Religion, Human Rights, and Post-Secular Legal Theory

(Excerpt) The idea of human rights embodies the moral outlook and aspirations of modernity. It is through the language of human rights that political obligations are established and articulated, and it is through the language of human rights that an account of human nature and personhood is given meaning and form. The language of human rights is our common moral vocabulary. As Michael Perry writes, the morality of human rights-that is, the morality that grounds the law of human rights-has become the dominant morality of our time; indeed, unlike any morality before it, the morality of human rights has become a truly global morality. The idea of human rights, in this respect, embodies more than simply a system of legal norms. It rather represents, more elementally, a morality that aims to transcend all particular commitments and to serve as the basis of a shared moral order. The language of human rights, argues Upendra Baxi, has become a discourse that seeks to supplant all other ethical languages

Higher Law Secularism: Religious Symbols, Contested Secularisms, and the Limits of the Establishment Clause

There are two dominant traditions of understanding the secular, both with long genealogical resonance in western thought: Christian secularity and secularism. The former links the secular to a theological narrative, while the latter defines the secular as standing over and against religion. Constitutional debate has commonly framed the issue of religious symbols as demanding resolution in favor of one of these traditions. Rather than offering a way to overcome the divide and the culture war it generates, the Court\u27s jurisprudence has instead concretized the binary. Only by cultivating a new understanding of the secular in law might there emerge an approach to Establishment Clause jurisprudence that overcomes the regnant binary. This article offers the idea of higher law secularism as way of reconceptualizing the secular that opens the Establishment Clause to such alternative forms of meaning

Faithful Presence and Theological Jurisprudence: A Response to James Davison Hunter

This paper considers how James Hunter’s arguments, presented both in his address and his book To Change the World, might inform the development of a constructive religious legal theory based in the particular resources of Christian theology. In speaking of religious legal theory, I mean something quite different than a theory of law and religion. For some time, the academic conversation about law and religion has centered around issues concerning church-state relations and, more broadly, the place of religion within the liberal political order. Yet, the regnant methodological concerns that have shaped this discourse reflect the boundedness of law to a modern secular imaginary. This being the case, pulling theology into deeper conversation with legal thought will require freeing law from its lingering state of captivity. Hunter’s work is particularly useful in this ground-clearing task because it offers a dense critique of the sociological assumptions that have shaped legal modernity. While his concern is not with religious legal theory as such, Hunter’s normative account of Christian being in the world, captured most fully in the idea of faithful presence, contains important resources for developing a model of Christian engagement with law

Research on the meaning of the enzymatic systems (GPI and PGM) as parameters for the definition of varieties (Vitis sp.): The Italian case of Cabernet franc

Several studies carried out at Davis and Conegliano showed that isozyme analysis of the GPI and PGM enzymatic systems agrees with the conventional definition of the variety in ampelography. Differences were reported among varieties but not among biotypes of the same varieties. The only exception recorded was in the population of Cabernet franc in which GPI and PGM reveal two different types (A - the traditional type encountered in France and B - type encountered in the Italian region of Veneto). Further ampelographic, ampelometric, phenological and chemical studies on the polyphenolic and aromatic substances in fruits have shown considerable differences between the two types. Such differences demonstrate that the type B is a different variety and not a clone of Cabernet franc. Preliminary ampelographic analysis and the equality in GPI and PGM patterns lead to the conclusion that the type B very probably is Carmenère.Therefore, the hypothesis of variety discrimination based on the analysis of GPI and PGM is valid and this method is useful to help to characterize the varieties

Follicular nodules (Thy3) of the thyroid: is total thyroidectomy the best option?

BACKGROUND: Identification of the best management strategy for nodules with Thy3 cytology presents particular problems for clinicians. This study investigates the ability of clinical, cytological and sonographic data to predict malignancy in indeterminate nodules with the scope of determining the need for total thyroidectomy in these patients. METHODS: The study population consisted of 249 cases presenting indeterminate nodules (Thy3): 198 females (79.5%) and 51 males (20.5%) with a mean age of 52.43 ± 13.68 years. All patients underwent total thyroidectomy. RESULTS: Malignancy was diagnosed in 87/249 patients (34.9%); thyroiditis co-existed in 119/249 cases (47.79%) and was associated with cancer in 40 cases (40/87; 45.98%). Of the sonographic characteristics, only echogenicity and the presence of irregular margins were identified as being statistically significant predictors of malignancy. 52/162 benign lesions (32.1%) and 54/87 malignant were hypoechoic (62.07%); irregular margins were present in 13/162 benign lesions (8.02%), and in 60/87 malignant lesions (68.97%). None of the clinical or cytological features, on the other hand, including age, gender, nodule size, the presence of microcalcifications or type 3 vascularization, were significantly associated with malignancy. CONCLUSIONS: The rate of malignancy in cytologically indeterminate lesions was high in the present study sample compared to other reported rates, and in a significant number of cases Hashimoto’s thyroiditis was also detected. Thus, considering the fact that clinical and cytological features were found to be inaccurate predictors of malignancy, it is our opinion that surgery should always be recommended. Moreover, total thyroidectomy is advisable, being the most suitable procedure in cases of multiple lesions, hyperplastic nodular goiter, or thyroiditis; the high incidence of malignancy and the unreliability of intraoperative frozen section examination also support this preference for total over hemi-thyroidectomy

Expressive Policy Analysis with Enhanced System Dynamicity

Despite several research studies, the effective analysis of policy based systems remains a significant challenge. Policy analysis should at least (i) be expressive (ii) take account of obligations and authorizations, (iii) include a dynamic system model, and (iv) give useful diagnostic information. We present a logic-based policy analysis framework which satisfies these requirements, showing how many significant policy-related properties can be analysed, and we give details of a prototype implementation. Copyright 2009 ACM

Empty Coruña?: un dispositivo académico transdisciplinar para a abordaxe, dende unha perspectiva dos dereitos, da problemática urbana trala crise financeira

[Resumo] O curso de verán “Empty Coruña? inhabited processes: mid crisis urban transformation” nace como unha experiencia educativa con orientación transdisciplinar. Busca analizar e investigar os efectos da crise financeira no espazo da cidade da Coruña desde diferentes perspectivas e actividades para acadar unha visión integradora da situación. Neste artigo presentamos as diferentes motivacións teóricas e as cuestións prácticas que se desenvolveron nun curso que pretende acercar a academia ás necesidades contemporáneas da nosa sociedade.[Abstract] Summer course “Empty Coruña? inhabited processes: mid crisis urban transformation” is born as an educational experience with transdisciplinary orientation. It looks for to analyze and research the effects of the financial crisis in the space of the city of A Coruña from different perspectives and activities to achieve an integrative vision of the situation. In this article we present the various theoretical motivations and the practical questions that were developed in a course adressed to land academia on contemporary social issues