The GMO Authorization Procedure in Eu : Inclusivity, Access to Justice and Participation in Decision-Making

Il presente contributo indaga in che misura i principi di inclusivit\ue0, accesso alla giustizia e partecipazione nei processi decisionali trovano attuazione all\u2019interno della procedura di autorizzazione degli organismi geneticamente modificati (OGM) dell\u2019Unione Europea. Il paragrafo introduttivo mette in luce le principali problematiche sottese allo studio di questo argomento: in particolare, le difficolt\ue0 derivanti dalla regolamentazione del rischio in relazione alle biotecnologie applicate all\u2019agricoltura (incertezza scientifica, conflitti d\u2019interesse etc), nonch\ue9 la necessit\ue0 di garantire ampia partecipazione e rappresentanza dei diversi portatori d\u2019interessi nei processi decisionali che incidono sull\u2019ambiente globale e sulla realizzazione dello Sviluppo Sostenibile. Nei paragrafi successivi, dopo aver illustrato le principali lacune della procedura di autorizzazione degli OGM, l\u2019articolo analizza la prassi e la giurisprudenza della Corte GUE successive all\u2019approvazione del Regolamento UE n. 1367/2006. Quest\u2019ultimo implementa a livello Europeo la Convenzione di Aarhus sull'accesso alle informazioni, la partecipazione del pubblico ai processi decisionali e l'accesso alla giustizia in materia ambientale. Come emerge dalle conclusioni, n\ue8 la sottoscrizione della Convenzione di Aarhus, prima, n\ue8 la sua implementazione tramite Regolamento, poi, hanno condotto ad oggi ad una soddisfacente attuazione dei principi di inclusivit\ue0, accesso alla giustizia e partecipazione nei processi decisionali nell\u2019ambito degli OGM. Dal momento che tali principi riecheggiano alcuni degli obiettivi stabiliti dal Goal 16 dell\u2019Agenda 2030, l\u2019articolo riflette da ultimo sulla possibilit\ue0 che il dibattito sullo Sviluppo Sostenibile possa portare a passi ulteriori nella direzione di una maggiore implentazione dei principi menzionati nel processo di autorizzazione degli OGM in Europa

Neuroscience and end-of-life decisions. New anthropological challenges for constitutional law: «Is Human Nature the only science of man»?

Nowadays, neuroscience permits the unveiling of interior elements of hu-man beings - the perception of pain, the presence of consciousness and even the will - in the absence of external manifestations. Physicians, indeed, seem capable of measuring the true mental state of individuals and their inner world through an elec-troencephalography or a functional magnetic resonance imaging. This new frontier affects the world of law and places heavy demands for lawyers embroiled in end-of-life matters. The present paper focuses on the use of neuroscientific acquisitions within end-of-life decisions, aiming to highlight two risks embedded in this use: the utmost deference towards science and scientific authority and the maximization of self-determination. The paper will provide, at the beginning, a framework of case law and end-of-life regulatory attempts; it will follow the analysis of the main challenges posed to law by advances in neuroscience. In the latter part of this paper, we will of-fer food for thought on the role of neuroscience and - in a broader perspective - of science in law

On the role of AGN feedback on the thermal and chemodynamical properties of the hot intra-cluster medium

We present an analysis of the properties of the ICM in an extended set of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters and groups performed with the TreePM+SPH GADGET-3 code. Besides a set of non-radiative simulations, we carried out two sets of simulations including radiative cooling, star formation, metal enrichment and feedback from supernovae, one of which also accounts for the effect of feedback from AGN resulting from gas accretion onto super-massive black holes. These simulations are analysed with the aim of studying the relative role played by SN and AGN feedback on the general properties of the diffuse hot baryons in galaxy clusters and groups: scaling relations, temperature, entropy and pressure radial profiles, and ICM chemical enrichment. We find that simulations including AGN feedback produce scaling relations that are in good agreement with X-ray observations at all mass scales. However, our simulations are not able to account for the observed diversity between CC and NCC clusters: unlike for observations, we find that temperature and entropy profiles of relaxed and unrelaxed clusters are quite similar and resemble more the observed behaviour of NCC clusters. As for the pattern of metal enrichment, we find that an enhanced level of iron abundance is produced by AGN feedback with respect to the case of purely SN feedback. As a result, while simulations including AGN produce values of iron abundance in groups in agreement with observations, they over-enrich the ICM in massive clusters. The efficiency of AGN feedback in displacing enriched gas from halos into the inter-galactic medium at high redshift also creates a widespread enrichment in the outskirts of clusters and produces profiles of iron abundance whose slope is in better agreement with observations.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRA

La Polonia sotto accusa : brevi note sulle circostanze che hanno indotto l’Unione Europea ad avviare la c.d. opzione nucleare

On 20 December 2017, the Commission of the European Union proposed the Council to adopt a decision on Poland under Article 7(1) of the Treaty on European Union. According to the Commission, this initiative was triggered by the judicial reforms delivered in Poland over the past two years. The reforms are accused of having put the country's judiciary under the political control of the ruling majority, thus representing a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law. The paper provides an account of the main legal changes introduced by the reforms, trying to highlight the principal legal concerns raised by them and the future possible scenario

La politica migratoria polacca tra crisi costituzionale, istanze solidaristiche e rivendicazioni identitarie

In 2015, when the EU faced a huge migrant crisis, the nationalist party PiS won the Polish elections. As an answer to people\u2019s fear, Kaczy\u144ski\u2019s party refused to operate refugees' resettlements as it was required by the emergency plann put in practice by the EU. Due to this refusal, the Commission started an infringement procedure against Poland. After framing the main legal issues of the episode, the paper analyses reasons and features of Polish migrant policy of the last four years, within the wider background of populism and constitutional crisis faced by the country

L’attivazione del potere istruttorio tra forme consolidate e scelte innovative : riflessioni a margine della sentenza costituzionale n. 197 del 2019

On the 2 nd of July 2019, the Italian Constitutional Court decided upon an appeal filed by the State against the regional law n. 8/2018, passed by Sicily. The judgment, following a wellsettled case law on article 81 of the Constitution, affirmed that part of the articles challenged are unconstitutional. As for the remaining articles, the Court postponed the decision and delivered an investigative injunction, asking Sicily and the Italian Government to provide further data. The paper reflects on this uncommon use of the Court\u2019s investigative powers, both for its procedural effects and its broader meaning within the judicial review of legislation

Il principio di precauzione nella prospettiva del giudice costituzionale

The article focuses on the precautionary principle, a principle that - according to a quite shared definition \u2013 requires decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures to prevent environmental or human health hazards, even when scientific evidence is uncertain. After some preliminary remarks on the possible meanings of this principle and its historical roots and development, the article analyses the role of the precautionary principle within the Italian Constitutional case-law. Among the possible uses of the principle by the Court, two are worth studying: the reference to a precautionary approach when fixing conflicts between State and Regions, and the use of the precaution in order to assess the balance between values in the judicial review of legislation

T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma 1A is essential for mouse epidermal keratinocytes proliferation promoted by insulin-like growth factor 1

T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma 1A is expressed during B-cell differentiation and, when overexpressed, acts as an oncogene in mouse (Tcl1a) and human (TCL1A) B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) and T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL). Furthermore, in the murine system Tcl1a is expressed in the ovary, testis and in pre-implantation embryos, where it plays an important role in blastomere proliferation and in embryonic stem cell (ESC) proliferation and self-renewal. We have also observed that Tcl1-/-adult mice exhibit alopecia and deep ulcerations. This finding has led us to investigate the role of TCL1 in mouse skin and hair follicles. We have found that TCL1 is expressed in the proliferative structure (i.e.The secondary hair germ) and in the stem cell niche (i.e.The bulge) of the hair follicle during regeneration phase and it is constitutively expressed in the basal layer of epidermis where it is required for the correct proliferative-differentiation program of the keratinocytes (KCs). Taking advantage of the murine models we have generated, including the Tcl1-/-and the K14-TCL1 transgenic mouse, we have analysed the function of TCL1 in mouse KCs and the molecular pathways involved. We provide evidence that in the epidermal compartment TCL1 has a role in the regulation of KC proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. In particular, the colony-forming efficiency (CFE) and the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1)-induced proliferation are dramatically impaired, while apoptosis is increased, in KCs from Tcl1-/-mice when compared to WT. Moreover, the expression of differentiation markers such as cytokeratin 6 (KRT6), filaggrin (FLG) and involucrin (IVL) are profoundly altered in mutant mice (Tcl1-/-). Importantly, by over-expressing TCL1A in basal KCs of the K14-TCL1 transgenic mouse model, we observed a significant rescue of cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis of the mutant phenotype. Finally, we found TCL1 to act, at least in part, via increasing phospho-ERK1/2 and decreasing phospho-P38 MAPK. Hence, our data demonstrate that regulated levels of Tcl1a are necessary for the correct proliferation and differentiation of the interfollicular KC

Cool Core Clusters from Cosmological Simulations

We present results obtained from a set of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy clusters, aimed at comparing predictions with observational data on the diversity between cool-core (CC) and non-cool-core (NCC) clusters. Our simulations include the effects of stellar and AGN feedback and are based on an improved version of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code GADGET-3, which ameliorates gas mixing and better captures gas-dynamical instabilities by including a suitable artificial thermal diffusion. In this Letter, we focus our analysis on the entropy profiles, the primary diagnostic we used to classify the degree of cool-coreness of clusters, and on the iron profiles. In keeping with observations, our simulated clusters display a variety of behaviors in entropy profiles: they range from steadily decreasing profiles at small radii, characteristic of cool-core systems, to nearly flat core isentropic profiles, characteristic of non-cool-core systems. Using observational criteria to distinguish between the two classes of objects, we find that they occur in similar proportions in both simulations and in observations. Furthermore, we also find that simulated cool-core clusters have profiles of iron abundance that are steeper than those of NCC clusters, which is also in agreement with observational results. We show that the capability of our simulations to generate a realistic cool-core structure in the cluster population is due to AGN feedback and artificial thermal diffusion: their combined action allows us to naturally distribute the energy extracted from super-massive black holes and to compensate for the radiative losses of low-entropy gas with short cooling time residing in the cluster core.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted in ApJL, v2 contains some modifications on the text (results unchanged