Disciplinary Collisions: Blum, Kalven, and the Economic Analysis of Accident Law at Chicago in the 1960s

International audienceThe University of Chicago occupies a central place in the history of law and economics. To this point, however, scant attention has been given in the literature to how the prospect of an economic analysis of law was received within the Law School at Chicago when the subject was in its infancy. In this paper we focus on the work of two prominent dissenters: Law professors Walter J. Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr. We show that, although immersed in economics and interacting with the main actors of the law and economics movement in the early 1950s, Blum and Kalven largely rejected economics as a possible and useful help for solving legal problems, both because of their concerns about the utility of economics in the legal realm and because of their sense that economics and law are grounded in fundamentally incompatible normative visions

Disciplinary Collisions: Blum, Kalven, and the Economic Analysis of Accident Law at Chicago in the 1960s

International audienceThe University of Chicago occupies a central place in the history of law and economics. To this point, however, scant attention has been given in the literature to how the prospect of an economic analysis of law was received within the Law School at Chicago when the subject was in its infancy. In this paper we focus on the work of two prominent dissenters: Law professors Walter J. Blum and Harry Kalven, Jr. We show that, although immersed in economics and interacting with the main actors of the law and economics movement in the early 1950s, Blum and Kalven largely rejected economics as a possible and useful help for solving legal problems, both because of their concerns about the utility of economics in the legal realm and because of their sense that economics and law are grounded in fundamentally incompatible normative visions

Wastewater monitoring can anchor global disease surveillance systems

ILRI staff Ekta Patel is a member of the Global Wastewater Action Group.To inform the development of global wastewater monitoring systems, we surveyed programmes in 43 countries. Most programmes monitored predominantly urban populations. In high-income countries (HICs), composite sampling at centralised treatment plants was most common, whereas grab sampling from surface waters, open drains, and pit latrines was more typical in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Almost all programmes analysed samples in-country, with an average processing time of 2·3 days in HICs and 4·5 days in LMICs. Whereas 59% of HICs regularly monitored wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 variants, only 13% of LMICs did so. Most programmes share their wastewater data internally, with partnering organisations, but not publicly. Our findings show the richness of the existing wastewater monitoring ecosystem. With additional leadership, funding, and implementation frameworks, thousands of individual wastewater initiatives can coalesce into an integrated, sustainable network for disease surveillance—one that minimises the risk of overlooking future global health threats