International Children’s Rights: Reflections on a Complex, Dynamic, and Relatively Young Area of Law

This chapter reflects on the aim of the International Children’s Rights volume to provide those wishing to study, research, and practice international children’s rights law with a contemporary and comprehensive legal text. It recaps on the themes that emerged from the process of commissioning and editing the various contributions from some of the world’s leading and emerging legal scholars in the area of children’s rights. It marks the progress that has been made in the implementation of children’s rights law and the many challenges that still exist in the implementation of the CRC and associated international instruments. It notes that legal scholarship in the field of children’s rights is still developing and that, although multidisciplinary research and analysis is valuable, it is important to reaffirm children’s rights as a field of law and legal practice. International children’s rights is a complex, dynamic, and relatively young area of law. As the contributions to the collection show, it is diverse and evolving, with many new aspects and issues worthy of analysis and scrutiny. This chapter encapsulates the aspiration of the volume editors that the book contribute to the scrutiny of the legal implications of the CRC, recognizing the unique features of international children’s rights law, adding to the ongoing development of this important area of law.Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

Volcanic impacts on the Holocene vegetation history of Britain and Ireland? A review and meta-analysis of the pollen evidence

Volcanic ash layers show that the products of Icelandic volcanism reached Britain and Ireland many times during the Holocene. Historical records suggest that at least one eruption, that of Laki in a.d. 1783, was associated with impacts on vegetation. These results raise the question: did Icelandic volcanism affect the Holocene vegetation history of Britain and Ireland? Several studies have used pollen data to address this issue but no clear consensus has been reached. We re-analyse the palynological data using constrained ordination with various representations of potential volcanic impacts. We find that the palynological evidence for volcanic impacts on vegetation is weak but suggest that this is a case of absence of evidence and is not necessarily evidence of absence of impact. To increase the chances of identifying volcanic impacts, future studies need to maximise temporal resolution, replicate results, and investigate a greater number of tephras in a broader range of locations, including more studies from lake sediments

Stable lead (Pb) isotopes and concentrations - A useful independent dating tool for Baltic Sea sediments

The prehistory of the Baltic Sea has for a long time suffered from imprecise dating, due to the large uncertainties associated with bulk radiocarbon dating of Baltic Seasediments. To constrain the timing of environmental changes in the Baltic Sea it is critical to apply new dating approaches. This study identifies lead pollution isochrones in Baltic Sea sediments, which have previously been recorded in lake sediment and peat deposits in northern Europe and ice cores from Greenland. These isochrones have formed through the deposition of atmospheric lead associated with historic lead production and silver mining in Europe, and more recently with the increased industrial emissions that peaked in the 1970’s. Leadconcentration and stableleadisotope analyses (206Pb/207Pb ratios) reveal three distinct lead pollution horizons in the Baltic Sea, i.e. a Roman peak at 1 AD, a Medieval peak at 1200 AD and a peak in the 1970s. The new data will improve the chronological accuracy and precision of paleoenvironmental studies in the Baltic Sea, and for the first time, allow synchronization of Baltic Sea geological records within the basin and across Europe and the North Atlantic region (including Greenland