Law and Alternative Security

Rightly or wrongly, nuclear weapons are regarded, in their threat role at least, as effective guardians of national security. Yet nothing is more menacing to the survival of our planet than the credibly communicated threat to use nuclear weapons if and when sufficiently provoked. Ergo, to escape the mind-boggling risks posed by nuclear deterrence, thinking about how to ensure world security without relying upon nuclear weapons, either extensively or at all, is as much a political as it is a moral imperative- in truth, a matter of physical survival. Without an effective alternative to nuclear deterrence, there is no letting go of the nuclear option, and without letting go of the nuclear option the world never can be free of the possibility of radioactive annihilation. Of course, because humankind has the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons, a knowledge that never can be reversed, it is highly doubtful that the world ever can be completely free of the threat of nuclear war. Still, given an effective alternative to nuclear deterrence, with appropriate political will to match, it is possible that the world can be free of such a threat almost completely - to a degree sufficient, at any rate, to eliminate or reduce drastically the current predisposition to rely upon nuclear weapons as a matter of routine, with few safeguards but the willingness of the nuclear weapons States to perceive the common interest of continued human survival inclusively

Postwar French Foreign Claims Practice: Adjudication by National Commissions-An Introductory Note

Symposium on International Procedures to Protect Private Right

Regional Human Rights Regimes: A Comparison and Appraisal

For Americans at least, active concern for human rights on the international plane is demonstrated perhaps most conspicuously in the promotion and protection of human rights through the United Nations and its allied agencies--apart, that is, from the promotion and protection of human rights through United States foreign policy and the work of such nongovernmental organizations as Amnesty International. Supplementing this globally-oriented human rights activity, however, are international human rights regimes operating regionally in Western Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. Concededly, Asia is not yet represented, and only the first three of the represented regions have gone so far as to create enforcement mechanisms within the framework of a human rights charter, as evidenced by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the European Social Charter, the American Convention on Human Rights and the Banjul (African) Charter on Human and Peoples\u27 Rights. The Permanent Arab Commission on Human Rights, founded by the Council of the League of Arab States in September 1968 but since then understandably preoccupied by the rights of Palestinian Arabs in and to the Israeli-occupied territories, has yet to bring a proposed Arab Convention on Human Rights to successful conclusion, and so far has tended to function more in terms of the promotion than the protection of human rights. Nevertheless, the regional development of human rights norms, institutions and procedures is likely to grow. Already an important dynamic of international human rights law and policy, it is, in any event, here to stay

Book Reviews

El Conflicto Honduras-El Salvador y El Orden Juridico Internacional -- On July 14, 1969, the armed forces of El Salvador invaded Honduras... This book provides an almost hourly account of the events preceding the conflict, the war plans executed before the conflict started, the initiation of Inter-American System machinery for settling disputes, the heated discussions among the representatives of the different nations of the OAS, and the consequences of the war itself. Also included is the necessary background on the political and economic conditions prevailing in both countries before the war and a thorough analysis of what role law and international legal machinery played--or might have played--at different stages of the conflict. Reviewed by Jorge L. Carro ============================= United States Foreign Relations Law: Documents and Sources, Vol. 1 (Executive Agreements). Michael J. Glennon and Thomas M. Franck Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceania Publications, Inc., 1980. Pp. ix, 474. 40.00.-- This volume on United States executive agreements is the first of a multivolume series providing important documents and other materials dealing with the foreign relations power of the federal government and its constituent parts. Reviewed by David S.Clark =========================== Towards a New International Economic Order Mohammed Bedjaoui New York and London: Holmes & Meier Publishers,1979. Pp. 287. 16.50. When tracing the ideologies that animate and condition the current North-South debate over what has come to be called the New International Economic Order, MIT economist Jagdish Bhagwati identifies two dominant schools of thought regarding the existing international economic order. Reviewed by Burns H. Westo

Connective tissue growth factor(CCN2), a pathogenic factor in diabetic nephropathy. What does it do? How does it do it?

Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF/CCN2) is a member of the CCN family of matricellular proteins. Its expression is induced by a number of factors including TGF-β. It has been associated with fibrosis in various tissues including the kidney. Diabetic nephropathy (DN) develops in about 30% of patients with diabetes and is characterized by thickening of renal basement membranes, fibrosis in the glomerulus (glomerulosclerosis), tubular atrophy and interstitial fibrosis, all of which compromise kidney function. This review examines changes in CTGF expression in the kidney in DN, the effects they have on glomerular mesangial and podocyte cells and the tubulointerstitium, and how these contribute to driving fibrotic changes in the disease. CTGF can bind to several other growth factors modifying their function. CTGF is also able to interact with receptors on cells, including integrins, tyrosine receptor kinase A (TrkA), low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP) and heparan sulphate proteoglycans. These interactions, the intracellular signalling pathways they activate, and the cellular responses evoked are reviewed. CTGF also induces the expression of chemokines which themselves have pharmacological actions on cells. CTGF may prompt some responses by acting through several different mechanisms, possibly simultaneously. For example, CTGF is often described as an effector of TGF-β. It can promote TGF-β signalling by binding directly to the growth factor, promoting its interaction with the TGF-β receptor; by triggering intracellular signalling on binding the TrkA receptor, which leads to the transcriptional repression of Smad7, an inhibitor of the TGF-β signalling pathway; and by binding to BMP-7 whose own signalling pathway opposing TGF-β is inhibited, leading to enhanced TGF-β signalling