The climate regime, comprising the Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, contains elements of prescription for and leadership of developed countries and differentiation in favor of developing countries. The nature and extent of differentiation in favor of developing countries in the climate regime, however, has remained contentious through the years. While there is a shared understanding among states that they have common but differentiated responsibilities in addressing climate change, there is little agreement on (...) the formulae for differentiating between states in doing so. This Article argues that the outcomes of international climate negotiations in recent years, in particular the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 and the Cancun Agreements of 2010, offer a distinctive vision of differential treatment. Through these instruments, the international community appears to be moving from differentiation in favor of developing countries towards differentiation or flexibility for all countries, as well as towards increasing parallelism between developed and developing countries. The Durban Platform of 2011, which launches a new process to negotiate a post-2020 agreement, confirms this trend, setting the scene for the erosion of differential treatment in the future/post-2020 climate regime. This Article explores the nature of differentiation, as it is evolving, in the emerging climate regime, in particular as it relates to mitigation obligations, and the impact this is likely to have on the design, ambition, reach and rigor of the emerging climate regime. (shrink)

A growing epidemic of chronic illness in working populations contributes to a negative spiral of work and organizational outcomes including increased absenteeism, prolonged disability or illness claims, early work termination, and non-voluntary unemployment. Chronic illness, characterized by fluctuating trends in clinical and embodied experience along a prolonged time course, is intersubjectively experienced within a social context, and variably responded to and managed within and between organizations and countries. Drawing from global health, we discuss chronic illness experience and organizations as context (...) for chronic illness experience. We then propose a model of ‘organizational caregiving,’ highlighting how invested relational understanding, attitude, intent, and acts of care can enrich the work and organizational experiences of employees with chronic illness. (shrink)

The article advocates the importance of studying conceptual meaning and change in modern mass media and highlights the significance of conceptual intermediality. The article first analyzes anger in Hindi cinema as an audiovisual key concept within the framework of an Indian national ideology. It explores how anger and the Indian angry young man became popularized, politicized, and stereotyped by popular films and print media in India in the 1970s and 1980s. The article goes on to advocate for extending conceptual history (...) beyond language on theoretical grounds and identifies two major obstacles in political iconography: the methodological subordination of visuals to language in the negotiation of meaning, and the distinction of emotion and reason by assigning them functionally to different sign systems. (shrink)

Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)