The politics of the evolution of global tobacco control: The formation and functioning of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)

The study investigates the politics behind the evolution of tobacco as a global issue leading to adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in May 2003. The study relies on liberal-constructivist perspective to analyze the transformation of tobacco control between 1960 and 2003. The study uses a combination of elite interview and content analysis. It found that the presence of an international organization with constitutional powers in tobacco control, WHO and the diffusion and transfer of knowledge, information, and ideas about tobacco use and tobacco control contributed to the emergence of tobacco control as a global phenomenon and the FCTC

When the lawfare is about evidence : from the negotiation of the framework convention on tobacco control to the international disputes against tobacco control measures (Philip Morris v Uruguay and Australia - plain packaging)

Defence date: 27 November 2020Examining Board: Prof. Joanne Scott (European University Institute); Prof. Jürgen Kurtz (European University Institute); Prof. Amandine Garde (University of Liverpool); Prof. Sergio Puig (University of Arizona)Awarded the 2021 Antonio Cassese Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis in International LawThis thesis analyses the role of evidence in the international law on tobacco control. Starting from the 1990s, the 'tobacco wars' have invaded the international arena, giving rise to what I call an 'international lawfare'. International law has been used as a double-edged tool: to spur action at the domestic level, and at the same time to deter domestic regulation. The battle has consisted of two main courses of action. First, under the auspices of the World Health Organization, the tobacco control network pushed for the negotiation of a treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Second, as a counter-offensive, a wave of disputes has been lodged by the tobacco industry or by some States acting in their interest before international courts and tribunals (particularly the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system, ad-hoc international investment tribunals, and the Court of Justice of the European Union). Against this background, my thesis explores how both sides of the battle (the tobacco control network and the tobacco industry) strategically used and challenged the evidence on the effectiveness of tobacco control measures. To this end, Chapter I describes how the treaty entrepreneurs built the FCTC as an evidence-based treaty to counteract the attacks on evidence by the tobacco industry. Chapter II reviews how, after its entry into force, the FCTC institutional arrangements and scientific cooperation provisions have created a continuous evidence-based regime. Chapter III explains how the tobacco industry used the international lawsuits to challenge the effectiveness of tobacco control measures. The conclusions, finally, discuss some of the main issues raised by this thesis, including the role of business actors in international regulation and the fragmentation of international law.Chapter 2 ‘The Management of the FCTC as an Evidence-Based Regime' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'The FCTC dilemma on heated tobacco products' (2020) in the journal ‘Globalization and Health’Chapter 3 ‘Strategic evidentiary challenges in international litigation against tobacco control measures' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'The legal and evidential value of the guidelines for implementation of the framework convention on tobacco control recent developments and critical views' (2017) in the journal ‘European journal of risk regulation’, as an article 'The FCTC and its role in WTO law : some remarks on the WTO plain packaging report' (2018) in the journal ‘European journal of risk regulation’, and as an article 'Evidentiary issues in Philip Morris v Uruguay : the role of the framework convention for tobacco control and lessons for NCD prevention' (2020) in the journal ‘The journal of world investment & trade

A study to assess the effectiveness of swallowing exercises on level of dysphagia among patients with oral/ oesophageal/ laryngeal cancer at Ashwin hospital, Coimbatore

A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Swallowing Exercises on the Level of Dysphagia Among Patients with Oral/ Oesophageal/ Laryngeal Cancer at Ashwin Hospital, Coimbatore. Objectives of the Study: To assess the level of dysphagia among patients with oral/ oesophageal/ laryngeal cancer in control group and experimental group. To teach swallowing exercises for the experimental group. To assess the effectiveness of swallowing exercises on level of dysphagia in experimental group. To compare the effectiveness of swallowing exercises on level of dysphagia in control group and experimental group. To associate the findings of pretest score of dysphagia with selected demographic variables in experimental group. To find out the association between knowledge and selected demographic variables among clients with Primary Hypertension. To find out the association between attitude and selected demographic variables among clients with Primary Hypertension. Assumptions: Patients with oral/ oesophageal/ laryngeal cancer will experience dysphagia. Practice of swallowing exercises will improve swallowing among patients with oral/ oesophageal/ laryngeal cancer

Angry Employees: Revisiting Insubordination in Title VII Cases

In too many Title VII cases, employees find themselves thrown out of court because they reacted angrily to reasonable perceptions of employer discrimination. In the race context, supervisors repeatedly call employees the n-word and use other racial epithets, order African American employees to perform work others in the same job classification do not have to do, and impose discipline white employees do not face for the comparable conduct. In the gender context, courts throw out plaintiffs’ cases even where supervisors engage in egregious sexual harassment. Employees who react angrily to such demeaning treatment—by cursing, shouting, refusing an order or leaving the workplace—find themselves fired for “insubordination.” Their acts fall short of threats of violence and are brief in duration, but courts nonetheless uphold employers’ invocation of “insubordination” as a “legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason” for plaintiffs’ discharge. The article argues that courts should more carefully scrutinize the relationship between discrimination-tinged work environments and employees’ angry reactions. This article makes specific proposals about how Title VII courts should handle insubordination cases that raise discrimination concerns. To gain ideas for this purpose it looks both to Title VII precedent and doctrines the National Labor Relations Board has developed in the exercise of its special expertise in regulating workplace relations. Unlike many Title VII courts, the NLRB and courts reviewing its decisions often grant some leeway to “angry employees”—i.e., employees who have gone some distance past the line of proper decorum (but not too far) in expressing indignation at what they reasonably perceive as violations of their statutorily protected rights. Instead of routinely accepting insubordination as legitimate grounds for an adverse employment action, as Title VII courts often do, the NLRB more carefully scrutinizes the context giving rise to “angry employees.” This article argues that Title VII courts should do more of that scrutiny too. It proposes doctrinal modifications Title VII courts could implement in the exercise of their interstitial statutory interpretative powers to better serve Title VII’s dual purposes of (1) better enforcing the workplace antidiscrimination mandate and (2) encouraging employers and employees to resolve discrimination disputes in real time in workplaces rather rendering employees so docile that that they must “make a federal case” out of all discrimination disputes

Personal Identity and Self-Interpretation & Natural Right and Natural Emotions

Collection of papers presented at the 2nd and 3rd Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosoph

Concept of Simple Esteem in De jure naturae et gentium

Peer reviewe

Nonnormative Ethics: The dynamic of trans formation

In this thesis I propose to address trans as nonnormative ethical formation. In the current definition (Stryker, 2008) trans is defined as a movement outside of constraints that encapsulate normative genders. Preciado (2012) argues that trans involves the constitution of a soma-political project, beyond identity. As opposed to theories that describe identity formation as aspirational, the thesis extends Aristotle’s arguments for ethical formation in terms of interactive engagement within environments through an agents’ dunamis – the powers of its Soul (Lee 1992). The limits of the Aristotelian model will be overcome by use of Anzaldúa (1987) and Lugones (2003). The navigation away from imposed normative environments through agential action will be shown to lead to nonnormative logos: a formational logic shaping perception, action, and practical reflection culminating in practical truth. This reading enables centering somatechnical processes (Sullivan 2009) as generative of forms of life. Wittgenstein suggests that agential logic informs forms of life, shaping validity of both principles and decisions. I use this insight to claim that the polis is ordered by a single logic that informs norms. I propose nonnormative ethics to encompass agents with differing logos. Reading eudaimonia as the demon standing behind the agent, I will suggest that nonnormative ethics takes place outside of the polis on the ‘demonic grounds’ (McKittrick 2015, Wynter 1990). Nonnormative ethical connections are multilogical and are bridged by collective codes. I will draw from Glissant (2002) to make a case for acknowledging agential opacity away from a pathologising claim to interiority. I will argue for nonantagonistic playfulness and loss (Lugones, 2003) as keys to the emergence of nonnormative codes enabling shared forms of life. I propose that the distinction with the codes of the polis is the willingness to share loss, instead of exploitation. The thesis makes the case that bodily change is central to changing one’s understanding of, and relation to one’s surroundings. Furthermore, I argue such change is a collective process, and that emerging epistemologies are connected to contextual ethics