Advancing Socioeconomic Rights Through Interdisciplinary Factfinding: Opportunities and Challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Knuckey ◽  
Joshua D. Fisher ◽  
Amanda M. Klasing ◽  
Tess Russo ◽  
Margaret L. Satterthwaite
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Socioeconomic Rights ◽  
Human Rights Movement

The human rights movement is increasingly using interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, mixed-methods, and quantitative factfinding. There has been too little analysis of these shifts. This article examines some of the opportunities and challenges of these methods, focusing on the investigation of socioeconomic human rights. By potentially expanding the amount and types of evidence available, factfinding's accuracy and persuasiveness can be strengthened, bolstering rights claims. However, such methods can also present significant challenges and may pose risks in individual cases and to the human rights movement generally. Interdisciplinary methods can be costly in human, financial, and technical resources; are sometimes challenging to implement; may divert limited resources from other work; can reify inequalities; may produce “expertise” that disempowers rightsholders; and could raise investigation standards to an infeasible or counterproductive level. This article includes lessons learned and questions to guide researchers and human rights advocates considering mixed-methods human rights factfinding. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Replicability in Empirical Legal Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason M. Chin ◽  
Kathryn Zeiler
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Statistical Issues

As part of a broader methodological reform movement, scientists are increasingly interested in improving the replicability of their research. Replicability allows others to perform replications to explore potential errors and statistical issues that might call the original results into question. Little attention, however, has been paid to the state of replicability in the field of empirical legal research (ELR). Quality is especially important in this field because empirical legal researchers produce work that is regularly relied upon by courts and other legal bodies. In this review, we summarize the current state of ELR relative to the broader movement toward replicability in the social sciences. As part of that aim, we summarize recent collective replication efforts in ELR and transparency and replicability guidelines adopted by journals that publish ELR. Based on this review, ELR seems to be lagging other fields in implementing reforms. We conclude with suggestions for reforms that might encourage improved replicability. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Infrastructures and Laws: Publics and Publicness

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedict Kingsbury ◽  
Nahuel Maisley
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Nancy Fraser

Infrastructures are technical-social assemblages infused in politics and power relations. They spur public action, prompting increased scholarly reference to the practices of infrastructural publics. This article explores the normative and conceptual meanings of infrastructures, publics, and infrastructural publics. It distills from political theory traditions of Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, and Nancy Fraser a normative ideal of publics composed of the persons subject to a particular configuration of power relations that may significantly affect their autonomy. Autonomy can be seriously affected not only by existing or planned infrastructures, with their existing or anticipating users and workers and objectors, but also by the lack of an infrastructure or by the terms of infrastructural exclusions, rationings, channelings, and fiscal impositions. Legal-institutional mechanisms provide some of the means for infrastructural publics to act and be heard, and for conflicts between or within different publics to be addressed, operationalizing legal ideas of publicness. These mechanisms are often underprovided or misaligned with infrastructure. One reason is the murkiness and insecurity of relations of infrastructural publics to legal publics constituted or framed as such by institutions and instruments of law and governance. We argue that thoughtful integration of infrastructural and legal scaling and design, accompanied by a normative aspiration to publicness, may have beneficial effects. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Transitional Justice and Property: Inextricably Linked

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Alviar García
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
Gender Biases

This article analyzes the different ways in which transitional justice has dealt with demands over property restitution and redistribution. To do this, it presents a review of academic literature regarding how to define reparation, the justifications for restitution, and the debate regarding property redistribution as a part of peace negotiations. The article ends with a synthesis of the different critiques raised to the ways in which restitution and redistribution of property have been legally structured. These critiques include foregrounding neoliberalism (as an economic ideal and a governance project) in transitional justice, unveiling gender biases as well as demands for more comprehensive redistribution in the aftermath of civil war. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals The Power of Beliefs

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Levi
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Building Block ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Early Adoption ◽  
Empirical Social Science

My commitment to combining normative concerns with empirical social science led, perhaps a bit counterintuitively, to early adoption of rational choice political economy. However, it was a modified form of rational choice that takes into account ethical and societal concerns. This was the approach I applied to considerations of compliance and consent with government, what makes a trustworthy government, the formation of legitimating beliefs, and finally the construction of an expanded and inclusive community of fate as a building block for a new moral political economy. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 25 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Social Theory and Legal Theory: Contemporary Interactions

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Cotterrell
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Current Range ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives

This article identifies points of comparison between legal theory and social theory and possibilities for research communication between them. The current range of both fields is such that each must be seen as a compendium of very diverse intellectual projects. So, the article explores particular contemporary themes around which the interests of juristic scholars and social theorists are converging, albeit that their theoretical aims often differ. Contrasting and complementary juristic and social theoretical perspectives are considered in relation to the following: the future of legal individualism, the identity of law as a social phenomenon, the relations of law and power, the contribution of law to societal integration, and the changing relation of law and the state. The article argues that these five themes reveal major intellectual challenges for both legal theory and social theory and productive future areas for inquiry. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Protecting Basic Legal Freedoms: International Legal Complexes, Accountability Devices, and the Deviant Case of China

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence C. Halliday ◽  
Shira Zilberstein ◽  
Wendy Espeland
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Human Rights Organizations ◽  
Deviant Case ◽  
Collective Actor

With a focus on legal and other organizational actors beyond the state, this article seeks to expand the theory of conditions under which legal occupations will mobilize to fight for basic legal freedoms within states. It elaborates the line of scholarship on legal complexes and political liberalism within states since the 17th century. First, we catalog harms that international organizations (IOs) of many kinds seek to protect in the more than 190 states in the world. Second, we elaborate the concept of an international legal complex (ILC) as a collective actor in the global struggle for basic legal freedoms. We illustrate these two steps with new data on China drawn from a wider project. We show what harms mobilize the ILC, international human rights organizations (IHROs) and an international governmental organization, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). We focus on accountability devices as tools differentially deployed by the ILC, IOs, and UNHRC in their efforts to influence the institutionalization of basic legal freedoms, an open civil society, and a moderate state in China. The illustrative case of China provides a framework for research and theory on all other countries. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Thermoelectrics by Computational Design: Progress and Opportunities

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Kozinsky ◽  
David J. Singh
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Phonon Scattering ◽  
Transport Coefficients ◽  
Computational Design ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Boltzmann Transport

The performance of thermoelectric materials is determined by their electrical and thermal transport properties that are very sensitive to small modifications of composition and microstructure. Discovery and design of next-generation materials are starting to be accelerated by computational guidance. We review progress and challenges in the development of accurate and efficient first-principles methods for computing transport coefficients and illustrate approaches for both rapid materials screening and focused optimization. Particularly important and challenging are computations of electron and phonon scattering rates that enter the Boltzmann transport equations, and this is where there are many opportunities for improving computational methods. We highlight the first successful examples of computation-driven discoveries of high-performance materials and discuss avenues for tightening the interaction between theoretical and experimental materials discovery and optimization. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Materials Science, Volume 51 is August 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Confronting Banking Crises: Lessons from the Field

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Dobler ◽  
Marina Moretti ◽  
Alvaro Piris
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Online Publication ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Banking Crises ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Comprehensive Framework

Financial crises are a recurring feature of modern economies. This article summarizes the lessons learned from policy interventions and tools used to resolve banking crises from a practical, operational perspective and in light of the experiences and challenges faced during and since the 2008 global financial crisis. Managing a systemic banking crisis is a complex, multiyear process and requires a comprehensive framework for addressing systemic banking problems while minimizing taxpayers’ costs. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 13 is March 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Best Practices for the Design of Clinical Trials Related to the Visual System

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen G. Maguire
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Clinical Trials ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Science Volume ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Single Patient ◽  
Vision Science

Clinical trials for conditions affecting the visual system need to not only conform to the guidelines for all clinical trials, but also accommodate the possibility of both eyes of a single patient qualifying for the trial. In this review, I present the interplay of the key components in the design of a clinical trial, along with the modifications or options that may be available for trials addressing ocular conditions. Examples drawn from published reports of the design and results of clinical trials of ocular conditions are provided to illustrate application of the design principles. Current approaches to data analysis and reporting of trials are outlined, and the oversight and regulatory procedures to protect participants in clinical trials are discussed. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Vision Science, Volume 7 is September 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Business and Human Rights: Alternative Approaches to Transnational Regulation

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Surya Deva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Polycentric Governance ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Treaty Reform ◽  
And Control ◽  
Investment Agreements

In recent years, various approaches to transnational regulation of business conduct have evolved as an alternative to the command-and-control model focusing on conduct of domestic businesses and the soft law approach of international human rights law to regulate corporations. On reviewing the potential of five such approaches (i.e., polycentric governance, extraterritorial regulation, proposed international treaty, reform of corporate laws, and rebalancing of trade-investment agreements), this article makes two arguments. First, although polycentric governance is critical to fill regulatory deficits of state-based regulation, this approach should not ignore or weaken further the role and relevance of states in regulating businesses, given the dynamic relation between state-based and other regulatory approaches. Second, greater attention should be paid to nonhuman rights regulatory regimes to change the corporate culture, which tends to externalize human rights issues. The increasing focus on the role of corporate laws and trade-investment agreements should be seen in this context. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Volume 17 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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