27 research outputs found
Black, White, Brown, Green, and Fordice: The Flavor of Higher Education in Louisiana and Mississippi
Understanding the Jus Cogens Debate : The Pervasive Influence of Legal Positivism and Legal Idealism
Although, today, jus cogens is a recognized element of international law and international legal discourse alike, many issues of vital importance to a well-functioning jus cogens regime remain unsettled. The current debate centres on the following six questions: (1) What is the source of jus cogens obligations? (2) What is the role of consent in the creation and modification of jus cogens norms? (3) How do we identify norms belonging to this category? (4) What does the category comprise? Are there such things, for example, as regional jus cogens or jus cogens principles? Are jus cogens rules necessarily rules of conduct? (5) What are the function and effects of the international jus cogens regime? (6) What is the function of jus cogens in international legal discourse? Overall, the intense scholarly debate had on peremptory international law over the last ten to twenty years has not been terribly productive. One important reason for this would seem to be the general failure of discussants to fully understand the relevance of some basic assumptions that they bring to bear on their respective analysis and consideration of the topic. To facilitate future constructive debate, this essay aims to clarify the relevance for any thoughtful consideration of jus cogens issues of legal positivism and legal idealism. While legal positivism and legal idealism are sets of theories offered to explain the concept of law, it is not surprising that lawyers of different camps will have different answers to questions (1) and (2). As argued in this essay, however, the influence of different theoretical approaches to the concept of law goes further than this - it permeates the entire jus cogens debate. Consequently, depending on whether lawyers take the position of a legal positivist or a legal idealist, they will be inclined to answer differently all questions (1)-(6)
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Impact of land cover uncertainties on estimates of biospheric carbon fluxes
Large-scale bottom-up estimates of terrestrial carbon fluxes, whether based on models or inventory, are highly dependent on the assumed land cover. Most current land cover and land cover change maps are based on satellite data and are likely to be so for the foreseeable future. However, these maps show large differences, both at the class level and when transformed into Plant Functional Types (PFTs), and these can lead to large differences in terrestrial CO2 fluxes estimated by Dynamic Vegetation Models. In this study the Sheffield Dynamic Global Vegetation Model is used. We compare PFT maps and the resulting fluxes arising from the use of widely available moderate (1 km) resolution satellite-derived land cover maps (the Global Land Cover 2000 and several MODIS classification schemes), with fluxes calculated using a reference high (25 m) resolution land cover map specific to Great Britain (the Land Cover Map 2000). We demonstrate that uncertainty is introduced into carbon flux calculations by (1) incorrect or uncertain assignment of land cover classes to PFTs; (2) information loss at coarser resolutions; (3) difficulty in discriminating some vegetation types from satellite data. When averaged over Great Britain, modeled CO2 fluxes derived using the different 1 km resolution maps differ from estimates made using the reference map. The ranges of these differences are 254 gC m−2 a−1 in Gross Primary Production (GPP); 133 gC m−2 a−1 in Net Primary Production (NPP); and 43 gC m−2 a−1 in Net Ecosystem Production (NEP). In GPP this accounts for differences of −15.8% to 8.8%. Results for living biomass exhibit a range of 1109 gC m−2. The types of uncertainties due to land cover confusion are likely to be representative of many parts of the world, especially heterogeneous landscapes such as those found in western Europe