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In recent years, responsible sourcing and procurement (including green supply chain management) across the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sectors have become notable contributors to sustainable construction strategies. This study aims to provide a systematic review of responsible sourcing literature across the AEC sectors of the UK to identify a suite of opportunities and obstacles to adopting ethical and environmentally supportive practices and to highlight avenues for further investigation. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) review process was adopted to identify, screen, and select (n = 80) articles (from 2000–2020) for review. Analysis of these articles identified the most frequently reported opportunities: (i) stakeholder value (40%); (ii) improved supply chain performance (39%); and (iii) competitive advantage (30%). The most frequently reported obstacles relating to the uptake of responsible sourcing are the following: (i) cost (44%); (ii) industry constraints (28%); and (iii) lack of frameworks/information and lack of awareness (25%). Given the industry importance of these themes, it is proposed that there is a necessity to explore and unravel the perceptions of industry experts about these issues so as to clarify the progress and possibilities for more widely adopting responsible sourcing across the AEC sector and, moreover, for clarifying their contribution towards achieving national and international sustainability targets (e.g., UN Sustainable Development Goals). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Women's pelvic health is a globally important subject, included in international and United Kingdom health policies, emphasising the importance of improving information and access to pelvic health services. Consequences of pelvic symptoms are intimate, personal, and varied, often causing embarrassment and shame, affecting women's quality of life and wellbeing. AIM: To understand the experience of seeking healthcare for stigmatised pelvic health symptoms by synthesising all types of published primary research and mapping the results to behavioural theory, to identify potential targets for intervention. Methods: Systematic search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, SocINDEX, PubMED databases, CDSR and CENTRAL registers, from inception to May 2023 for all types of research capturing women's views and experiences of seeking help with stigmatised urogenital and bowel symptoms. Studies only reporting prevalence, predictors of help-seeking, non-health related help-seeking, or written in languages other than English, German, French, Spanish and Swedish were excluded. Reference checking and forward citation searching for all included studies was performed. A results-based synthesis approach was used to integrate quantitative and qualitative data. Themes were mapped to the Common-Sense model and Candidacy framework. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used for critical appraisal. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation - Confidence in Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research for assessing certainty of review findings. Results: 86 studies representing over 20,000 women from 24 high income countries were included. Confidence was high that barriers to help-seeking were similar across all study types and pelvic symptoms: stigma, lack of knowledge, women's perception that clinicians dismissed their symptoms, and associated normalising and deprioritising of low bother symptoms. Supportive clinicians and increased knowledge were key facilitators. Conclusions: Using the Common-Sense Model to explore women's help-seeking behaviour with stigmatised pelvic symptoms reveals problems with cognitive representation of symptom identity, emotional representations of embarrassment and shame, and a subjective norm that women believe their symptoms will be trivialised by clinicians. Together these barriers frustrate women's identification of their candidacy for healthcare. Addressing these issues through behavioural change interventions for women and clinicians, will help to achieve universal access to pelvic healthcare services (United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.7). Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO CRD42021256956. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cement and concrete are essential for global development. However, cement manufacture is responsible for around 7–8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with significant growth anticipated. Beyond efficiencies in cement manufacturing, other strategies for using less cement in construction through applying the principles of efficient design, circular economy and reuse also have the potential to reduce emissions. A further option is to move towards cements with different compositions and inherently lower embodied carbon dioxide. This paper focuses on these materials and the challenges to their widespread adoption, drawing mainly on applied research, trials and standardisation activities conducted in the UK and the EU. In addition to modification of standards, basic technical and practical information such as strength development curves, durability, site considerations and a shared broad body of evidence are key for specifiers to consider when using any new cement. The paper describes the role of standards and specifications and the underpinning information (applied research, published case studies and experience) essential in getting any new cement adopted. It also shows how a range of evidence from research and application can feed into a simple conceptual model and evidence base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 60 million tons of E‐waste is expected to be generated in 2023, with associated significant impacts on health and the environment. To reduce the number of products sent to landfills, "Right to Repair" (RtR) movements are gaining momentum in many countries, including the UK, USA, and EU member states. While Universities are seen as important stakeholders to drive forward sustainable design practices, there is currently little work looking at training undergraduate design engineers in the principles of designing household products in support of RtR. In particular, the project‐based learning (PBL) pedagogy shows promise in engaging and training students with the skills and knowledge required to successfully design products for RtR. In this paper, a pilot‐study of teaching engineers is presented to design products compatible with RtR principles, alongside many technical skills, in a first‐year PBL course. The key outputs of this paper are the design of the module, which can be used to help inform first‐year engineering education, the high engagement of students, with 100% of respondents agreeing that they intend to try to implement sustainable design practices in future, and some of the innovative features that students implement in their projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a commentary on the United Nations announcement of a two year deferment on the decision to allow or ban reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning, or both. Contention that this allows both sides of the issue time to present arguments backed up by research; Statement that Great Britain is one of the few countries with a policy on stem-cell work which allows therapeutic cloning while disallowing reproductive cloning; Call for papers covering both the medicine and the ethics of the debate.

In 2022, the UN marked the International Year of Glass, celebrating the essential role glass has, and will continue to have, in society. One element of this celebration was the importance of glass within art and its history, which the Craft Scotland 2022 Conference: The Power of Glass looked to explore. The aim of the conference was to allow a range of individuals, be they academics, researchers, or students of glass and art history within Scotland and the UK, to access contemporary thought within an under-represented field in the UK craft sector. In this paper, we look to highlight the links between the aims of the International Year of Glass and the proceedings of The Power of Glass Conference, demonstrating how glass artists, makers, and designers are part of a growing international body of creatives who are using the communicative possibilities of glass as a vehicle in which to raise pertinent questions and platform unheard and overlooked narratives. Moreover, they seek to overturn perceived biases of what glass is and its future potential by placing their craft within an arena of judgement beyond discussions of process and technique and by elevating socio-political glass art on par with other forms of artistic protest and commentary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the development of higher education in the former League of Nations Mandate Territories (1922-1946) and the United Nations Trust Territories (1946-1961) in Africa, with a particular focus on British and French Cameroon. In contrast to some British and French colonies where higher education institutions were established in preparation for self-government and independence, I question why higher education institutions did not exist in any of the six mandate territories in Africa until independence. I examine the extent to which the approach taken by Britain and France to meet the territories' need for higher education matched the territories' need for a skilled workforce. I argue that both the Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC) and the Trusteeship Council (TC) saw the establishment of higher education institutions in the administered territories as an urgent need for the development of the mandates, but implementation was thwarted by the administrative authorities who rejected the proposals and instead recommended a scholarship system that yielded limited returns to education in the territories. In both British Cameroon and French Cameroon, this policy resulted in poorly developed human capital and weak political and economic leadership. The paper draws on critical analysis of primary historical documents as methodology and decoloniality as theoretical foundation. I consider the LoN and the UN as complicit with Britain and France (the administrators) in the underdevelopment of higher education in the two mandates because they often endorsed their views on issues or failed as oversight bodies in ensuring that decisions on higher education in the case were rationally implemented -- what Ndlovu-Gatsheni has called "a common agenda of Euro-North American hegemony of exploitation and subjugation." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2018 Professor Philp Alston, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights undertook a two-week visit to the UK to investigate the Governments' efforts to eradicate poverty. The report that followed this visit delivered a damning verdict on the UK welfare benefits system. In this paper, Alston's findings are analysed with reference to McConnell's (2010) policy evaluation framework, which suggests that policy should be assessed based on three different dimensions: process, programs and politics. The process realm refers to the options that a government considers in response to a societal issue. In this area, the paper discusses the assertions of the UN Rapporteur that poverty is a political choice and that the economic and social well-being of welfare benefits claimants is negatively impacted by the values-base attached to the current social security system. The program realm refers to the practical implementation and realisation of policy. Here the paper analyses Alston's findings on the regressive impact of social security on key vulnerable groups, and the multiple design and implementation problems that are evident as the UK government moves towards a digital welfare state. In the political domain, the political repercussions of policy are analysed. Drawing on Alston's findings, this paper argues that social security policy is in a precarious position with a growing recognition by the public and media of the economic and human costs of welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Content of abstract. This paper has two arguments: First it argues that the Ambazonian war was created partly by the process of decolonisation initiated by the erstwhile British territory in complicity with the United Nations. Secondly, the paper maintains that it was the failure of the post-colonial state elite to forge a sustainable and viable nation in Cameroon that led to the war. The two arguments are complementary - the failure of the post-independent state elite is as a consequence of the continuous manipulation of the former colonial powers. Archival files mined from the Buea National Archives and secondary sources from libraries in Cameroon and Europe were used as evidence for my argument. From these sources the paper concludes that the charter of the UN trusteeship which was given to Britain as a colonial power was never executed to the end. Thus, it was a dismal failure both to the United Nations and to Britain, and by extension, to the post-colonial government. The article hopes to contribute to the body of knowledge in the field of decolonisation. It provides some evidence of how Britain and France have played an enormous role in dividing people within the Cameroon nation-state that had future repercussions in how people are marginalised in the present. The article highlights a failure of Britain, the UN, and the post-colonial state, which have failed to initiate any peace-building after colonialism and decolonisation had torn the country apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve sustainable development worldwide, the United Nations set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for humanity to reach by 2030. Society is involved in the challenge, with firms playing a crucial role. Thus, a key question is to what extent firms engage with the SDGs. Efforts to map firms' contributions have mainly focused on analysing companies' reports based on limited samples and non-real-time data. We present a novel interdisciplinary approach based on analysing big data from an online social network (Twitter) with complex network methods from statistical physics. By doing so, we provide a comprehensive and nearly real-time picture of firms' engagement with SDGs. Results show that: (1) SDGs themes tie conversations among major UK firms together; (2) the social dimension is predominant; (3) the attention to different SDGs themes varies depending on the community and sector firms belong to; (4) stakeholder engagement is higher on posts related to global challenges compared to general ones; (5) large UK companies and stakeholders generally behave differently from Italian ones. This paper provides theoretical contributions and practical implications relevant to firms, policymakers and management education. Most importantly, it provides a novel tool and a set of keywords to monitor the influence of the private sector on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations defines harmful practices as: '... persistent practices and behaviours grounded on discrimination on the basis of sex, gender and age and other grounds as well as multiple and/or intersecting forms of discrimination that often involve violence and cause physical and/or psychological harm or suffering'. They are commonly perceived to be based on tradition, culture, custom and practice, religion and/or superstition, and in certain communities and societies these practices have been established for so long that they are considered or perceived to be part of accepted cultural norms. Where they have gone unchallenged for multiple generations, they have become 'normalised', which often makes it difficult to make the distinction between cultural/traditional norms and enforced harmful and controlling behaviour. Examples of harmful practices include, but are not limited to, female genital mutilation, honour-based abuse, forced marriage, dowry violence and abuse linked to faith and belief, such as witchcraft, possessions and breast ironing – all of which are practiced and are prevalent in the UK today. The focus of this paper is honour based abuse (HBA), which is often applied as a precursor to other harmful practices and which lends itself to highlighting the intersectionality of this largely gendered practice. The role of affected communities is explored, as is how this can lead to a culture of self-policing. A panoptic framework is adopted before conclusions are drawn as to the future of policing in addressing these hidden harms. The aim of this paper is not to provide a comprehensive critical analysis of policing responses to an ever evolving and highly complex crime type, nor is it to present all BAME women and communities as a homogeneous group, but rather to further explore some of the key concepts that arose from discussions and which may go some way to understanding hidden harms that exist in relation to honour and shame. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research highlights that children across the UK access the outdoors less than previous generations, often at levels below that prescribed by the United Nations as a basic level of outdoor access for prisoners. School staff and parents are intrinsic partners in facilitating children's access to the outdoors and the associated learning opportunities it presents. There exists however a complex set of relationships and perceptions governing the dynamics of these relationships and the resultant access to opportunities presented by learning outdoors. This paper aims to explore these perceptions by examining data collected through a combination of questionnaires and interviews with parents and teachers. The results indicate a significant disconnect in parent and teacher perceptions related to the purpose and opportunities for learning outdoors. These findings have a range of important implications for early childhood educators, parents and others looking to promote the outdoors as a learning environment across the foundation stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) embrace an ambitious and wide ranging set of environmental, social, and economic issues designed to effect a transition to a more sustainable future. Although the SDGs are global in nature, there is an increasing awareness that they also have an important local dimension. With this in mind, this commentary paper outlines the characteristics of the SDGs, reviews their importance at the local level, provides some illustrations of how they are being addressed locally within North Western Europe and United Kingdom, and offers some reflections on localising the SDGs. The paper suggests that progress in launching and developing local initiatives within the United Kingdom has, to date, been limited. In part, this reflects the lack of a clear national policy framework for the localisation of the SDGs and in part, it reflects the challenges of raising awareness of the importance of local SDG initiatives and of funding such initiatives. Looking to the future, communications and public relations professionals may have an important role to play in raising awareness of the importance of the SDGs at the local level, and this may help to change hearts and minds in addressing the policy making and financial challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of Earth observation (EO) data in addressing societal problems from environmental through to humanitarian should not be understated. Recent innovation in EO means provision of analysis ready data and data cubes, which allows for rapid use of EO data. This in combination with processing technologies, such as Google Earth Engine and open source algorithms/software for EO data integration and analyses, has afforded an explosion of information to answer research questions and/or inform policy making. However, there is still a need for both training and validation data within EO projects – often this can be challenging to obtain. It has been suggested that citizen science can help here to provide these data, yet there is some perceived hesitancy in using citizen science within EO projects. This paper reports on the Citizen Science 4 EO (Citizens4EO) project that aimed to obtain an in-depth understanding of researchers' and practitioners' experiences with citizen science data in EO within the UK. Through a mixed methods approach (online and in-depth surveys and a spotlight case study) it was found that although the benefits of using citizen science data in EO projects were many (and highlighted in the spotlighted "Slavery from Space" case study), there were a number of common concerns around using citizen science. These were around the mechanics of deploying citizen science and the unreliability of a potentially misinformed or undertrained citizen base. As such, comparing the results of this study with those of a similar survey undertaken in 2016, it is apparent that progress towards optimizing citizen science use in EO has been incremental but positive with evidence of the realization of the benefits of citizen science for EO (Citizens4EO). As such, we conclude by offering priority action areas to support further use of citizen science by the EO community within the UK, which ultimately should be adopted further afield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decentralisation being a ubiquitous feature of human rights governance globally, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child focuses primarily on the State as the locus for implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). State control and a regulative approach prioritising justiciability of the CRC at national level are the Committee's dominant responses to decentralisation. This paper introduces decentralisation, including the risks and potential gains for CRC implementation. It is contended that a regulative approach may prove particularly challenging in the context of decentralisation. It is suggested that a normative approach, in which legislation is used to promote compliance through cultural acceptance of the CRC, and to support localisation of rights, may be better suited to the contours of decentralised governance. Taking the example of Wales, a devolved territory in the United Kingdom, it will be shown how a primarily normative approach to legal integration can help mainstream international norms in policy, enhance accountability for rights, and provide opportunities for policy advocacy at local level. The paper is a contribution to the literature on the instrumental value of legislation to support the realisation of human rights, applicable to decentralised systems of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing is a paradigmatic example of a social determinant of health, as it influences and is influenced by structural determinants, such as social, macroeconomic, and public policies, politics, education, income, and ethnicity/race, all intersecting to shaping the health and well-being of populations. It can therefore be argued that housing policy is critically linked to health policy. However, the extent to which this linkage is understood and addressed in public policies is limited and highly diverse across and within countries. This analysis seeks to describe the linkages between housing policies and health and well-being using examples from three countries at different levels of the wealth spectrum: Singapore, the UK, and Kenya. We conducted a comparative policy analysis across three country contexts (Singapore, the UK, and Kenya) to document the extent to which housing policies address health and well-being, highlighting commonalities and differences among them. To guide our analysis, we used the United Nations (UN) definition of adequate housing as it offers a broad framework to analyze the impact of housing on health and well-being. The anatomy of housing policies has a strong correlation to the provision of adequate housing across Singapore, the UK, and Kenya, especially for vulnerable groups. The paper demonstrates that contextual factors including population composition (i.e., aging versus youthful), political ideologies, legal frameworks (i.e., welfare versus market-based provision of housing), and presence (or absence) of adequate, quality, timely, reliable, robust data systems for decision-making, which are taken up by stakeholders/state, have strong implications of the type of housing policies developed and implemented, in turn directly and indirectly impacting the overall health and well-being of populations. This analysis demonstrates the value of viewing housing policies as public health policies that could significantly impact the health and well-being of populations, especially vulnerable groups. Moreover, the findings highlight the importance of the Health in All Policies approach to facilitate integrated policy responses to address social determinants of health such as housing. This is more critical than ever, given the context of the global pandemic that has led to worsening overall health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although breastfeeding is known to improve health, economic and environmental outcomes, breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates are low in the United Kingdom. The global WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) aims to reverse declining rates of breastfeeding by shifting the culture of infant feeding care provision throughout hospital maternity settings. In the United Kingdom, the global BFHI has been adapted by UNICEF UK reflecting a paradigm shift towards the experiences of women and families using maternity services. This research used a critical ethnographic approach to explore the influence of the national UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) standards on the culture of one typical maternity service in England, over a period of 8 weeks, across four phases of data collection between 2011 and 2017. Twenty‐one staff and 26 service users were recruited and engaged in moderate‐level participant observation and/or guided interviews and conversations. Basic, organising and a final global theme emerged through thematic network analysis, describing the influence of the BFI on providing, receiving and leading infant feeding care in a hospital maternity setting. Using Antonovsky's sense of coherence construct, the findings discussed in this paper highlight how the BFI offers 'informational' (comprehensible), 'practical' (manageable) and 'emotional' (meaningful) support for both staff and service users, strengthened by effective, local leadership and a team approach. This is juxtaposed against the tensions and demands of the busy hospital maternity setting. It is recommended that ongoing infant feeding policy, practice and leadership balance relational and rational approaches for positive infant feeding care and experiences to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to devise a new index of wellbeing that includes social and political in addition to economic factors. The new index seeks to assess a country's underlying "enabling environment" — the extent to which individuals are able to live as each chooses. Country rankings using this new measure (the HENX) are compared with the ranking of countries using the UN's popular indicators of development, the human development index and the HPI-2. Design/methodology/approach — The paper describes the necessity of a new index, the subcomponents used in its construction, and the method of construction. Findings — Country rankings are sensitive to which measure is used for the ranking. In particular, the USA and UK fare poorly when ranked by the HPI-2 but their rankings improve dramatically when the HENX is used. Originality/value — If a measure of the enabling environment of a country is deemed to be important as a measure of the wellbeing of citizens, and if political and social dimensions are deemed to be important to this environment, rankings of the most developed economies by the UN fail to adequately capture the countries' relative positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: This paper discusses the situation of young carers, a population of children, young people and young adults who have received little attention in Aotearoa New Zealand social policy, social work practice and research. METHOD: The authors draw attention to the status and needs of this group through a review of literature and through their reflections, as two English-registered social workers, on practice with young carers in the United Kingdom. FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS: The paper argues that young carers are a vulnerable, invisible group who require recognition and respect. Using a children's rights framework, it is suggested that more attention should be given by social workers to understanding the complexity of this role, and the rights of young carers as children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulation and role-play have a proven track record as pedagogic techniques to provide students with insights into geopolitics, diplomacy, and international relations. Since the first Model United Nations (MUN) in 1947, simulations have proliferated within secondary and tertiary educational settings. However, these activities overwhelmingly focus on recognised nation-states, neglecting polities that are not UN member states, but that are often acutely affected by conflict and human rights abuses. This paper is part of a broader project that is seeking to bring the realities and stories from such communities, territories, and peoples – a number of which have come together as the 'Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization' (UNPO) – to a wider audience. Loosely based on MUN simulations, the 'Model UNPO' exercise involves participants being assigned a UNPO member, researching that polity's context and rights claims, and coming together for a structured role-play debate. Drawing on participant observation of Model UNPO exercises with 16–18 year old students at thirteen UK secondary schools we examine how geopolitics can be taught and learned within school classroom settings, how young people make sense of geopolitics, and how they imagine and articulate alternative internationals. We assess what simulation exercises can offer to understandings of the intersection of young peoples' geopolitics and geographies of education. In doing so, we analyse how students draw on 'known worlds' and advocate for possible worlds through role-playing unrepresented diplomats, and examine the role of clause writing in the scripting of geopolitical imaginaries, and how role-playing forges empathy and solidarities. We conclude by making the case for foregrounding young people as critical and creative geopolitical thinkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1906 to 1980, the Indigenous population of the Southwest Pacific island nation of Vanuatu (New Hebrides) was stateless. They had no citizenship. This contravened the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserting that “everyone has the right to a nationality”. After 1948, the New Hebrides joined a number of European colonies that received United Nations scrutiny for racial discrimination, economic negligence and human rights violations. In the archives of the British colonial administration of the New Hebrides are a series of documents outlining how officials negotiated and contested UN conventions, declarations and resolutions. This article argues that these “meta-documents” comprise “aesthetics of the subtle”; reports on reports, handwritten annotations on diplomatic cables and exclamation marks on the margins of government paper. These interpretations, negations and commentaries on official documents disrupt binary accounts of colonialism in an era when the telos of decolonization informs the narrative of imperial to post-colonial political change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is currently much discussion in the UK around skills and other workforce development issues within the cultural heritage sector. This coincides with wider debate within the international heritage community around the meaning and purpose of heritage preservation in the context of globalisation. Issues around representation, access, ownership and diversity, inclusivity and human rights are today associated with concepts of authenticity, values and democracy in a global setting and embodied today, for example, by the United Nations in the concept of intangible heritage—which refers to aspects of 'living' heritage. This paper brings to light, through an assessment of key international heritage charters, declarations and political conventions, how changes in attitudes towards the past have lead to the formal re-constitution... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the views of the Great Britain government regarding their discussions with the United States government on the war in Iraq which began in 2003. Apparently, nine leaked British documents have revealed that British Law Officers consistently advised their government and their American counterparts of the illegality of the United States war plan in the Iraq. In response to their advice, the two governments hatched a plan to create a legal pretext for war, but the plan failed at the United Nations Security Council, leaving them with a choice between legitimacy and war.

Emissions of methane (CH4) from offshore oil and gas installations are poorly ground-truthed and quantification relies heavily on the use of emission factors and activity data. As part of the United Nations Climate and Clean Air Coalition (UN CCAC) objective to study and reduce short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) a Twin Otter aircraft was used to survey CH4 emissions from UK and Dutch offshore oil and gas installations. The aims of the surveys were to i) identify installations that are significant CH4 emitters, ii) separate installation emissions from other emissions using carbon-isotopic fingerprinting and other chemical proxies, iii) estimate CH4 emission rates, and iv) improve flux estimation (and sampling) methodologies for rapid quantification of major gas leaks. In this paper, we detail the instrument and aircraft set up for two campaigns flown in the springs of 2018 and 2019 over the southern North Sea and describe the developments made in both planning and sampling methodology in order to maximise the quality and value of the data collected. We present example data collected from both campaigns to demonstrate the challenges encountered during offshore surveys, focussing on the complex meteorology of the marine boundary layer, and sampling discrete plumes from an airborne platform. The uncertainties of CH4 flux calculations from measurements under varying boundary layer conditions are considered, as well as recommendations for attribution of sources through either spot sampling for VOCs / Î'13CCH4 or using in-situ instrumental data to determine C2H6-CH4 ratios. A series of recommendations for both planning and measurement techniques for future offshore work within the marine boundary layers are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As increasing evidence shows that the risks of climate change are mounting, there is a call for further climate action (both reducing global emissions, and adaptation to better manage the risks of climate change). To promote and enable adaptation, governments have introduced, or are considering introducing, reporting on climate risks and efforts being taken to address those risks. This paper reports on an analysis of the first two rounds of such reports submitted under the UK Climate Change Act (2008) Adaptation Reporting Power. It highlights benefits and challenges for reporting authorities and policymakers receiving the reports that could also inform other countries considering such reporting. For reporting authorities, benefits arise from the reporting process and resulting reports. These benefits include elevating climate risks and adaptation to the corporate level and with stakeholders, alongside facilitating alignment and integration of actions within existing risk management and governance structures. For policymakers, reporting provides enhanced understanding of climate risks and actions from a bottom-up perspective that can be integrated into national-level assessments and adaptation planning processes. The identified challenges are those related to capacity and process. These include limited risk and adaptation assessment capacities; relevance of climate change risks and adaptation in the context of other urgent risks and actions; reporting process effectiveness and robustness; and the provision of effective and sufficiently comprehensive support, including feedback. Key policy insights Effective adaptation reporting needs to be designed and delivered so as to enhance the value of the reporting process and resulting reports both for those reporting and those receiving the reports, as well as from the broader policy perspective. Providing a positive and supportive reporting environment is critical to encourage participation and facilitating contiuous learning and improvement, while also facilitating delivery of policy-relevant adaptation reports. Contributions of adaptation reporting can be enhanced by an inclusive reporting requirement involving a broader organizational mix that enables more effective risk management and reporting that reflects associated (inter)dependencies and consistency with the more comprehensive post-2015 resilience agenda (Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework for DRR and UN Agenda 2030 SDGs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we approach the deadline for achieving the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is less than a decade away, it is crucial for researchers and research institutions at both national and international levels to conduct rigorous scientific assessments of the progress made towards these goals. The assessment is of utmost importance as it will provide valuable insights and information to political leaders and other stakeholders, guiding their actions and efforts towards successfully attaining the SDGs by the year 2030. This study aimed at providing vivid descriptions of the SDG 2 – zero hunger-related research endeavour. It employed bibliometric analysis and geographical patterns of SDG 2-related publications extracted from Scopus database from 2015 to 2023. A total of 397 documents were extracted where Sustainability journal ranked 1st among the journal outlets of zero hunger-related publications. The publication of zero hunger-related documents grew from 1.5% in 2016 to 29.7% in 2022. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Chinese Academy of Sciences were the top 2 institutions publishing zero hunger-related documents while the lead article was published by Journal of Cleaner Production with 128 citations. The funding sponsors of SDG 2-related publications were dominated by sponsors from developed countries (such as China, Belgium, United States, and United Kingdom) while no funding sponsors from developing countries were among the top 10. The United States and United Kingdom were the two most productive countries while only one African country (South Africa) made the list of top 10 countries publishing zero hunger-related documents. This study provided political leaders and key stakeholders with in-depth understanding of the SDG 2-related research activities and highlighted research funding and collaboration gaps facing the developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are calls for researchers to study existing community assets and activities that appear to improve health and have achieved longevity. The TR14ers Community Dance Charity Limited is a community youth dance group that has been running since 2005 providing free weekly sessions for children and adolescents in an economically disadvantaged town in the UK. An in-depth case study employing qualitative, quantitative and participatory methods was undertaken with the TR14ers (current participants and those who have left, co-ordinators and families) over 6 months with the aim of understanding the sustainable processes and impact of the Group. The 12 complex systems' leverage points described by Meadows and the five domains of adolescent wellbeing developed by the United Nations H6+ Technical Working Group on Adolescent Health and Well-Being were used as frameworks to recognise the complexity of community assets like the TR14ers. The quantitative and qualitative data indicated that being part of the TR14ers contributed to multiple health and wellbeing outcomes. The positive experiences of being a TR14er led members to actively recruit others through word of mouth and public performances. Central to the TR14ers is a commitment to children's rights, which is communicated formally and informally throughout the membership informing how and what the Group does, leading to the structure and delivery of the Group evolving over time. Members sought to ensure the sustainability of the Group after they had left and were keen to mentor younger members to develop and become the leaders. Based on the insights from this case study we suggest that efforts to develop cultures of health, like the TR14ers, should focus on the core values of the activity or intervention that underpin what it does and how within the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Big Society agenda of the UK Coalition government aims to develop a more participative and responsible society. In a children's rights context this sounds progressive, inviting it might be hoped, some appreciation of the contributions that children and young people make to society. Yet, in the light of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UK government still remains cautious in the extent to which it seems prepared to recognise children and young people as citizens. This paper explores one Coalition government initiative which is intended to promote citizenship and the building of the 'Big Society" - the National Citizen Service. By examining some official NCS documentation and website content we start to unpick the images of childhood and citizenship which underpin it. Central to our analysis is the question of how far young people are considered to be citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an analytical framework based on European Commission directives and United Nations resolutions calling for a mainstreamed and intersectional approach to age equality, this paper examines the UK’s devolved administrations’ governance practices and territorially specific public policy on older people. The findings reveal mixed progress. Whilst a number of mainstreaming prerequisites have been secured and divergent, ‘regional’ equality rights and welfare entitlements established, shortcomings are also apparent including reliance on an intercategorical, additive approach to intersectionality, one that falls short of fully addressing the diverse needs and identities of older people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Use of the Internet has been proven to provide significant, wide-ranging benefits for disabled people research, however, such as a large scale global study commissioned by the United Nations, has determined a low level of accessibility. These findings have been supported by further multi-disciplinary work.While in other jurisdictions there have been definitive rulings on the need for the provision of accessible websites, a UK court has yet to lay down such a duty in relation to a website. It is accepted that there are a number of wide ranging issues interacting in this multi-faceted area, such as standardisation, industry self-regulation and the determination of an international consensus on what constitutes accessible design. However, this paper will focus upon the Equality Act 2010 and the changes it makes which could impact upon the creation of a definitive precedent.The Equality Act 2010 amended and combined pre-existing anti-discrimination provisions into one overarching piece of legislation. An analysis can be undertaken of how this legislation through its reasonable adjustment duty, public sector duty and the potential to validate regulations may be able to bring clarification in the area of website accessibility.Furthermore, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in its Article Nine specifically applies to access to the Internet. Given the international nature of website accessibility and the innovative provisions contained in the Convention, its impact on website design and inclusion could potentially be far-reaching. This article analyses the area of website design in the light of these recent legislative developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an edited version of the author's BAICE Presidential Address, which was delivered in September 2009 at the 10th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development. The editing removes the original's visual elements but retains its tone, more or less. The paper anatomises 'world class', a concept, slogan, aspiration or claim which is now in routine use in the educational discourse of anglophone countries. Fuelled by international student achievement surveys such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 'world class' speaks to a supremacist and nationalistic mindset which contrasts with other measures of national progress, especially in relation to equality and well-being, and with those other kinds of global consciousness which are essential to interdependence, sustainability and the United Nations goal of Education for All (EFA). 'World class' is also methodologically reductionist, elevating simple statistical correlation over the exploration of culture and, as the McKinsey report shows', it may confine the analysis of educational cause, consequence and solution to the realm of the banal, misleading or even meaningless. The notion of 'world class' education thus perpetuates old and unhelpful divisions in comparative and international enquiry and raises urgent questions for comparativists and organisations like BAICE (British Association for International and Comparative Education). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has raised the profile of children's participation in the United Kingdom. Hart's ‘ladder of participation’ has been the most influential model in this field. This paper offers an alternative model, based on five levels of participation: 1. Children are listened to. 2. Children are supported in expressing their views. 3. Children's views are taken into account. 4. Children are involved in decision-making processes. 5. Children share power and responsibility for decision-making. In addition, three stages of commitment are identified at each level: ‘openings’, ‘opportunities’ and ‘obligations’. The model thus provides a logical sequence of 15 questions as a tool for planning for participation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of children in their own right and of their healthy development for the health of society, have been affirmed at an international level by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 and by the Children Act 1989 in the United Kingdom. In the UK fifteen years ago, the report of the Court Committee set out a framework for Child Health Services based on the same recognition of the value of children. This paper describes how in spite of the far-reaching recommendations made by the Court Committee, the health of children in this country is far from satisfactory; how health policy and services have failed to meet their health care needs; and how other recent legislation such as the NHS and Community Care Act may well lead to further difficulties in working for the best interests of the child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that, although anti-colonial delegations to the 1945 San Francisco Conference did not succeed in bringing all colonial territories under the umbrella of international trusteeship, the threat of expanding international oversight shaped the relationship between colonial governments and international organisations in powerful ways. By focusing on how the UN Special Committee on Non-Self-Governing Territories evolved as a de facto supervisory system for dependent territories, this article considers the ways that representatives at the United Nations defined dependency and self-government and explores the crusade that colonial governments led to justify imperialism in the post-war world. Through a consideration of the diplomatic actions of France, Great Britain and Belgium, this article explores the ways that colonial empires jointly mobilised to defend colonialism at the level of the United Nations. In the face of evolving supervisory mechanisms at the United Nations, the French, British and Belgian delegations joined forces in an attempt to expose some of the inherent contradictions in UN policy towards dependent populations, and to make the case that subject populations living in independent territories often endured worse conditions than those living in formal overseas empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the journal "Children's Geography." Among the goals of "Children's Geographies" is to provide an informed forum within which to consider the multifarious worlds of children and young people. From this perspective recent legislative changes within the Great Britain are of considerable interest, particularly when set against the promises made by government to children and young people through the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. Among the continuing issues of concern is the protection given to children from assault by adults. It states that Great Britain government has missed a crucial opportunity to join a growing number of countries that do not allow children to be hit or smacked, even by their parents.

This article critically appraises the extent that the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights has engaged with the UN's Universal Periodic Review and its recommendations on the UK's human rights situation. It initially explores the Universal Periodic Review process, the UK's implementation of its recommendations, and posits that a contributing factor to poor implementation is a lack of mobilization of domestic actors. The UK's Parliament, and its Joint Committee on Human Rights, it is argued, are central domestic actors in this regard. By reviewing existing research as well as a range of documentary sources, this article identifies several shortcomings in the Joint Committee on Human Rights' engagement with the Universal Periodic Review and, drawing from the available evidence, articulates possible reasons for these. This article closes by making proposals on how the Joint Committee on Human Rights' participation in the Universal Periodic Review process may be enhanced. Thus, it will make a modest contribution to the successful realization of human rights in the UK, and to the growing scholarship on parliaments' roles in the international human rights framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the application of bioethics as a governance practice to help respond to issues in the bioethics field. It states the need for bioethics governance in regards to responding to controversies and prevents irresponsible science. It mentions the formulation of the universal declaration on bioethics by the specialized agency the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the governance practice on bioethics in Great Britain.

Even as policymakers in both the United States and Britain agreed that decolonization should be gradual, the principles and institutions that the Americans advocated undermined the very prospect of the sort of gradual change they claimed to prefer. At the heart of the matter was the notion of political accountability to an international organization. While American policymakers assumed that such accountability would – and should – be established after the Second World War, British policymakers recognized that the mere assent to the principle of international political accountability would lead to the pressure to decolonize more rapidly. American policymakers would constantly reassure their British counterparts that the commitments to international accountability which they had undertaken under American pressure were safely restricted to the moral and legal realm and would therefore not undermine their ability to govern in the colonies. But policymakers in Britain accurately predicted that once admitted in principle, the moral commitment to political accountability to the international community would become a political weapon against the colonial powers. The American conviction – which stemmed from a thoroughgoing liberal internationalism – that the colonial powers could persuade the anti-colonial powers to moderate their stance and sympathize with the dilemmas of decolonization was refuted time and again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We question why child poverty still prevails even in high-income countries, such as Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom. We address the intersection between social relations and individual experiences that should be considered when optimising children's capability. The study is therefore aimed at exploring compensatory societal actions taken to optimise children's capability among these affluent countries. In order to do so, we operationalised children's capability by including key societal domains along with statistical indicators and variables from relevant sources. A secondary quantitative method was adopted by drawing upon data sources from 2000 up to almost 2020 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the United Nations Children's Fund, with these being complemented by governmental data. Given a lack of currently available and comparable data for those three countries, four key societal domains were explored in an absolute descriptive analysis. It is obvious that child poverty prevailed over the focal 20 years in these three high-income countries. Also, the exploratory data analysis revealed a lack of sufficient supporting social services in each societal domain. This demonstrates that optimising children's capability should not just be about subsidising economic resources, but also supporting all initiatives aimed at addressing the lack of interactions between each domain of children's capability. The study shows how essential it is to consider societal compensatory measures along with supporting the financial circumstances. We therefore argue that optimising children's capability should not only be about subsidising economic resources, but also ensuring adequate social resources and relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human trafficking has been recognized both by the international community and many individual states around the world as a serious violation of human rights. Trafficking is associated with extreme violence and a range of physical, mental, and sexual health consequences. Despite the extreme nature of the harm caused by human trafficking, harm is not a concept that is integrated in the definition of trafficking or in policies to address the health of trafficked people. This paper examines the United Kingdom's response to human trafficking as a case study to explore national policy responses to the health needs of trafficked people and assess the willingness of UK authorities to implement international and regional law in securing trafficked people's health rights. Methods Between 2007 and 2010, data on the development of the UK response to trafficking were obtained through 46 interviews with key trafficking policy stakeholders and health care providers, participant observation at 41 policy-relevant events, and document collection. Framework analysis was used to analyze the data. Results International and regional instruments specifically protect the health rights of trafficked people. Yet, UK engagement with trafficked people's health rights has been limited to granting, under certain circumstances, free access to health care services. Changes to trafficked people's entitlements to free health care occurred following the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, but had limited impact on trafficked people's access to medical care. Conclusions International and regional instruments that provide specific or mandated instruction about states' health care obligations can be effective in furthering the health rights of vulnerable migrant groups. The UK government has demonstrated limited appetite for exceeding its minimum obligations to provide for the health of trafficked people, however, and key principles for promoting the health rights of trafficked people are yet to be fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the decline of British influence in the Middle East in 1948-1949. The United Nations has implemented the arms supply embargo in the region during the onset of Arab-Israeli war causing the weakening of Great Britain's imperialism in Arab countries. The British's foreign relations with Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan was also affected by the said embargo.

The article presents the author's comments on the paper written by Leslie Limage, program specialist in education at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), regarding organizational change and governance in UNESCO. It discusses the withdrawal of the U.S. from UNESCO in 1984. George Schultz, secretary of the Department of State, cites the contributing factors of the country's withdrawal including trends in the literacy policy, ideological emphasis and budget and management of UNESCO. The author notes his appointment to the Australian National Commission for UNESCO and explains the effect of the withdrawal of the U.S. and Great Britain from UNESCO on the organization.

Last December a United Nations-sponsored world summit on the information society and the announcement that Great Britain House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology intends to conduct an inquiry into access to scientific publications were two more developments in a movement that many regard as a crusade to free up the scientific literature. The basic aim--to provide toll-free access to the full text of published scientific articles for anyone willing to read it--is clearly a noble one to which few would object. Nevertheless, in recent years, the complexity of the issues and the difficulties involved in bringing about change in scientific publishing have become more apparent.

UK governments have often claimed that humanitarian intervention – without the consent of the target state and if necessary without express UN Security Council authorization – is legally permissible in exceptional circumstances, a stance that is highly controversial. The UK's position is at odds with prevailing international legal doctrine, which is counterintuitive for a country that is generally committed to international law, the UN framework, and multilateralism. It is also in tension with normative developments related to human protection, such as the international 'Responsibility to Protect' principle, which established that coercive responses to human suffering must be authorized by the UN Security Council. This article explores the background to the UK's position on humanitarian intervention, and it argues that this reflects an element of continuity in the UK's foreign policy in historical perspective, as a legacy of global engagement and a sense of moral righteousness and duty. The article also considers whether the UK's position may be contributing to an evolution of the norms governing the use of force for human protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]