Port Sustainability Management System for Smaller Ports in Cornwall and Devon

Many smaller ports in Cornwall and Devon (CAD) are situated in environmentally sensitive habitats and generate benefits for stakeholders and local communities. Such ports are often embedded in tourist based economies. Increasing environmental legislation is placing a strain on the resources of smaller ports making compliance a threat to profitability and thus the future of some ports and local economies. Over-reliance on environmental management systems (EMS) across the ports industry has predominated over the importance of holistic sustainability. This project develops and disseminates a port sustainability management system (PSMS) in CAD, assisting ports to plan marine and maritime operations more sustainably, to facilitate mitigation of potential risks, to increase knowledge and awareness of port sustainability, and to promote the adoption of a proactive stance towards sustainable port management. A constructivist philosophy suited a multiple methods research design which included ethnographic content analysis (ECA), statistical verification of qualitative coding, nine scoping interviews, and eight semi-structured interviews during the main phase of data collection. The seven Harbour Masters (HMs) in this phase represented all port governance types found in the UK. Charmaz’s grounded theory (GT) methodology guided the collection and analysis of primary data between August 2012 and February 2013 to create new theory using an inductive constructivist approach. Validation by fifteen of the thirty local HMs during industry testing revealed numerous advantages and benefits of deploying PSMS which is estimated to generate £50,000 worth of benefits per port annually, and £3,865,005 for the 15 participating ports over 5 years. A new model of smaller port sustainability has emerged. PSMS has eleven pillars of sustainability which underpin the spectrum of port operations. Within this model, each pillar is equally important in contributing to the overall sustainability of a port, and neglect of one could jeopardise sustainability overall and potentially cause a chain reaction with other pillars.European Social Fund Combined Universities of Cornwall (ESF-CUC

Putting Forts in their Place: The Politics of Defense in Antigua, 1670-1785

Between 1670 and 1785, the plantation elite on the British island of Antigua built and maintained at least fifty-four fortifications to protect the island from other European competitors. Rather than being commissioned, engineered, and defended by the metropolitan government in London, the defense of the island was the sole purview of the Antiguan legislature. Money, designs, and locations for these defensive sites came from internal deliberations on the island making them unique places to study iterations of seventeenth and eighteenth century British colonialism, elite thinking, and the impact on the landscape. To interpret these sites, I use archaeological, archival, and spatial analyses to investigate their ability to provide the types of external defenses they were designated for, as well as test the corollary explanation that the forts played a role in providing internal security for the island. Neither paradigm, however, adequately explains the spatial distribution, architectural decisions, or addresses the heterogenous fort societies revealed in this research. Therefore, to better interpret Antigua’s fortifications, I develop the concept martial landscape as an explanatory framework whereby the island elites manipulate defense policy to better reflect their own social standings, rather than considering a holistic defensive structure. I conclude by showing how blanket assumptions about military sites like fortifications and the historic trajectory of colonialism in the Caribbean are concepts which need considerable tempering by a more local, island scale, perspective

Pluralism,Institutionalism and the Theories of BC Politics

THis article looks back on the classic theories of BC politics from the perspecctive of contemporary institutionalis

Managing U.S-EU Trade Relations through Mutual Recognition and Safe Harbor Agreements:"New" and "Global" Approaches to Transatlantic Economic Governance?

governance; regulation; regulations; regulatory competition; directives; implementation; WTO

Evaluating a multi criteria model for hazard and risk assessment in urban design

The aim of this research is to test a decisional aid model - the Analytic Hierarchy Procedure (AHP) - in risk assessment for development of an urban area.The Port Authority of Venice commissioned the Regional Environmental Protection Agency (ARPAV) to carry out an estimation of major industrial hazards in Porto Marghera, an industrial estate near Venice (Italy), via Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA). However, this model only provided a list of individual quantitative risk values, related to single locations. Therefore, there was both a need and an opportunity to introduce a decision aid model, which could take into account the geographic distribution of risk, the quantification of intangible factors and the analysis of possible future developments.The experimental model, through a series of trade -off comparisons, encouraged the use of expert opinions in conjunction with traditional quantitative analysis, enabling the decision maker to generate quantitative data on risk assessment from a series of subjective, qualitative assessments. It was also a major result to bring together complementary skills and expertise from different disciplines in a wide and clear collaborative research project

Advancing the Right to Health: The Vital Role of Law

Effective laws and an enabling legal environment are essential to a healthy society. Most public health challenges – from infectious and non-communicable diseases to injuries, from mental illness to universal health coverage – have a legal component. At global, national and local levels, law is a powerful tool for advancing the right to health. This tool is, however, often underutilized. This report aims to raise awareness about the role that public health laws can play in advancing the right to health and in creating the conditions for all people to live healthy lives. The report provides guidance about issues and requirements to be addressed during the process of developing or reforming public health laws, with case studies drawn from countries around the world to illustrate effective practices and critical features of effective public health legislation. Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law is the result of a collaboration between the World Health Organisation, the International Development Law Organisation (IDLO), the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Washington D.C., USA, and Sydney Law School, University of Sydney. The Project Directors were: Professor Lawrence O. Gostin, Linda D. and Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law and University Professor, Georgetown University; Faculty Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University; Mr David Patterson, Senior Legal Expert – Health; Department of Research & Learning, International Development Law Organization; Professor Roger Magnusson, Professor of Health Law & Governance, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney; Mr Oscar Cabrera, Executive Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Ms Helena Nygren-Krug (2011–2013), Senior Advisor, Human Rights & Law, UNAIDS. The content and structure of the report reflect the consensus reached at the second of two international consultations in public health law that preceded the preparation of the report, hosted by WHO and IDLO in Cairo, Egypt, 26-28 April 2010. Part 1 introduces the human right to health and its role in guiding and evaluating law reform efforts, including efforts to achieve the goal of universal health coverage. Part 2 discusses the process of public health law reform. The law reform process refers to the practical steps involved in advancing the political goal of law reform, and the kinds of issues and obstacles that may be encountered along the way. Part 2 identifies some of the actors who may initiate or lead the public health law reform process, discusses principles of good governance during that process, and ways of building a consensus around the need for public health law reform. Part 3 turns from the process of reforming public health laws to the substance or content of those laws. It identifies a number of core areas of public health practice where regulation is essential in order to ensure that governments (at different levels) discharge their basic public health functions. Traditionally, these core areas of public health practice have included: the provision of clean water and sanitation, monitoring and surveillance of public health threats, the management of communicable diseases, and emergency powers. Building on these core public health functions, Part 3 goes on to consider a range of other public health priorities where law has a critical role to play. These priorities include tobacco control, access to essential medicines, the migration of health care workers, nutrition, maternal, reproductive and child health, and the role of law in advancing universal access to quality health services for all members of the population. The report includes many examples that illustrate the ways in which different countries have used law to protect the health of their populations in ways that are consistent with their human rights obligations. Countries vary widely in terms of their constitutional structure, size, history and political culture. For these reasons, the examples given are not intended to be prescriptive, but to provide useful comparisons for countries involved in the process of legislative review