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Masthead, Table of Contents & Introduction
Full text linkThe short reflections in this Dalhousie Law Journal symposium, “Thinking With and Against Pierre Schlag,” run in many directions. Somewhere in these pages, readers will find knowledge, provocation, distraction, and humour. Above all, though, the collection brings together five legal scholars to celebrate Pierre’s oeuvre, reflect on the ways it has inspired their own work, and examine how Pierre’s scholarship embodies the limits that it was pushing against. Pierre has graciously provided a response to round out the issue and set us all straight
A Sustainable Seabed Mining Asset Valuation Code Framework
Full text linkSeabed mining is governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, the Mining Code, domestic laws of member states, and international law. The central tenets of seabed mining law are to develop the industry in accordance with the Common Heritage of Mankind, provide equitable sharing of financial and economic benefits derived from seabed mining activities, and protect and preserve the marine environment. Moreover, seabed mining must be developed and operated to not unduly financially harm land-based mining operations, nor should seabed mining operate at a competitive disadvantage. The International Seabed Authority ( ISA ) regulates mining in the Area, defined as the ocean area beyond national jurisdiction. Land-based mineral valuation codes help value minerals fairly, consistently and accurately and provide for the public disclosure of this information to investors. Securities regulators in Canada, the United States, Australia, and several other jurisdictions require valuations based on these mineral asset valuation codes. However, terrestrial mineral valuation code research shows gaps in incorporating environmental, social, and governance factors into financial valuations. The ISA has recommendations on mineral reserves but has not undertaken the work to transform these recommendations into a valuation code. Seabed mining contractors do not need to disclose financial information to the public. This thesis thus answers the following questions: • How might the legal framework for deep-seabed mining finance in the international seabed area be envisioned to enable an environmentally and socially sustainable industry for the low-carbon world? • How does the law shape the financing of seabed mining such that a mineral asset valuation code could be developed to assist contractors with the sustainable exploitation of minerals found on the seabed? This dissertation recommends the ISA develop a sustainable seabed mining asset valuation code, incorporating environmental and social factors into financial valuations. Sustainable development law informs which environmental and social factors to include in such a code. This seabed mining valuation code could apply to all contractors and mining operators, regardless of how they are formed, owned or legally structured. The dissertation develops ten (10) \u27principles\u27 that must be addressed in such a seabed valuation code. These principles include the necessity of valuing equitable sharing and the common heritage of mankind, valuing seabed minerals and cash flows more accurately, valuing nature and the circular economy, valuing social equality, publicly disclosing valuations, standardizing valuations to avoid regulatory capture, integrating valuations into all financial arrangements, ensuring data requirements are sufficient, allowing regional approaches, and revising terrestrial mining codes to integrate environmental and social valuations better. This code would ensure that mineral valuations are accurate, consistent and comparable with their land-based mining counterparts
Using Social Media as a Tool to Inform Person-Centred Justice
Full text linkMany leading access to justice organizations recognize the importance of including the public’s perspective within programming and policy development. One key question underlying this approach is, how can organizations learn about the public’s experience with legal problems and the law? Noting that conversations about legal problems provide evidence of such experiences, this paper presents a study that examines conversations posted to the social media platform Reddit. It argues that social media can be leveraged to better understand the public’s experience with legal problems and the law and, in doing so, help to inform a person-centred perspective of justice
Mind the Gap: Toussaint and the Reception of International Human Rights Law in Canada
Full text linkThis article explores the reception of international human rights law (“IHRL”) in Canada and the enforcement gap that may arise when legislation is not passed expressly implementing human rights treaties that Canada has ratified. Despite establishing a variety of interpretive methods that may result in Canada’s binding IHRL obligations having domestic effect even when they are not expressly implemented, Canadian courts have struggled to provide clear and consistent guidance on how IHRL applies in Canada. The selective approach in Canada to implementing legislatively IHRL obligations may give rise to an enforcement gap when rights individuals purportedly enjoy under international law are found to have no domestic effect.
To demonstrate this gap, this article focuses on litigation brought by the late Nell Toussaint, who lived in Canada and was denied federal health insurance coverage when facing life-threatening medical conditions due to her then-irregular migrant status. Exploring Ms. Toussaint’s unsuccessful domestic claim that her rights to health, life, and non-discrimination were violated by Canada and her advocates’ ongoing efforts to ensure that Canada abides by the subsequent determination of the United Nations Human Rights Committee that Canada violated her rights to life and non-discrimination under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this article demonstrates how not expressly implementing ratified human rights treaties can create a barrier to IHRL being effective domestically in Canada
Global diversity and distribution of rhizosphere and root‑associated fungi in coastal wetlands: A systematic review
No full textCoastal wetlands have been long recognized for their importance to biodiversity and many biogeochemical processes including carbon sequestration; however, our understanding of plant-microbe interactions that govern many processes in these ecosystems remains elusive. Fungal communities are known to play critical roles in coastal wetlands, particularly due to their close relationships with plants, yet, systematic understanding of their distributional patterns and the factors shaping these patterns in natural coastal wetland environments has been rarely assessed. We synthesized existing published literature from fifty-one studies spanning 60 years to examine global fungal distributional patterns in coastal wetlands, draw linkages between fungi, the plant communities, and their environment, and identify gaps in fungal research and suggest future research directions. We focused on studies that reported root-associated fungi and fungi from the plant rhizosphere (i.e., soil surrounding roots) in coastal dunes, intertidal flats, salt marshes, and tidal wetlands. Our synthesis has revealed that (1) 203 fungal species were reported from salt marshes, 59 fungal species from coastal dunes, 32 from tidal wetlands, and ten from intertidal flats; (2) rhizosphere fungal communities were more species-rich and reported more often for all ecosystems except in salt marshes; and (3) nineteen different fungal guilds, which are predominantly arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. We conclude that more research is needed to better understand root-associated fungal diversity in less studied ecosystems reviewed here. We have identified knowledge gaps in reported data and outlined suggestions to facilitate future plant-fungal research in these declining, but important, coastal ecosystems
Advanced computer architecture
No full textIntroduction: What is Computer Architecture? The science and art of designing, structuring, and optimizing the core components of a computer system. Defines how instructions are processed, data is accessed, and system components communicate. Acts as the bridge between the software (instructions) and hardware (physical components). Provides a foundation for understanding the trade-offs between performance, power consumption, and cost in advanced systems. Enables an in-depth analysis of advanced techniques like pipelining, superscalar execution, and memory hierarchies. Forms the basis for optimizing software for specific architectures and exploiting their capabilities. Helps in appreciating the challenges and opportunities presented by emerging technologies like multicore processors and GPUs
E. Vipond & P. Cloutier de Repentigny: Trans Inclusive Access to Justice
No full textJoin student editor, Jaime, for a discussion with Evan Vipond, a PhD Candidate in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University, and Pierre Cloutier de Repentigny, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Law and Legal Studies of Carleton University. Jaime speaks with Evan and Pierre about their article in the Dalhousie Law Journal, titled, Searching for Justice: Moving Towards a Trans Inclusive Model of Access to Justice in Canada.” The conversation raises important critiques about current access to justice approaches, but also provides insight into what structural changes are required to address access to justice issues facing trans people
Direct observation and identification of nanoplastics in ocean water
No full textMillions of tons of plastics enter the oceans yearly, and they can be fragmented by ultraviolet and mechanical means into nanoplastics. Here, we report the direct observation of nanoplastics in global ocean water leveraging a unique shrinking surface bubble deposition (SSBD) technique. SSBD involves optically heating plasmonic nanoparticles to form a surface bubble and leveraging the Marangoni flow to concentrate suspended nanoplastics onto the surface, allowing direct visualization using electron microscopy. With the plasmonic nanoparticles co-deposited in SSBD, the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy effect is enabled for direct chemical identification of trace amounts of nanoplastics. In the water samples from two oceans, we observed nanoplastics made of nylon, polystyrene, and polyethylene terephthalate—all common in daily consumables. The plastic particles have diverse morphologies, such as nanofibers, nanoflakes, and ball-stick nanostructures. These nanoplastics may profoundly affect marine organisms, and our results can provide critical information for appropriately designing their toxicity studies.T.L., S.M., Q.Z., and R.Z. would like to thank the support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (1931850, 2040565, and 2001079) and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (GA-2018-268). W.X. is supported by NSF (1903719 and 1943431) and NIH (R15ES030955). The research vessel (R/V) Pelican was used for deep ocean water collection from the Gulf of Mexico. The usage of R/V Pelican was supported by X. Hu’s (TAMU-Corpus Christi) research grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA19OAR0170354). We thank N. Gan, M. Merrill, M. Brzezinski, C. Haley, S. Marbach, Y. Pang, F. Li, X. Jia, H. Moon, and S. Park (UNIST) for assistance in collecting water samples, and K. Hendricks for reading the manuscript. We also appreciate the partial support from the Notre Dame Integrated Imaging Facility and Materials Characterization Facility. We would also like to thank the support from the Open Access Publication Fund from the library and College of Science at TAMU-CC
Understanding hope as experienced by first-generation college students at Hispanic-serving institutions
No full textUtilizing interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), this study describes how the phenomenon of hope is experienced by six first-generation college students at South Texas Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), how student affairs contributed to that hope, and how these students understood the spaces on a college campus relative to their experiences of hope. The culturally engaging campus environment (CECE) model was used as a theoretical framework which allowed for consideration of how the HSI environment engages with students. The study’s findings add to the literature by revealing how hope surfaced from 1) within the individual participants, as it might if were a value, a character trait, or someone’s nature, and 2) within their relationships, with family, friends, colleagues, mentors, staff, and faculty. Furthermore, these hope experiences and interactions took place on HSI campuses and within the purview of student affairs. The implications for HSIs are that they can cultivate cultures of hope, by integrating culturally engaging campus environment tenets, which is valuable to first-generation college students.Educational Leadership, Curriculum & InstructionCollege of Education and Human Developmen
Advancing consistent socio-economic monitoring of coastal ecosystem restoration through collaborative metric development
No full textEcological restoration programs increasingly aim to provide socio-economic and environmental benefits. However, monitoring of socio-economic outcomes of these programs lags behind monitoring of ecological outcomes. Socio-economic methods are less established, managers have less experience, and metrics used vary, stymieing evaluation and adaptive management. Here we demonstrate that logic models and stakeholder engagement can be used to identify core socio-economic metrics across various types of restoration, focusing on coastal restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. Across four major restoration types (oyster restoration, habitat restoration, recreation enhancement, and water quality improvement), core metrics were identified as changes in jobs, restoration expenditures, recreational activity, cognitive function, and subjective well-being. These metrics can provide a starting point for increased and more consistent monitoring of socio-economic outcomes. The collaborative, science-based, and replicable process we developed to identify core metrics can be applied to other ecosystems and management actions to expand monitoring and evaluation of socio-economic impacts