Auditing Economic Policy in the Light of Obligations on Economic and Social Rights

One of the things we have learned so far is that the realization of human rights, especially economic and social rights, requires resources as well as laws. The availability and use of resources is strongly influenced by the type of economic policies that States Parties implement. This paper considers how concerned citizens might audit economic policies from a human rights perspective, with a particular focus on economic and social rights. It draws on an ongoing project, directed by Radhika Balakrishnan, advised by Diane Elson, and funded by the Ford Foundation, on economic policy and economic and social rights in Mexico and the USA. The project brings together human rights experts and activists who are focussing on economic and social rights, and economists who are critical of the neo-liberal economic policies being pursued by so many governments and international economic policy institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank. (Amartya Sen has called these critical economists ?non-conformist economists?, because they do not conform to the currently dominant forms of economic analysis and policy prescription). These economists share the concerns of the human rights community about poverty, deprivation and inequality; and draw on a range of other approaches to economic policy, including Keynesian, human development and feminist economics approaches. The project aims to audit key economic polices in the two countries in the light of human rights obligations, and the analysis produced by ?non-conformist? economists

Digital gene expression analysis of the zebra finch genome

Background: In order to understand patterns of adaptation and molecular evolution it is important to quantify both variation in gene expression and nucleotide sequence divergence. Gene expression profiling in non-model organisms has recently been facilitated by the advent of massively parallel sequencing technology. Here we investigate tissue specific gene expression patterns in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) with special emphasis on the genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Results: Almost 2 million 454-sequencing reads from cDNA of six different tissues were assembled and analysed. A total of 11,793 zebra finch transcripts were represented in this EST data, indicating a transcriptome coverage of about 65%. There was a positive correlation between the tissue specificity of gene expression and non-synonymous to synonymous nucleotide substitution ratio of genes, suggesting that genes with a specialised function are evolving at a higher rate (or with less constraint) than genes with a more general function. In line with this, there was also a negative correlation between overall expression levels and expression specificity of contigs. We found evidence for expression of 10 different genes related to the MHC. MHC genes showed relatively tissue specific expression levels and were in general primarily expressed in spleen. Several MHC genes, including MHC class I also showed expression in brain. Furthermore, for all genes with highest levels of expression in spleen there was an overrepresentation of several gene ontology terms related to immune function. Conclusions: Our study highlights the usefulness of next-generation sequence data for quantifying gene expression in the genome as a whole as well as in specific candidate genes. Overall, the data show predicted patterns of gene expression profiles and molecular evolution in the zebra finch genome. Expression of MHC genes in particular, corresponds well with expression patterns in other vertebrates