Concerns And Ideas About The Developing English Law Of Privacy (And How Knowledge Of Foreign Law Might Be Of Help)

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Dynamics of Bora wind over the Adriatic sea: atmospheric water balance and role of air-sea fluxes and orography

The Bora wind is a mesoscale phenomenon which typically affects the Adriatic Sea basin for several days each year, especially during winter. The Bora wind has been studied for its intense outbreak across the Dinaric Alps. The properties of the Bora wind are widely discussed in the literature and scientific papers usually focus on the eastern Adriatic coast where strong turbulence and severe gust intensity are more pronounced. However, the impact of the Bora wind can be significant also over Italy, not only in terms of wind speed instensity. Depending on the synoptic pressure pattern (cyclonic or anticyclonic Bora) and on the season, heavy snowfall, severe storms, storm surges and floods can occur along the Adriatic coast and on the windward flanks of the Apennines. In the present work five Bora cases that occurred in recent years have been selected and their evolution has been simulated with the BOLAM-MOLOCH model set, developed at ISAC-CNR in Bologna. Each case study has been addressed by a control run and by several sensitivity tests, performed with the purpose of better understanding the role played by air-sea latent and sensible heat fluxes. The tests show that the removal of the fluxes induces modifications in the wind approching the coast and a decrease of the total precipitation amount predicted over Italy. In order to assess the role of heat fluxes, further analysis has been carried out: column integrated water vapour fluxes have been computed along the Italian coastline and an atmospheric water balance has been evaluated inside a box volume over the Adriatic Sea. The balance computation shows that, although latent heat flux produces a significant impact on the precipitation field, its contribution to the balance is relatively minor. The most significant and lasting case study, that of February 2012, has been studied in more detail in order to explain the impressive drop in the total precipitation amount simulated in the sensitivity tests with removed heat fluxes with respect to the CNTRL run. In these experiments relative humidity and potential temperature distribution over different cross-sections have been examined. With respect to the CNTRL run a drier and more stable boundary layer, characterised by a more pronounced wind shear at the lower levels, has been observed to establish above the Adriatic Sea. Finally, in order to demonstrate that also the interaction of the Bora flow with the Apennines plays a crucial role, sensitivity tests varying the orography height have been considered. The results of such sensitivity tests indicate that the propagation of the Bora wind over the Adriatic Sea, and in turn its meteorological impact over Italy, is influenced by both the large air-sea heat fluxes and the interaction with the Apennines that decelerate the upstream flow

Believing in Negotiation: Reflection on Law’s Regulation of Religious Symbols in State Schools

Focusing on recent developments relating to religious symbols in Western European state schools, this chapter will examine the reasoning adopted at legislative and judicial level. It will be submitted that if courts and parliament more greatly negotiated with religious claims, many of the current tensions and contradictions between secularism and religion would dissolve. This chapter will in turn address the conceptual and practical hurdles to negotiating with religion in state schools. Negotiating with religion implies that radical solutions are not the only possible means to satisfying fairness and neutrality. Welcoming all expressions of religion at school on an equal standing or banning all religious signs altogether may theoretically and constitutionally amount to sound decisions. The purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate that a third option –which gives a greater weight to one or a few religion(s) over others– may however also be acceptable and is arguably more desirable

Online article “The Legal Face of Populism: From the Classroom to the Courtroom”

This article examines the normative-conceptual contrast between populism and radical democracy against the specific backdrop of two case-studies – the Fundamental British Values discourse in the UK and the French burqa ban. The goals of the article are twofold. First, to enrich the understanding of populism by analysing the interactions between populism, democracy and legal reasoning. Secondly, to offer ways of resisting a populist turn in legal reasoning. I will argue that law’s response to populism should embrace the ideals of radical democracy, namely deliberation and inclusiveness. In order to enhance deliberation and ensure its inclusiveness, I will submit that law should both retreat (from the classroom) and actively riposte against populism (in the courtroom)

Negotiating with religion from a legal perspective

In a human rights era, European States are increasingly under pressure to give due regard to individual claims to religious expression and manifestation. Simultaneously, States struggle to formulate a coherent approach to religion that is both faithful to their national traditions and constitutional national frameworks and respectful of the growing diversity in religious practices and attitudes towards religion within their societies. Recent trends reveal a tightening of the legal discourse in relation to religion. On the one hand, religion often appears to be incompatible with common duties and is now consequently invoked as a basis for positive rights to derogation/exemption and accommodation in the workplace or in educational settings. On the other hand, responses by national authorities have become more ideologically laden: national identities and fundamental constitutional values are often opposed to religious claims

English Schools with a Religious Ethos: For a Re-Interpretation of Religious Autonomy

Rooted in a principle of non-interference in matters of religious beliefs, supported by an ideology of parental school choice, faith state schools in England have enjoyed a large discretion to promote their religious ethos. Recent judicial and legislative interventions into the affairs of religious schools may be criticized as they betray these philosophical roots, without offering an alternative coherent justificatory model for law and religion relationships. By seeking to remove the allegedly socially or racially divisive edge of religious autonomy, these interventions have provoked an unwarranted and inconsistent mingling of the secular and the religious. Moreover, they have imposed a form of state governance which has reinforced religious authorities to the detriment of the autonomy of local stakeholders, parents and schools. It is claimed that a more deliberative and contextual re-interpretation of the principle of religious autonomy in English Law would lead to less confrontational and more acceptable outcomes

Law, religion and the school

As the very presence of religion in the public sphere is being questioned, the issue of religion at school often revolves around the extent to which the State may be allowed to endorse a particular expression of faith in a public school setting. This chapter focuses on the guidance provided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on this question. On the basis of recent ECtHR cases on religious education, several underlying assumptions will be unraveled: a welcome indication that there is no right not to be exposed to beliefs other than one’s own but also a more debatable suggestion that secular views are inherently more neutral than religious views. It will be argued that the requirements of neutrality are hereby crudely and narrowly construed. By contrast, the case-law on religious symbols in state schools may be praised as a signal that religion may have a place at school. However the strong emphasis on the margin of appreciation granted to member States in those areas is not convincing. Looking ahead, the article will advocate a more robust proportionality test which weights the aims sought by Member States against the interferences caused as a result with individual rights

Religious freedom and the right against religious discrimination: Democracy as the missing link

The article puts forward a novel democratic framework to rethink the relationships between religious freedom and religious discrimination. First, it makes a case for a unifying normative basis for all religious interests grounded in a democratic framework, which emphasises the dual dimension of religious interests, both as negative rights protecting individual autonomy against interferences as well as positive rights of participation. Second, it builds upon this democratic framework to revisit the relationships between discrimination law and religious freedom and guard against trends to subject discrimination law claims to preliminary (higher) thresholds. Third, the article examines how contextual balancing exercises between competing interests should (and to a large extent have) become a key unifying feature of both routes and draws from the democratic framework insights as to how these balancing exercises should be carried out