Hasil untuk "Law of nations"

James C. Beaufils

First Nations children remain dramatically over-represented in Australia’s Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) system, particularly in New South Wales (NSW), which continues to report the highest numbers nationally. This narrative review, grounded in a relational First Nations Standpoint Theory and decolonising research paradigms, to critically examine the systemic, structural, and historical factors contributing to these disproportionalities. Drawing on interdisciplinary evidence across law, criminology, education, health, governance studies, and public policy, the analysis centres Indigenous-authored scholarship and contemporary empirical literature, including grey literature, inquiries, and community-led reports. Findings reveal that the OOHC system reproduces the colonial logics that historically drove the Stolen Generations. Macro-level structural drivers—including systemic racism, Indigenous data injustice, entrenched poverty and deprivation, intergenerational trauma, and Westernised governance frameworks—continue to shape child protection policies and practices. Micro-level drivers such as parental supports, mental health distress, substance misuse, family violence, and the criminalisation of children in care (“crossover children”) must be understood as direct consequences of structural inequality rather than as isolated individual risk factors. Current placement and permanency orders in NSW further compound cultural disconnection, with ongoing failures to implement the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP). Contemporary cultural rights and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) frameworks highlight the urgency of restoring Indigenous authority in decision-making processes. The literature consistently demonstrates that cultural continuity, kinship networks, and ACCO-led models are sort to produce stronger long-term outcomes for children. The review concludes that genuine transformation requires a systemic shift toward Indigenous-led governance, community-controlled service delivery, data sovereignty, and legislative reform that embeds cultural rights and self-determination. Without acknowledging the structural drivers and redistributing genuine power and authority, the state risks perpetuating a cycle of removal that mirrors earlier assimilationist policies. Strengthening First Peoples governance and cultural authority is therefore essential to creating pathways for First Nations children to live safely, remain connected to family and kin, and thrive in culture.

Amin Ahmadpour, Seyedeh Mahboobeh Jafari, Fatemeh Sarraf

This study investigates the impact of economic sanctions on tax evasion facilitated through Related-Party Transactions (RPTs) in Iran. Utilizing a novel hybrid framework that integrates graph mining, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and advanced fuzzy metaheuristic optimization, we analyze financial data from 1,780 companies (2016-2020). Graph mining is employed to map and detect suspicious transaction networks, particularly those involving Free Trade Zones (FTZs). A sanctions intensity index is constructed using PCA from 10 macroeconomic variables. The core predictive modeling leverages a Jaguar-optimized Type-3 Sheffer-like Type-4 fuzzy logic system to handle data uncertainty and non-linear relationships. Results indicate that sanctions exacerbate RPT-based tax evasion, increasing its magnitude from 0.389% to 0.414%. The proposed Jaguar model demonstrated superior performance with 98.8% accuracy (MSFE: 0.012), significantly outperforming traditional detection methods. Post-sanctions network topology analysis revealed a marked increase in suspicious clusters and nodes, with prevalent evasion patterns including multi-layer transfer pricing and abnormal profitability in FTZ subsidiaries. This research offers a robust, scalable tool for tax authorities to prioritize audits and enhances the understanding of how macroeconomic shocks influence illicit financial behaviors within corporate networks.IntroductionEconomic sanctions are coercive measures imposed by states to restrict international activities of target nations, offering a lower-risk alternative to military conflict (Cordesman et al., 2011). Iran exemplifies this, facing escalating sanctions that incentivize tax evasion through Related-Party Transactions (RPTs). Under sanctions, firms exploit legal gaps and accrual accounting to manipulate profits (Abeysekera, 2003; Arabi et al., 2018), transforming Iran’s financial market into a complex network (Soleimani et al., 2014). Traditional analytical methods fail against such complexity, while metaheuristic models excel. Graph mining uniquely uncovers hidden dimensions in sanctioned markets by analyzing network structures and variable relationships (Hu et al., 2022), especially where information asymmetry impedes tax authorities (Iacovacci & Lacasa, 2019; Yang & Xu, 2024).RPTs occur in nested networks with non-linear relationships (e.g., shared boards, cross-ownership) (Ruan et al., 2019). Sanctions amplify complexity through layered tactics like free trade zones (FTZs) and multi-layer transfer pricing (e.g., sequential sales at non-arm’s length prices) (Chan et al., 2016; Tian et al., 2016). Non-disclosure of ~68% key RPT information (e.g., pricing logic) exacerbates tax avoidance (Barokah, 2013), enabling profit shifting to foreign affiliates and eroding tax bases (Yang & Xu, 2024).Although RPTs can be economically justified (Gordon et al., 2004a), they risk abuse for private gain (Djankov et al., 2008; Barokah, 2013). In Iran, firms use subsidiaries in FTZs (e.g., Kish, Chabahar) and transfer pricing under Article 132-T of Iran’s Direct Taxation Law to shift profits: e.g., selling goods below market to affiliates, which then export at global prices, registering profits offshore. Weak oversight and fragmented databases hinder monitoring, but Iran’s Taxpayers’ Integrated System (TIS) provides foundational data for analysis.This study proposes a novel framework combining graph mining (to detect high-risk FTZ firms) and Type-3 Sheffer-like Type-4 fuzzy logic (to model tax data uncertainty) optimized by the Jaguar metaheuristic algorithm. It identifies suspicious groups exhibiting structural (e.g., nested ownership) and behavioral (e.g., abnormal pricing) tax evasion patterns, aligning with Iran’s Comprehensive Tax Plan for risk-based audits.Research Questions:Do economic sanctions increase RPT-based tax evasion?How can advanced data analytics identify and model these hidden patterns? Theoretical Framework2.1. Related-Party Transactions (RPTs)Per Iranian Accounting Standard 12 (Audit Organization, 2020), RPTs involve entities with control/influence over financial decisions. Key groups include:Parent/subsidiary entities under shared control.Key management personnel and relatives.Entities with significant economic/management ties.Two theoretical perspectives exist:- Agency Theory:RPTs enable opportunism by insiders (Jensen & Meckling, 1976), e.g., underpriced asset sales (Cheung et al., 2006).- Efficiency View: RPTs reduce transaction costs (Gordon et al., 2004a) but require disclosure to mitigate information asymmetry (Kohlbeck & Mayhew, 2010).Empirical evidence confirms RPTs facilitate tax avoidance via transfer pricing (Harris et al., 1993; Jian & Wong, 2010), especially in low-tax jurisdictions (Barker et al., 2016).2.2. Sanctions’ Economic ImpactSanctions restrict input access, raise production costs (Parsa et al., 2013), contract import-reliant sectors (Caetano et al., 2023), and reduce total factor productivity (Nosratabadi, 2023). They incentivize shifting activities to the informal economy, causing technical inefficiency (Markus, 2024). Methodology3.1. Data & Variables- Dependent Variable: Tax evasion, measured by the tax gap (difference between declared and final tax) per OECD standards (Slemrod & Weber, 2012).- Independent Variable: RPT volume (Iranian Accounting Standard 12).- Moderator: Sanctions index (PCA-derived from 10 macroeconomic variables, Table 1).Data: 16,756 RPTs from 1,780 Iranian firms (2016–2020), including:523 firms in FTZs (zero tax rate under Article 132-T).1,257 non-FTZ firms with shared boards.Financial data (net sales, COGS, operating profit) sourced confidentially from Iran’s National Tax Administration (INTA).3.2. Integrated FrameworkGraph Mining:Construct transaction networks (nodes = firms; edges = RPTs weighted by price deviation).Identify high-risk clusters(e.g., firms in FTZs with below-market pricing).PCA for Sanctions Index:- Combine 10 macroeconomic variables (e.g., oil exports, currency volatility) into a unified index.- 2 principal components explain 85% variance (Table 1, Chart 3). Fuzzy Metaheuristic Optimization:- Apply Type-3 Sheffer-like Type-4 fuzzy logic to model data uncertainty (e.g., transfer pricing discrepancies).- Optimize via Jaguar algorithm (multi-objective: minimize prediction error [MSFE], maximize detection accuracy).- Output: Dynamic risk index (transaction volume, price deviation, geographic concentration). Results & Discussion- The analysis confirmed that sanctions significantly intensified RPT-based tax evasion, elevating its level from 0.389% (pre-sanctions) to 0.414% (post-sanctions). This 0.025% increase, though seemingly small, represents a substantial rise in hidden economic activity within the constrained environment.- The Jaguar model achieved 98.8% accuracy (error rate: 0.012), outperforming traditional methods (40% vs. 74.6% detection rate).- Graph analysis revealed post-sanctions topological shifts: increased suspicious nodes/clusters (Chart 4).- Key evasion patterns:- Multi-layer transfer pricing (e.g., mother → FTZ subsidiary → export).- Abnormal profitability in FTZ subsidiaries.- Geographic concentration in low-tax areas. Conclusion & Policy Implications5.1. Key FindingsSanctions intensify RPT-based tax evasion by incentivizing complex, hidden transaction networks. The integrated graph-fuzzy-jaguar framework proves superior to linear models in detecting evasion under data uncertainty.5.2. Innovations- First application of Type-3 fuzzy logic in taxation.- Dynamic risk index for audit prioritization.- Operational compatibility with INTA’s existing systems (e.g., TIS).5.3. Recommendations- To INTA:Integrating the model into a blockchain-based real-time monitoring platform and Develop an AI dashboard with risk-tiered visualization (green/yellow/red).- Domestic Policy: Mandating disclosure of transfer pricing logic and topological RPT networks and establishing a National Networked Data Analysis Center.- International Cooperation:Leveraging double-taxation agreements for cross-border data exchange.- Future Research: Extending the model to multinational contexts and designing "tax resilience indices" for sanction-affected economies.

Y. T. Albert Law

One-loop $S^{d+1}$ path integrals were shown to factorize into two parts: a bulk thermal ideal gas partition function in a $dS_{d+1}$ static patch and an edge partition function associated with degrees of freedom living on $S^{d-1}$. Here, we analyze the $\mathfrak{so}(d)$ structure of the edge partition functions for massive and massless totally symmetric tensors of arbitrary rank in any $d\geq 3$. For linearized Einstein gravity on $S^{d+1}$, we find that the edge partition function receives contributions from shift-symmetric vector and scalar fields on $S^{d-1}$, suggesting a possible interpretation in terms of an embedded $S^{d-1}$ brane.

Satinder Bal Gupta, Monika Guptab

The National Academic Depository of India is a distinctive, novel and progressive step visualized by Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt. of India towards maintaining a database to hold the academic awards issued by Educational Institutions in an electronic and digital form. NAD promises to abolish the difficulties / inefficiencies of collecting, maintaining, and presenting physical paper certificates that can be easily copied / created and the verification processes which are costly, time consuming and disorganized. The depository can eradicate the need to store academic awards in physical form. It can verify the awards issued by different Institutions to the students in an easy way. The secure digital depository is a good proposal to do away with fake and forged certificates. The concept of academic depository is identical to the concept of financial securities. The pilot project is successfully completed with the help of Central Board of Secondary Education and some universities. In order to become fully functional, the depository has to conquer a few challenges with respect to academic diversities in terms of duration of courses and equivalence. National Academic Depository is a revolutionary effort towards the vision of Digital India.

Iya Dehtyarova, Volodymyr Moroz

It has been established that international legal countermeasures against corruption are carried out at three levels: global (by the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank, etc.); regional integration (Council of Europe, European Union, other integration associations); bilateral intergovernmental and interagency cooperation. There is no coordination of directions and means of combating corruption between them. Therefore, international anti-corruption activities at all three levels developed not only in different directions, but also in many ways spontaneously. It has been proven that the wide participation of international organizations in the fight against corruption and the variety of anti-corruption legal means used by them contribute to the concentration and coordination of the efforts of states in the fight against corruption. Another positive effect of the acts of international organizations is also noted: drawing the attention of civil society to the tasks of combating corruption, they significantly strengthen the potential for their full solution. On the other hand, the variety of subjects and legal forms of international legal anti-corruption often create legal conflicts between acts operating in this area. Such collisions create, for example, different approaches to defining the concept of corruption. It is noted that the concepts of designing anti-corruption acts, based on the ideas and methods of system design of complex technological processes and objects, are more and more widely used in the law-making practice of international organizations and states of the modern world. Their influence on the legal regulation of social relations is increasing, confirming that at the current stage of socio-economic, technological, informational development, the complication of social relations, the rapid increase in their quantitative parameters and indicators, the growing danger of man-made and natural disasters, the introduction of system design becomes impossible. It is gradually displacing the maximally ineffective under such conditions practices of «industry», «fragmentary», «point», «situational» legal regulation. It has been established that the systematic design of anti-corruption acts primarily involves conducting comprehensive studies of law-making initiatives. In the course of such studies, all factors that may affect the intended sphere (object) of legal regulation must be analyzed; the opinions, positions, and evaluations of not only regulatory and control-supervisory state bodies, but also potential participants in the projected legal relations should be taken into account.

Lina Uribe Henao

Marcielly Büttner, Roberto Tessis Rodrigues

As redes sociais ressignificam a participação continuada no campo digital. Em uma perspectiva, ampliam esse envolvimento, em outra, apresentam uma série de riscos ao indivíduo e à sociedade. Diante desse cenário, o presente artigo tem por objetivo analisar a regulação das redes sociais digitais à luz da sustentabilidade como de qualquer regulamentação pertinente ao tema. Para tanto, adota-se metodologia analítico-descritiva, faz-se uso de pesquisa de natureza bibliográfica, compreendendo doutrina nacional e internacional, assim como a análise de caso Oversight Board da Meta. Primeiramente, discute-se as redes sociais, analisando suas dimensões sociais, econômicas e culturais. Ato contínuo, explora-se o conceito de regulação sustentável. Na sequência, estuda-se o caso Oversight Board da Meta. Por fim, trata-se do cenário regulatório no Brasil. Nas considerações finais, pondera-se pela urgência da interação dinâmica entre sustentabilidade, inovação e novas tecnologias por meio de uma abordagem integrada e colaborativa.

Alex Bellon, Miro Haller, Andrey Labunets et al.

Government investigatory and surveillance powers are important tools for examining crime and protecting public safety. However, since these tools must be employed in secret, it can be challenging to identify abuses or changes in use that could be of significant public interest. In this paper, we evaluate this phenomenon in the context of National Security Letters (NSLs). NSLs are a form of legal process that empowers parts of the United States federal government to request certain pieces of information for national security purposes. After initial concerns about the lack of public oversight, Congress worked to increase transparency by mandating government agencies to publish aggregated statistics on the NSL usage and by allowing the private sector to report information on NSLs in transparency reports. The implicit goal is that these transparency mechanisms should deter large-scale abuse by making it visible. We evaluate how well these mechanisms work by carefully analyzing the full range of publicly available data related to NSL use. Our findings suggest that they may not lead to the desired public scrutiny as we find published information requires significant manual effort to collect and parse data due to the lack of structure and context. Moreover, we discovered mistakes (subsequently fixed after our reporting to the ODNI), which suggests a lack of active auditing. Taken together, our case study of NSLs provides insights and suggestions for the successful construction of transparency mechanisms that enable effective public auditing.

Yordan Gunawan, Qinnara Zegia Gultom, Shafirah Amarulia et al.

The research analyzes the views of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and UN Charter violations in the case of the invasion of civilian settlements in the Russia-Ukraine conflict for justice. The conflict, which took place on February 24, 2022, has raised serious concerns about violations of the UN Charter and IHL and the protection of civilians. This research collected data and information from various primary and secondary sources, including reports of international organizations, legal documents, and journal analysis. A qualitative approach was used to analyze the impact of the invasion of civilian settlements on IHL in the case of the Russia and Ukraine case. The results show that the view of IHL in the context of the invasion of civilian settlements in the Russia-Ukraine case has caused great harm to civilians, ranging from damage to homes, infrastructure, and public facilities, including casualties. It also appears that Russia has ignored the guiding principles of the UN Charter. To overcome this problem, several steps can be taken. First, there is a need to increase understanding and awareness of IHL among all parties involved in the conflict. Second, increase efforts to maintain brotherhood between nations. Third, working together to assist in humanitarian terms in the event of armed conflict, famine, and starvation. The resulting policy implications and recommendations can be used as a guide for policymakers and practitioners to improve the humanitarian protection of civilians in the future.

Y. T. Albert Law

In this short note, we review some recent progress in understanding the 1-loop corrections to the Gibbons-Hawking entropy, which amounts to studying free fields on the de Sitter static patch and the round sphere. After briefly surveying the unitary irreducible representations of the de Sitter group $SO(1,d+1)$ and their Harish-Chandra characters, we discuss the Lorentzian interpretation for the 1-loop sphere path integral for a scalar. After that we comment on how the results are modified by edge contributions for spinning fields.

Kidus Meskele, Wondemagegn Tadese

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right for every person around the world. It is recognized by the United Nations as the most important instrument in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). As with most human rights, there are limitations and restrictions on freedom of expression. Domestically, the 1995 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Constitution in its Article 29 describes the "Right of Thought, Opinion, and Expression. SubArticle 6 of Article 29 has limitations on freedom of expression through laws. Hate speech is one of the most globally recognized restraints on freedom of expression. Thus, there is intolerance and hostility among certain societal groups that is caused by the spread of hate speech and false information. In combating these, the Ethiopian parliament passed the bill: Hate Speech & Disinformation Suppression Proclamation No. 1185/2020. The goal of this paper was to investigate the legitimate grounds for restricting freedom of expression and to analyze the Ethiopian hate speech and disinformation suppression proclamation through the lens of international human rights law in order to provide knowledge on the anticipated challenges and opportunities in the proclamation's implementation. The research employed doctrinal methods. Accordingly, the study found that although the law is in conformity with the Ethiopian constitution, it does not conform to international hate speech law standards and principles. The law is necessary in Ethiopia's current situation, but it has flaws. Hence, genuine implementation by judicial bodies and non-legal means, including creating awareness among societies, is crucial in mitigating the limitations of the law.

Hassan Basari V. T., P. B. Krishna, Titus K. Mathew

We derive a unified expansion law for our universe from the first law of thermodynamics on the apparent horizon, where entropic evolution depicts the emergence of cosmic space. The derivation advances a general form for degrees of freedom on the surface and bulk, which provides a natural generalization for the expansion law proposed by Padmanabhan. The general expression for the surface degrees of freedom differs from the natural expectation, $ N_{sur }= 4S $ in the emergent gravity paradigm for general theories of gravity. The derivation also provides justification for the selection of Gibbons-Hawking temperature in the original expansion law and for the use of areal volume in the non-flat FRW universe. Since the unified expansion law exclusively depends on the form of entropy, the method is applicable to obtain the expansion law in any gravity theory without any additional ad hoc assumptions. From the general expansion law, we have obtained the expansion law corresponding to different theories of gravity like (n+1) Einstein, Gauss-Bonnet, Lovelock, and Horava-Lifshitz. We also obtained the expansion law for non-extensive entropy like Tsallis entropy from the unified expansion law.

Denise Bzyl Feitosa, Maria Lírida Calou de Araújo e Mendonça

A proteção social, importante instrumento para elevar a qualidade de vida das pessoas, é base de uma sociedade democraticamente forte. A garantia de realização de direitos sociais reverbera na qualidade da participação popular nos processos políticos, pois as pessoas deixam de se preocupar apenas com questões de mera sobrevivência e passam atuar efetivamente na tomada de decisões da sociedade. Embora a seguridade social demonstre relevância na ordem jurídica, o seu orçamento sofre ingerências que afetam a solvabilidade e robustez do sistema. Objetiva-se estudar a importância desse direito na formação de atores políticos de qualidade. A relevância está nas constantes propostas de maior austeridade no regramento de concessão de benefícios previdenciários e no neoliberalismo que pretende diminuir o tamanho do Estado, o que pode gerar menor cobertura social e diminuição dos índices de qualidade de vida da população, afetando de sobremaneira a participação popular na política. Numa pesquisa doutrinária, foram analisados pensamentos dos juristas a respeito dessa relação entre direitos de seguridade e democracia e se o tratamento desfavorecido conferido a esses direitos reflete na arrecadação. Conclui-se pelo desvirtuamento do tratamento do direito à seguridade social na ordem jurídica, com consequente reflexo nas ingerências sofridas pelo seu orçamento, enfraquecendo a democracia.

V. L. Tolstykh

INTRODUCTION. The concept of nationality of an aircraft is borrowed from the law of the sea; it is currently enshrined in the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944. Registration performs several functions: firstly, it allows the identification of an aircraft; secondly, it implies the obligation of the state of registration to control its operation; thirdly, it implies the responsibility of the state of registration in the event of failure to exercise such control.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The research was done on the basis of the Chicago Convention of 1944, Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment 2001, Protocol on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment 2001, acts of Russian legislation and acts of offshore legislation, primarily Air Navigation Order 2013. The research involved historical method, methods of formal logic and comparative legal method. The main objective was to develop proposals aimed at increasing the attractiveness of the Russian registry.RESEARCH RESULTS. The Russian registration system has several shortcomings: lack of a codified act; presence of two authorities with overlapping competencies (the Interstate Aviation Committee and the Federal Air Transport Agency); high customs duties on the import of certain types of aircrafts. To this should be added the shortcomings relating to the organization of the registration process: a high degree of its bureaucratization, lengthiness, shortage of qualified specialists, etc. The registration of an aircraft in offshore, on the contrary, implies a number of advantages: speed and “friendliness”, confidentiality of beneficiary data, absence of VAT and customs duties, quality of airworthiness control.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The problem can be resolved imperatively – by fixing the strict obligation of airlines to register aircraft in the domestic registry under the threat of non-issuance or revocation of the operator’s certificate. If, however, this registry does not meet international standards, this measure will adversely affect the development of the aviation sector and the safety of transport. In this regard, the creation of a transparent, holistic and efficient registration system meets the interests of the state no less than the interests of airlines. With regard to the Russian Federation, achieving this goal involves completing a number of tactical tasks, aimed at simplifying formalities, ensuring recognition of the Russian registration system and stimulating trade turnover.

Emile Kok-Kheng Yeoh

A week after an estimated 1.03 million people marched on 9th June 2019 to protest against the introduction of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill by the Hong Kong government which triggered the fear that the bill if enacted would subject Hong Kong residents and visitors to the jurisdiction and legal system of mainland China, thereby undermining the region’s autonomy and Hong Kong people’s civil liberties, on 16th June 2019 up to approximately two million people, i.e. approaching 30 per cent of Hong Kong’s population, again took to the streets in Hong Kong to further the protest and to voice anger towards the perceived excessive use of force by the police on 12th June when protesters gathered outside the Legislative Council Complex to stall the bill’s second reading. Though the extradition bill was suspended on 15th June and finally withdrawn on 23rd October, the protests have by then morphed into a broader-purpose movement including demand for the introduction of universal suffrage for election of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive, one of the five demands on which the government has continued to refuse to concede other than the bill withdrawal. “They want freedom the same way we wanted it,” so said the Lithuanian supporters of Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill 2019 (Anti-ELAB) protests as tens of thousands of protesters formed the “Hong Kong Way” human chains across Hong Kong on 23rd August 2019 at the 30th anniversary of the 1989 “Baltic Way” when 2 million people in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia held hands to form a thousand-and-hundred-mile human chain spanning the three nations in their valiant struggle for democracy and freedom from the Soviet Communist yoke. While the element of regaining independence from the Soviet Union that re-occupied them after the defeat of their German Nazi occupiers at the end of World War II bears little similarity to the practical reality of the case of Hong Kong, free thought and free speech and related political freedom and civil liberties are international ideals, sans borders, and the struggle against political persecution of dissent and human rights infringement is also transborder, and it has to be recognised as such, despite the efforts of autocratic, repressive regimes to discredit this international link by resorting to exclusionist ethnonationalism.

Ditaba Petrus Rantsane

This article seeks to trace the historical origin of arbitration as it is currently practised in South Africa. The resort to alternative dispute resolution methods has existed since time immemorial. The practice of arbitration was identified in the Bible when it was practised by King Solomon. South African traditional communities practised arbitration before the arrival of Western nations in South Africa, who brought with them their norms and practices. The community entrusted the responsibility of resolving disputes amicably to the headman, the Chief or the King. The practice of traditional alternative disputes resolution was disrupted by colonialism, which introduced Roman-Dutch law and subsequently English law influences. The aim of the parties under both Roman-Dutch law and English law was to steer their disputes away from courtrooms with their rigid rules and procedures. Hence the resort to arbitration. Through the passage of time, the parties lost respect for arbitration. Judicial intervention became a necessary tool to enforce the agreement to arbitrate or the subsequent award. A concern was raised in some quarters regarding the South African arbitration legislation that stagnated in 1965 when it was enacted. The sophisticated legal system and the impartial and independent judiciary, provided a strong support to arbitration and its autonomy. The firm judicial support did not detract from the necessity for a complete overhaul of the arbitration prescript, which might position South Africa as the hub of commercial arbitration in Africa and globally. The enactment of the International Arbitration Act, 2017 marked a great milestone towards achieving that goal. Arbitration is embedded in the fabric of South African commercial dispute resolution.

Y. T. Albert Law

We study the manifestly covariant and local 1-loop path integrals on $S^{d+1}$ for general massive, shift-symmetric and (partially) massless totally symmetric tensor fields of arbitrary spin $s\geq 0$ in any dimensions $d\geq 2$. After reviewing the cases of massless fields with spin $s=1,2$, we provide a detailed derivation for path integrals of massless fields of arbitrary integer spins $s\geq 1$. Following the standard procedure of Wick-rotating the negative conformal modes, we find a higher spin analog of Polchinski's phase for any integer spin $s\geq 2$. The derivations for low-spin ($s=0,1,2$) massive, shift-symmetric and partially massless fields are also carried out explicitly. Finally, we provide general prescriptions for general massive and shift-symmetric fields of arbitrary integer spins and partially massless fields of arbitrary integer spins and depths.

Josh Bullock, Justin E. Lane, Igor Mikloušić et al.

Europe's contemporary political landscape has been shaped by massive shifts in recent decades caused by geopolitical upheavals such as Brexit and now, COVID-19. The way in which policy makers respond to the current pandemic could have large effects on how the world looks after the pandemic subsides. We aim to investigate complex questions post COVID-19 around the relationships and intersections concerning nationalism, religiosity, and anti-immigrant sentiment from a socio-cognitive perspective by applying a mixed-method approach (survey and modelling); in a context where unprecedented contagion threats have caused huge instability. There are still significant gaps in the scholarly literature on populism and nationalism. In particular, there is a lack of attention to the role of evolved human psychology in responding to persistent threats, which can fall into four broad categories in the literature: predation (threats to one's life via being eaten or killed in some other way), contagion (threats to one's life via physical infection), natural (threats to one's life via natural disasters), and social (threats to one's life by destroying social standing). These threats have been discussed in light of their effects on religion and other forms of behaviour, but they have not been employed to study nationalist and populist behaviours. In what follows, two studies are presented that begin to fill this gap in the literature. The first is a survey used to inform our theoretical framework and explore the different possible relationships in an online sample. The second is a study of a computer simulation. Both studies (completed in 2020) found very clear effects among the relevant variables, enabling us to identify trends that require further explanation and research as we move toward models that can adequately inform policy discussions.

Jorge E. Traslosheros

En este artículo se analizan los “estatutos, avisos e ordenanzas” elaborados por los obispos fundadores de la Iglesia en México: don fray Juan de Zumárraga, don Vasco de Quiroga y don Juan López de Zárate. Este documento fue resultado de la reunión que sostuvieron en 1539 para ordenar la vida de la naciente Iglesia Católica de la Nueva España. El autor sostiene que el derecho canónico y los instrumentos de justicia, principalmente la audiencia episcopal, fueron considerados medios estratégicos en el proceso de evangelización. En esta lógica, nos propone la indisoluble relación entre el tiempo del kerigma, que se identifica en el primer anuncio del Evangelio y cuando sea necesario para comunicarlo, con el tiempo de cronos que refiere a la formación de las instituciones que garantizan la permanencia y desarrollo de la Iglesia.

A. Michels, A. Malyeyev, I. Titov et al.

Small-angle scattering of x-rays and neutrons is a routine method for the determination of nanoparticle sizes. The so-called Guinier law represents the low-q approximation for the small-angle scattering curve from an assembly of particles. The Guinier law has originally been derived for nonmagnetic particle-matrix-type systems, and it is successfully employed for the estimation of particle sizes in various scientific domains (e.g., soft matter physics, biology, colloidal chemistry, materials science). An important prerequisite for it to apply is the presence of a discontinuous interface separating particles and matrix. Here, we introduce the Guinier law for the case of magnetic small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and experimentally demonstrate its applicability for the example of nanocrystalline cobalt. It is well-known that the magnetic microstructure of nanocrystalline ferromagnets is highly nonuniform on the nanometer length scale and characterized by a spectrum of continuously varying long-wavelength magnetization fluctuations, i.e., these systems do not manifest sharp interfaces in their magnetization profile. The magnetic Guinier radius depends on the applied magnetic field, on the magnetic interactions (exchange, magnetostatics), and on the magnetic anisotropy-field radius, which characterizes the size over which the magnetic anisotropy field is coherently aligned into the same direction. In contrast to the nonmagnetic conventional Guinier law, the magnetic version can be applied to fully dense random-anisotropy-type ferromagnets.