How Might the European Union Engage Constructively with China in the South China Sea?

The decision of the International Court of Justice in the Australia/Japan Whaling Case marks an advance in the law of the sea and the obligation on states to cooperate in common ocean resource regimes. The Court found substantially for Australia, prohibiting Japan's long-running program to capture large cetaceans in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica for scientific research. The Court's discussion of the criteria for states to design and implement scientific research whaling programs is assessed, as is the obligation for cooperation in such research and ocean research generally. The result for whaling and for the future work of the International Whaling Commission is considered.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson. The Origin and Evolution of Cultures Zohl dé Ishtar. Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law Donald Denoon. A Trial Separation: Australia and the Decolonisation of Papua New Guinea Sarah F. Green. Notes from the Balkans: Locating Marginality and Ambiguity on the Greek‐Albanian Border Holger Jebens. Pathways to Heaven: Contesting Mainline and Fundamentalist Christianity in Papua New Guinea Verena Keck. Social Discord and Bodily Disorders: Healing among the Yupno of Papua New Guinea Hotze Lont. Juggling Money: Financial Self‐help Organizations and Social Security in Yogyakarta Fiona Magowan and Karl Neuenfeldt (eds). Landscapes of Indigenous Performance: Music, Song and Dance of the Torres Strait and Arnhem Land David McKnight. Of Marriage, Violence and Sorcery: The Quest for Power in Northern Queensland B. J. Parker and L. Rodseth (eds). Untaming the Frontier in Anthropology, Archaeology and History Alexei Yurchak. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More     

The Gender of the Joke: Intimacy and Marginality in Murri Humour

ABSTRACT

Murri Aboriginal humour performances are expressive events in which bodily experiences of policing and agency are discursively commented on in ways that expose Australia's naturalised rationalisations of indigenous governance. Drawing on the ‘out-of-the-way’ position of an indigenous minority encapsulated in the body of the nation-state and the Murri body's intimate ‘out-of-the-way’ folds and crannies, Murri humour delimits and mocks the marginal location Murri people are imagined to spatially and morally occupy within Australia. This work examines how gendered humour renders the Murri individual and social body legible to and for a Murri audience. Such humour performances engage the local and the global, the modern and the traditional, and the hegemonic and the counter-hegemonic in ways that link intimacy, bodies and embodiments to these macro-processes. Unraveling such binaries produces a nuanced analysis in which embodied social actions and sly social critique are captured as they are experienced and expressed through humour.     

ICJ's Decision in Australia v. Japan: Giving up the Spear or Refining the Scientific Design?

The case Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan) decided by the International Court of Justice is a landmark that introduces new parameters for measuring the “reasonableness” of scientific research by permit under the International Convention on Whaling. However, aspects of these parameters and how they may be applied in future cases remain uncertain. Because the Court's interpretation of the language “for purposes of scientific research” avoids defining scientific research, the Court's decision provides only a limited degree of clarification for States that intend to operate scientific whaling programs under Article VIII of the Convention. The Court's reasonableness test is unlikely to prevent scientific whaling. States who no longer support the dual object and purpose of the Whaling Convention may want to consider negotiating a new international instrument that would be more protective of whales and their habitat.     

The Social Life of Rights: ‘Gender Antagonism’, Modernity and Raet in Vanuatu

In the northern Vanuatu town of Luganville a small group of men have responded to social and legal changes engendered by women's rights activists by forming a male support group called ‘Violence Against Men’. Members of this ‘backlash’ movement argue that the insidious promotion of Western‐style ‘women's rights’ is leading to discrimination against men in divorce proceedings, child custody battles, and in domestic violence and rape cases. They directly oppose recent and ongoing legal changes aimed at protecting women from domestic violence, such as Domestic Violence Protection Court Orders, and the repeatedly tabled (but long‐delayed) ‘Family Protection Bill’. Such interventions, they argue, undermine Vanuatu's ‘natural’kastom and Christian patriarchal gender order and, in doing so, pose a serious threat to the socio‐economic productivity of the nation‐state. For other men, however, rather than opposing women's rights activism, such challenges have raised questions about how men might successfully negotiate their identities in ways that are sensitive to contemporary issues of gender equality without undermining existing paradigms. Thus, this paper addresses the value accorded to universalism and relativism in gender activism in Vanuatu, and especially in terms of the linked discourses of kastom, church and modernity. It therefore explores gender relations in terms of the contemporary entanglement of indigenous and exogenous epistemologies, and in doing so argues that the contextual analysis of ‘rights’ should consider the specific historical, political and socio‐cultural circumstances in which they are put to use.     

De-indigenized but not defeated: race and resistance in Colombia's Peace Community and Campesino University

Despite the institution of multicultural policies and pluriethnic governments across Latin America, racist violence against Indigenous and Afro-descendant groups persists. Yet the racial facets of violence against non-ethnic campesinos remain unexplored. Integrating scholarship on race as a global structure and Latin American racial formations, I offer an account of racialization in Colombia. This article analyzes the racial dynamics of resistance to extractivism in Colombia's Campesino University, uniting Indigenous and campesino groups like the San José de Apartadó Peace Community. While the dominant race lexicon separates “campesinos” like San José's peasants from “Indigenous” and “Black” groups, I argue that the identifier campesino mestizo hides how San José's farmers were “de-indigenized” yet remain racialized as the less-than-human “Indigenous savage”. If racialization works to dominate but also divide the subaltern, then Campesino University participants’ cross-ethnic solidarity network against what they affirm is a shared experience of racist violence both unveils and counters racism.     

Cases Concerning Sovereignty over Islands before the International Court of Justice and the Dokdo/Takeshima Issue

The article analyzes the recent jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in relation to disputes concerning sovereignty over islands and considers the potential implications of this jurisprudence for the resolution of the Dokdo/Takeshima issue. It does so by examining the principles and rules of international law applied by the Court to the determination of title to territory, especially those concerning the question of original title and its interplay with state conduct in general (effectivités). The article also pays special attention to the different legal techniques applied by the Court in resolving each particular dispute and the Court's practical approach to dealing with questions of historical facts and other evidentiary matters in relation to small and uninhabited islands.     

Equitable maritime boundary delimitation,as exemplified in the work of the international court of justice during the presidency of sir Robert Yewdall Jennings and Beyond

The article contains a systematic survey of decisions rendered by the International Court of Justice (and its Chamber) under the presidency of Sir Robert Yewdall Jennings in three cases (Guinea Bissau v. Senegal, Gulf of Fonseca, and Denmark v. Norway,) involving equitable maritime delimitation, and in one case (East Timor) settled after Sir Robert's presidency. Distinct features, which are particularly pronounced in the landmark Denmark v. Norway Judgment, are the increased consistency and degree of predictability in the complex process of applying equity in maritime delimitation, of which Sir Robert has been a strong advocate. The important procedural aspects of the case law under Sir Robert's presidency are also analyzed. These are exemplified by the role of the Court as a partner in preventive diplomacy and by the precedential permission granted a third state to intervene as a nonparty. While highlighting the two presently pending cases (Qatar/Bahrain and Cameroon v. Nigeria), the author hopes that these settlements will significantly benefit from substantial and procedural solutions endorsed by the Court during Sir Robert's presidency.     

The Mauritian Piracy Act: A Comment on the Director of Public Prosecutions v Ali Abeoulkader Mohamed Decision

In 2011 Mauritius adopted the Piracy and Maritime Violence Act (the Act). The Act does not expressly state that Mauritian Courts have jurisdiction over offenses committed outside of Mauritius. In Director of Public Prosecutions v Ali Abeoulkader Mohamed & Ors, the Mauritian Supreme Court dealt with the issue of whether the Act applied to non-Mauritius citizens where the alleged piracy acts had been committed outside of Mauritius on the high seas. This article assesses the Supreme Court's decision and suggest ways that the Act can be strengthened.     

European stem cell research in legal shackles

Advances in stem cell biology have raised legal challenges to the patentability of stem cells and any derived technologies and processes. In 1999, Oliver Brüstle was granted a patent for the generation and therapeutic use of neural cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The patent was challenged and put before the European Court of Justice, which ruled that inventions involving the prior destruction of human embryos cannot be patented. The legal maneuvering around this case demonstrates that the future of stem cell‐based patents in Europe remains unsettled. Furthermore, owing to the European Court's broad definition of hESC as ‘any cell that is capable of commencing development into a human being,’ novel technologies that could eliminate the need for hESCs, such as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), are at risk of being included under the same ruling. Advances in the in vitro development of germ cells from pluripotent stem cells may one day provide a direct developmental path from iPSC to oocyte and sperm, and, according to the European Court's reasoning, legally equate iPSCs with human embryos. In this review, we will briefly discuss the Brüstle v Greenpeace case and the implications of the European Court of Justice's ruling. We will identify potential risks for stem cell research and future therapeutics resulting from the broad legal definition of the human embryo. Finally, we will broach the current legal landscape, as this broad definition has also created great uncertainty about the status of human iPSCs.     

Jural relations of middle‐class marriage and women as legal subjects in the imaginary of ‘new India’

In India's capital New Delhi, four Family Courts were set up between 2009 and 2012, and 12 mediation institutions known as Crime Against Women Cells (CAW cells) were established during the same period. The Indian state has also endorsed gender‐equalising family legislation, mutual‐consent divorce and introduced new language of and for mediation. Together with India's projection of a rising global economy, these recent legal changes have engendered perceptions of a dramatic upturn in formal divorce and of women as liberal legal subjects. In the anthropology of Asia, marital practices have crucially informed our comprehension of modernisation, family formations and moral panics. This article explores the impact of new forms of legal availability on marriage, family and kinship among the metropolitan middle classes. It ethnographically engages with important structural shifts reflected in the intimate lives of Hindu couples, but also foregrounds a cautious narrative of newly imagined jural relations.     

Comic woman,victim woman: Pushing gender and genre boundaries in popular Hindi Cinema

“Women's film” in Hollywood is associated both with the genre of melodrama, the “weepie”, and with female spectatorship. In the Indian context of popular Hindi cinema, first, genre analysis itself is a questionable line of inquiry since several genres, the melodrama, musical, gangster, or mystery, combine in a single film, known locally as the masala (spicy) film; and second, films are scarcely divided by a gendered viewership. Yet I identify “women's films” as a distinct category in Hindi cinema, emerging around the ‘70s. These women's films typically center on female protagonists, dramatize their victimization and vindication; by the ‘80s under a range of influences these films mutated into rape‐revenge narratives.

However, another strain emerged within the ‘70s’ “women's film,” which drew on cinema's rich visual iconographic tradition of the sight gag, promulgating the comedic/tomboy heroine figure. It favored laughing and mocking patriarchal structures rather than surrendering to them in tears. Focusing on Ramesh Sippy's Sita aur Gita [1972] emblematic of this trend I explore theoretical concerns about associating genres with gender. In keeping with recent poststructuralist theories about gender and media ‘consumption I show how the film destabilized clear‐cut gender identification and stood for a promising trend that was sadly undercut. Thus, while genre might still be a useful analytical tool for Hindi cinema, defining women's film as female‐centered narratives is a viable category as long as we appreciate the instability in gendered viewer identification.     

Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit: a roadmap for curricular innovation

The Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit: a roadmap for curricular innovation was a collaborative initiative of the American Medical Women's Association, Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health, Mayo Clinic, and Society for Women's Health Research (www.sgbmeducationsummit.com). It was held on October 18–19, 2015 to provide a unique venue for collaboration among nationally and internationally renowned experts in developing a roadmap for the incorporation of sex and gender based concepts into medical education curricula. The Summit engaged 148 in-person attendees for the 1?1/2-day program. Pre- and post-Summit surveys assessed the impact of the Summit, and workshop discussions provided a framework for informal consensus building. Sixty-one percent of attendees indicated that the Summit had increased their awareness of the importance of sex and gender specific medicine. Other comments indicate that the Summit had a significant impact for motivating a call to action among attendees and provided resources to initiate change in curricula within their home institutions. These educational efforts will help to ensure a sex and gender basis for delivery of health care in the future.     

The Admissibility of Outer Continental Shelf Delimitation Claims Before the ICJ Absent a Recommendation by the CLCS

In the 2017 Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean Case, the International Court of Justice stated that “in appropriate circumstances” maritime delimitation claims beyond 200 nm may be admitted before the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf issues a recommendation. This is a deviation from the Court's previous approach in the 2016 Nicaragua v. Colombia (Preliminary Objections) Case. This article follows the evolution of the international case law with respect to the admissibility of outer continental shelf delimitation claims absent a final and binding outer limit, and highlights the positive implications of the International Court's most recent formula.     

Reconciliation and Australian Indigenous Health in the 1990s: A Failure of Public Policy

In 1991, the Australian Commonwealth Parliament unanimously passed the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991. This Act implemented a 10-year process that aimed to reconcile Indigenous and non-Indigenous people by the end of 2000. One of the highest priorities of the reconciliation process was to address Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage, including health, education and housing. However, despite this prioritising, both the Keating Government (1991–1996) and the Howard Government (1996–2000) failed to substantially improve socio-economic outcomes for Indigenous people over the reconciliation decade. In this paper, I examine one of the most prominent socio-economic areas, that of Indigenous health. First, I discuss the appalling levels of Indigenous health throughout the reconciliation decade by analysing a number of health indicators, including life expectancy, infant mortality rate, standard mortality ratios, hospital rates and health Infrastructure. This analysis reveals significant and often worsening disadvantage in these health indicators. Second, I analyse a number of policies and programs concerning Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage that were developed by Commonwealth Governments in the 1990s. I argue that these policies and programs largely failed to address Indigenous socio-economic disadvantage. I also discuss alternative policies and programs that could reduce the significant levels of socio-economic disadvantage suffered by Indigenous people.     

Women's access to health care in Ghana: Effects of education,residence, lineage and self‐determination

Abstract

Women's physical and psychological access to health care was analyzed using the 2003 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS), a nationally representative study for monitoring population and health in Ghana. Female respondents from the 2133 cases in the couple's data set were used in this study. Women's level of education was positively related to physical but not to psychological access to health care. Residing in an urban area was positively related to both types of access. Matriliny consistently showed positive effects on physical access. In addition to these demographic factors, both physical and psychological access were positively related to women's self‐determination, i.e., women's right and ability to make real choices about their lives including their health, fertility, sexuality, childcare and all areas where women are denied autonomy and dignity in their identities as women. Self‐determination factors both mediated the effects of background factors on access and added explanatory power to the models.     

Gender sensitivity in medical curricula

Both sex--the biologic aspects of being female or male--and gender--the cultural roles and meanings ascribed to each sex--are determinants of health. Medical education, research and practice have all suffered from a lack of attention to gender and a limited awareness of the effects of the sex-role stereotypes prevalent in our society. The Women''s Health Interschool Curriculum Committee of Ontario has developed criteria for assessing the gender sensitivity of medical curricula. In this article, the effects of medicine''s historical blindness to gender are explored, as are practical approaches to creating curricula whose content, language and process are gender-sensitive. Specific areas addressed include ensuring that women and men are equally represented, when appropriate, that men are not portrayed as the prototype of normal (and women as deviant), that language is inclusive and that women''s health and illness are not limited to reproductive function. By eliminating or at least addressing the subtle and often unintentional gender stereotyping in lecture material, illustrations and problems used in problem-based learning, medical educators can undertake a much-needed transformation of curriculum.     

Thirty years of vegetation dynamics in response to a fluctuating rabbit population on sub‐Antarctic Macquarie Island

Australia's sub‐Antarctic Macquarie Island is presently undergoing one of the most ambitious vertebrate pest eradication programmes ever undertaken. The anticipated success of this programme will release the island's tundra‐like vegetation from well over a century of grazing and disturbance from House Mouse (Mus musculus), Ship Rat (Rattus rattus) and most significantly European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). This study describes results from 30 years of vegetation quadrat monitoring (prior to the most recent and comprehensive pest eradication programme) when lower level pest animal control programmes were underway. Plant species were assigned to one of five distinct functional plant groups: Indigenous short‐lived perennials, Introduced short‐lived perennials, Indigenous perennials rarely grazed by rabbits, Indigenous perennials occasionally grazed by rabbits and Indigenous long‐lived perennials heavily grazed by rabbits, with one species, Agrostis magellanica, analysed as a sixth monospecific group. Results from monthly rabbit counts were used to compare changes in abundance of these six groups under different rabbit populations. It was found that there were three distinct phases of rabbit activity during the study period, indicated by (i) an initial very high count year in 1980–1981, followed by (ii) 20 years of low counts ending in 2001–2002 after which (iii) counts rose to medium/high until the commencement of the eradication programme in 2010–2011. Vegetation composition and progression were distinct for these three rabbit count phases. The first four of the plant functional groups decreased under lower count periods and increased in cover under higher rabbit count periods. Agrostis magellanica appears to respond primarily to interspecies competition and is disadvantaged under extended periods of low rabbit numbers. Indigenous long‐lived perennials heavily grazed by rabbits, which includes the large tussocks and megaherbs, is inversely related to rabbit numbers. During the study period, there has also been an overall decline in plant species richness with average species count per quadrat falling by between 0.6 and 2.7 taxa. This study attempts to address the observed vegetation change from this long‐term monitoring, to discuss other potential contributing factors and to use the results to predict likely future vegetation changes after eradication of vertebrate pests.     

An ‘authentic’ Aboriginal product: State marketing and the self‐fashioning of Indigenous experiences to Chinese tourists

China's burgeoning outbound tourist market has become a priority for Australian tourism, with national and state tourism reports advocating for ‘China‐ready’ marketing, policy and planning and increased industry training around Chinese consumer behaviour and preferences to capitalise on this market. However, studies demonstrate that Chinese tourists are generally not interested in Indigenous tourism experiences. Nevertheless, the state of Victoria is adamant about investing in Indigenous‐themed tourism products which are considered appropriate for Chinese preferences in an attempt to attract tourists from this growing inbound market. This article presents a review of relevant state government policies relating to Indigenous tourism alongside a case study of the tourism experiences developed and provided by Gunditjmara people along the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in southwest Victoria. We demonstrate the ways that notions of ‘authenticity’ continue to shape, and constrain, Indigenous economic engagement and participation via tourism, and discuss the impact of these notions on the provision of Indigenous tourism products and experiences for Chinese and other visitors. We argue that the marketing of Gunditjmara tourism to fluctuating market demand highlights the arbitrariness of Australian governments' policies with respect to Indigenous development, and call for policymakers to focus renewed attention on the local aspirations of Indigenous entrepreneurs.     

Associations between an educational attainment polygenic score with educational attainment in an African American sample

Polygenic propensity for educational attainment has been associated with higher education attendance, academic achievement and criminal offending in predominantly European samples; however, less is known about whether this polygenic propensity is associated with these outcomes among African Americans. Using an educational attainment polygenic score (EA PGS), the present study examined whether this score was associated with post‐secondary education, academic achievement and criminal offending in an urban, African American sample. Three cohorts of participants (N = 1050; 43.9% male) were initially recruited for an elementary school‐based universal prevention trial in a Mid‐Atlantic city and followed into young adulthood. Standardized tests of reading and math achievement were administered in first grade. At age 20, participants reported on their level of education attained, and records of incarceration were obtained from Maryland's Criminal Justice Information System. In young adulthood, DNA was collected and extracted from blood or buccal swabs and genotyped. An EA PGS was created using results from a large‐scale genome‐wide association study on educational attainment. A higher EA PGS was associated with a greater log odds of post‐secondary education. The EA PGS was not associated with reading achievement, although a significant relationship was found with math achievement in the third cohort. These findings contribute to the dearth of molecular genetics work conducted in African American samples and highlight that polygenic propensity for educational attainment is associated with higher education attendance.