also focused on four key indicators of research activities: research and development (R&D) funding, total science and engineering doctoral degrees, patents, and scientific publications. We compared these indicators across three major population and economic regions: the US, the European Union (EU) and the People''s Republic of China (China) over the past decade. We discovered a number of interesting trends with direct relevance for science policy. The level of US FRF has varied between 0.2% and 0.6% of the GDP during the last six decades. Since the 1960s, the US FRF contribution has fallen from twice that of industrial research funding to roughly equal. Also, in the last two decades, the portion of the US government R&D spending devoted to research has increased. Although well below the US and the EU in overall funding, the current growth rate for R&D funding in China greatly exceeds that of both. Finally, the EU currently produces more science and engineering doctoral graduates and scientific publications than the US in absolute terms, but not per capita. This study''s aim is to facilitate a serious discussion of key questions by the research community and federal policy makers. In particular, our results raise two questions with respect to: a) the increasing globalization of science: “What role is the US playing now, and what role will it play in the future of international science?”; and b) the ability to produce beneficial innovations for society: “How will the US continue to foster its strengths?”     

Beyond Socioeconomics: Explaining Ethnic Group Differences in Parenting Through Cultural and Immigration Processes

This study examined both socioeconomic and cultural factors in explaining ethnic differences in monitoring, behavioral control, and warmth—part of a series of coordinated studies presented in this special issue. Socioeconomic variables included mother's and father's educational levels, employment status, home ownership, number of siblings in the household, and single parent status. Cultural factors included nationality or ethnicity, immigrant status of child, mother's/father's age of arrival in the United States, mother's/father's English language use with the child, child's native fluency, and cultural values for independence and interdependence. The sample consisted of 591 European American, 123 African American, 1,614 Asian American, and 597 Latino students in the ninth grade. All the ethnic minority groups were higher than European Americans on behavioral control, and Latinos were also higher than European Americans on monitoring. However, European Americans were higher on parental warmth than Asian Americans and African Americans. These ethnic group differences primarily remained even after controlling for the socioeconomic factors. Finally, in analyses looking within the Asian and Latino groups, differences in parenting were found within both groups due to nationality or ethnicity, youth's fluency in the native language, and cultural values of interdependence, although values of independence were also related to the parenting of Asian Americans.     

How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta

ABSTRACT   There has been a growing interest in anthropology regarding how certain political conditions set the stage for "articulations" between indigenous movements and environmental actors and discourses. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how these same conditions can suppress demands for indigenous rights. In this article, I argue that the pairing of neoliberalism and multiculturalism in contemporary Mexico has created political fields in which ethnic difference has been foregrounded as a way of denying certain rights to marginalized groups. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Mexico, I analyze how the arguments of a group of Cucapá for fishing rights in the Colorado Delta have been constrained within these political circumstances. I argue that cultural difference has been leveraged by the Mexican federal government and local NGOs to prevent the redistribution of environmental resources among vulnerable groups such as the Cucapá.     

Federal communication about obesity in the Dietary Guidelines and checkoff programs

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans focus on obesity prevention. They recommend increased consumption of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fish, and low-fat dairy products, within a balanced diet whose total calories have been moderately reduced. Meanwhile, other well-known and well-funded federally sponsored consumer communications promote increased total consumption of beef, pork, and dairy products, including energy dense foods such as bacon cheeseburgers, barbecue pork ribs, pizza, and butter. These latter communications are sponsored by the federal government's commodity promotion programs, known as "checkoff" programs. The programs are established by Congress, approved by a majority of the commodity's producers, managed jointly by a producer board and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and funded through a tax on the producers. The federal government enforces the collection of more than 600 million US dollars annually in mandatory assessments, approves the advertising and marketing programs, and defends checkoff communication in court as the federal government's own message-in legal jargon, as its own "government speech." Federal support for promoting fruits and vegetables is small by comparison. The checkoff programs recently have become more clearly identified as federal programs. After a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the checkoff programs, calls for consistency with the Dietary Guidelines may get louder. The current inconsistencies in federal communication undermine the effectiveness of the Dietary Guidelines as an antidote to the shortcomings of the private sector market for information about weight and obesity.     

Minorities policy in the post‐Soviet republics: The case of the Gagauzi

This article explores the obstacles to crafting comprehensive policies for ethnic minorities within the Soviet successor states. It focuses on a case that has been viewed as a model for the peaceful resolution of ethnic conflict in the region: Moldova's devolution of power to its small Gagauz (Christian Turkic) minority. The relationship between the Moldovan government and the Gagauzi reached its nadir in 1990, when Moldovan volunteer forces and Gagauz irregulars stood at the brink of all‐out civil war over the issue of a separate Gagauz political entity. Since then, however, Moldova has created a special administrative unit known as Gagauz Yeri ('the Gagauz land'). In contrast to other ethno‐territorial disputes in the former Soviet Union, the Gagauz case has illustrated that a range of policy options exists between the extremes of maintaining a highly centralized, unitary state structure and the devolution of authority to loosely related confederative units.     

Engaging with the past: how #BlackLivesMatter points us to our predecessors and calls us to hope

This paper focuses on the contributions of Chris Lebron's book The Making of Black Lives Matter: The History of an Idea. Specifically, I examine his discussion of James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Audre Lorde and their opinions about love for their community, black self-actualization, and black liberation. I consider whether or not rage should play a role in our opinions about the #BlackLivesMatter movement and discuss whether or not it hurts the pursuit of freedom. I agree with the importance to look to the past in order to inform our political behaviour moving forward. Nonetheless, if we are to align with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we must be willing to challenge what is often considered to be “proper” dissent. The review concludes with hypotheses about what black Americans should do as we work to reimagine a society where oppression is not integral to the maintenance of the American project.     

APEC at the Museum of Anthropology: The Politics of Site and the Poetics of Sight Bite

This paper examines the light shed on processes of globalization and local empowerment by the contestatory events that ensued when the Canadian government appropriated the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology to be the site of the 1997 prime ministerial meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Community. In its determination to assert its traditional ownership of the museum's site the local Musqueam band came into conflict with government officials, intent on presenting a settler narrative of Canadian nationhood to its trading partners. The official spectacle that was staged in the museum by the government is compared with Musqueam's self-presentation to reveal the persistence of stereotypes and the existence of competing historical narratives that accompany and compromise projects of decolonization within the museum community.     

Uncle Sam's diet sensation: MyPyramid--an overview and commentary

MyPyramid symbolizes the federal nutrition policy, the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, replacing the 1992 Food Guide Pyramid. This Internet-based educational tool, available at http://MyPyramid.gov , provides general guidance for food selection from 5 food groups (grains, vegetables, fruit, milk, meat and beans). Additionally, MyPyramid addresses the obesity crisis by placing a strong emphasis on reducing calorie consumption and increasing physical activity. Although some experts praise this new, interactive pyramid, many believe that the government missed an opportunity to direct Americans toward healthier diets. Furthermore, the information available at MyPyramid.gov is not likely to be accessed by the populations that need it most: the underprivileged. Because obesity prevention programs structured only to educate and inform have generally been unsuccessful, the federal government must take the next step and revise agriculture policies and programs to promote healthy eating.     

Race and Ethnic Differences in Religious Involvement: African Americans, Caribbean Blacks and Non-Hispanic Whites

This study examined differences in religious participation and spirituality among African Americans, Caribbean Blacks (Black Caribbeans) and non-Hispanic Whites. Data are taken from the National Survey of American Life, a nationally representative study of African Americans, Black Caribbeans and non-Hispanic Whites. Selected measures of organizational, nonorganizational and subjective religious participation were examined. African American and Caribbean Blacks were largely similar in their reports of religious involvement; both groups generally indicated higher levels of religious participation than non-Hispanic Whites. African Americans were more likely than Black Caribbeans to be official members of their places of worship, engage in activities (choirs, church clubs) at their place of worship and request prayer from others. Black Caribbeans reported reading religious materials more frequently than African Americans. The discussion notes the importance of examining ethnic differences within the black American population of the United States.