The Grammar of Customary Law

All law is customary. This article explores how we should conceive of the customary nature of law, proposing a framework for understanding how legal orders are related to their various societies. The article builds upon the pragmatist conception of law developed by Lon Fuller and Gerald Postema, but it goes well beyond their accounts, arguing that their predominantly functionalist approaches are inadequate. Although law does serve to coordinate social interaction, it does so through specific conceptual languages, through particular grammars of customary law. Law can only be understood if one takes those grammars seriously.The article pursues this argument by drawing comparisons between indigenous and non-indigenous legal orders, both to expand the comparative range and to explore what indigenous legal orders can reveal about law generally. It explores the limitations of functionalist accounts (including law and economics) in the law of persons and property, in presumptions about the foundational requirements of legal order, and in the presence of the sacred or mythic in law. The article concludes that attending to the various grammars of customary law allows one to engage, productively and with insight, in legal reasoning across the normative divide separating different legal cultures.Tout droit est coutumier. Cet article étudie la manière dont nous devrions concevoir la nature coutumière du droit, en proposant un cadre pour comprendre comment les systèmes juridiques sont liés à leurs sociétés respectives. L’article s’appuie sur la conception pragmatique du droit développée par Lon Fuller et Gerald Postema, mais il va bien au-delà de leurs théories en affirmant que leurs approches principalement fonctionnalistes sont inadéquates. Le droit sert à coordonner les interactions sociales, mais de surcroît, il remplit cette fonction à travers des langages conceptuels spécifiques et des grammaires particulières de droit coutumier. Le droit peut uniquement être compris si ces grammaires sont sérieusement prises en compte.L’article développe cet argument en traçant des comparaisons entre les systèmes juridiques autochtone et non autochtone, à la fois pour élargir le champ comparatif et pour considérer ce que les systèmes juridiques autochtones ont à révéler sur le droit. Il étudie les limites des théories fonctionnalistes (incluant l’analyse économique du droit) en ce qui concerne le droit des personnes et des biens, les présomptions relatives aux exigences fondamentales des systèmes juridiques et la présence d’éléments sacrés et mythiques dans le droit. L’article conclut que l’attention portée aux différentes grammaires du droit coutumier nous permettra de nous livrer à une réflexion juridique productive et éclairée, au-delà du clivage normatif qui sépare les différentes cultures juridiques

Relations of Force and Relations of Justice: The Emergence of Normative Community between Colonists and Aboriginal Peoples

This paper argues that Aboriginal rights are best understood as the product of cross-cultural interaction-not, as is usually supposed, the result of some antecedent body of law (English, international, or Aboriginal). Aboriginal rights are therefore intercommunal in origin. The paper does describe the process by which this body of law emerged, but its primary vocation is theoretical, concerned with the following questions: How can a normative community emerge in the presence of profound cultural divisions? How can relations of justice emerge in a context dominated by power and coercion? How does moral reasoning draw upon the factual relations of the past? Does the process create law, cognizable by judges

Legal Pluralism and Human Agency

Much legal-pluralist scholarship tends to naturalize the law of the context, treating that law as though it were inherent in social interaction, emerging spontaneously, without conscious human decision. This view overstates the role of agreement in human societies and mischaracterizes the nature of law, including non-state law. All law is concerned with establishing a collective set of norms against a backdrop of normative disagreement, not agreement. It necessarily contains mechanisms for bringing contention to a provisional close, imposing a collective solution. This article presents a theory of legal pluralism that takes human disagreement seriously. The theory retains four themes crucial to legal pluralism: the hermeneutic theme, the plural theme, the adaptive theme, and the decentring theme. It also helps us to identify two modes common in legal analysis-the descriptive and the hortatory mode-which are quite different, though often confused. In doing so it provides a compelling, pluralist conception of law, one that takes human disagreement seriously

Legal Pluralism and Human Agency

Much legal-pluralist scholarship tends to naturalize the law of the context, treating that law as though it were inherent in social interaction, emerging spontaneously, without conscious human decision. This view overstates the role of agreement in human societies and mischaracterizes the nature of law, including non-state law. All law is concerned with establishing a collective set of norms against a backdrop of normative disagreement, not agreement. It necessarily contains mechanisms for bringing contention to a provisional close, imposing a collective solution. This article presents a theory of legal pluralism that takes human disagreement seriously. The theory retains four themes crucial to legal pluralism: the hermeneutic theme, the plural theme, the adaptive theme, and the decentring theme. It also helps us to identify two modes common in legal analysis-the descriptive and the hortatory mode-which are quite different, though often confused. In doing so it provides a compelling, pluralist conception of law, one that takes human disagreement seriously

Statistical downscaling of MODIS thermal imagery to Landsat 5tm + resolutions

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI

Spatiotemporal Variations in Heat-Related Health Risk in Three Midwestern U.S. Cities Between 1990 and 2010

Mortality from extreme heat is a leading cause of weather-related fatality, which is expected to increase in frequency with future climate scenarios. This study examines the spatiotemporal variations in heat-related health risk in three Midwestern cities in the United States between the years 1990 to 2010; cities include Chicago, Illinois, Indianapolis, IN, and Dayton, OH. In order to examine these variations we utilize the recently developed Extreme Heat Vulnerability Index (EHVI) that uses a principal components solution to vulnerability. The EHVI incorporates data from the U.S. Decadal Census and remotely sensed variables to determine heat-related vulnerability at an intra-urban level (census block group). The results demonstrate significant spatiotemporal variations in heat-health risk within the cities involved

Rapid DNA replication origin licensing protects stem cell pluripotency

Complete and robust human genome duplication requires loading minichromosome maintenance (MCM) helicase complexes at many DNA replication origins, an essential process termed origin licensing. Licensing is restricted to G1 phase of the cell cycle, but G1 length varies widely among cell types. Using quantitative single-cell analyses, we found that pluripotent stem cells with naturally short G1 phases load MCM much faster than their isogenic differentiated counterparts with long G1 phases. During the earliest stages of differentiation toward all lineages, MCM loading slows concurrently with G1 lengthening, revealing developmental control of MCM loading. In contrast, ectopic Cyclin E overproduction uncouples short G1 from fast MCM loading. Rapid licensing in stem cells is caused by accumulation of the MCM loading protein, Cdt1. Prematurely slowing MCM loading in pluripotent cells not only lengthens G1 but also accelerates differentiation. Thus, rapid origin licensing is an intrinsic characteristic of stem cells that contributes to pluripotency maintenance

A generalist–specialist trade-off between switchgrass cytotypes impacts climate adaptation and geographic range

Polyploidy results from whole-genome duplication and is a unique form of heritable variation with pronounced evolutionary implications. Different ploidy levels, or cytotypes, can exist within a single species, and such systems provide an opportunity to assess how ploidy variation alters phenotypic novelty, adaptability, and fitness, which can, in turn, drive the development of unique ecological niches that promote the coexistence of multiple cytotypes. Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, is a widespread, perennial C4 grass in North America with multiple naturally occurring cytotypes, primarily tetraploids (4×) and octoploids (8×). Using a combination of genomic, quantitative genetic, landscape, and niche modeling approaches, we detect divergent levels of genetic admixture, evidence of niche differentiation, and differential environmental sensitivity between switchgrass cytotypes. Taken together, these findings support a generalist (8×)–specialist (4×) trade-off. Our results indicate that the 8× represent a unique combination of genetic variation that has allowed the expansion of switchgrass’ ecological niche and thus putatively represents a valuable breeding resource

Rapid draft sequencing and real-time nanopore sequencing in a hospital outbreak of Salmonella

Background: Foodborne outbreaks of Salmonella remain a pressing public health concern. We recently detected a large outbreak of Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis phage type 14b affecting more than 30 patients in our hospital. This outbreak was linked to community, national and European-wide cases. Hospital patients with Salmonella are at high risk, and require a rapid response. We initially investigated this outbreak by whole-genome sequencing using a novel rapid protocol on the Illumina MiSeq; we then integrated these data with whole-genome data from surveillance sequencing, thereby placing the outbreak in a national context. Additionally, we investigated the potential of a newly released sequencing technology, the MinION from Oxford Nanopore Technologies, in the management of a hospital outbreak of Salmonella. Results: We demonstrate that rapid MiSeq sequencing can reduce the time to answer compared to the standard sequencing protocol with no impact on the results. We show, for the first time, that the MinION can acquire clinically relevant information in real time and within minutes of a DNA library being loaded. MinION sequencing permits confident assignment to species level within 20 min. Using a novel streaming phylogenetic placement method samples can be assigned to a serotype in 40 min and determined to be part of the outbreak in less than 2 h. Conclusions: Both approaches yielded reliable and actionable clinical information on the Salmonella outbreak in less than half a day. The rapid availability of such information may facilitate more informed epidemiological investigations and influence infection control practices