The Forest Observation System, building a global reference dataset for remote sensing of forest biomass

International audienceForest biomass is an essential indicator for monitoring the Earth's ecosystems and climate. It is a critical input to greenhouse gas accounting, estimation of carbon losses and forest degradation, assessment of renewable energy potential, and for developing climate change mitigation policies such as REDD+, among others. Wall-to-wall mapping of aboveground biomass (aGB) is now possible with satellite remote sensing (RS). However, RS methods require extant, up-to-date, reliable, representative and comparable in situ data for calibration and validation. Here, we present the Forest Observation System (FOS) initiative, an international cooperation to establish and maintain a global in situ forest biomass database. aGB and canopy height estimates with their associated uncertainties are derived at a 0.25 ha scale from field measurements made in permanent research plots across the world's forests. all plot estimates are geolocated and have a size that allows for direct comparison with many RS measurements. The FOS offers the potential to improve the accuracy of RS-based biomass products while developing new synergies between the RS and ground-based ecosystem research communities

Criminal Law – Sentencing mentally disordered offenders: new hybrid orders

Paper explaining the changes introduced by the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, taking a critical look at its provisions, the circumstances behind its introduction and the present and future implications of the orders for the development of policy towards mentally disordered offenders. Article by Estella Baker (Faculty of Law, University of Leicester) published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

Crimes, remedies and videotape; An unhappy encounter with EU law?

The chapter uses the ruling of the Court of Appeal/Divisional Court in the joined cases of Interfact and Budimir to discuss the concept and phenomenon of national judicial resistance to the encroachment of European laws (EU and ECHR) into criminal procedure. Having provided a detailed analysis of the case, which distinguishes "substantive" from "rhetorical" resistance, it then proceeds to draw some broader lessons that apply in general to the reception of European laws by national criminal courts

What price criminal justice in the EU?

Editorial discusses a variety of aspects of the EU's evolving criminal jurisdiction in the context of the issues of financial cost and constitutional accountability

Great expectations: Sharing confidences in EU criminal justice

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This paper considers the evolution of the European Union's criminal justice competence using the analytical motif of "confidence". In order to explain why this approach was chosen the first part describes three confidence "vignettes" –situations or senses in which "confidence" forms a key part of the narrative of the Union's criminal justice development. Picking up upon the renaissance of interest among social scientists in the study of emotions, the paper then outlines the account of 'Action and confidence' that was provided by the sociologist, Jack Barbalet, in the context of his seminal work, Emotion, Social Theory, and Social Structure. This is then used to provide a series of reflections on the role of confidence (and emotion more generally) in relation to the Union's emergence as a criminal justice actor and, in turn, also on Barbalet's account

The Court of Justice of the EU and the "new" Lisbon environment five years on

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link