Gallstones: Bad Company for the Steatotic Liver

Gallstones are very frequent worldwide with a prevalence ranging from 10% to 15% in Western countries to <5% in Africa, with the geographic variations being associated with genetic and environmental factors.1 Although asymptomatic in more than 80% of patients, gallstone disease incurs one of the highest health care costs among digestive diseases and hospitalization is frequent as a consequence of its complications

The Trouble with Identity and Progressive Origins in Defending Labour Law

Debate about labour regulation is not new. What is new is the urgency with which labour law reform is promoted as an important fix to economic woes. In recent years, calls for reform resound in poor and rich countries alike. The economic crisis in the United States and in Europe has intensified these debates, making labour regulation a prime target for reform. In several US states public sector unions have been under attack, depicted as a privileged class that drains public funds with high wages, cosy benefits, and retirement privileges that no other workers enjoy. Several European countries have introduced austerity measures that target labour regulation and other foundations of the welfare state as sources of economic waste that they can no longer afford. Moreover, it is argued that “rigid” labour regulation hampers job creation, which can be strengthened through a program of labour flexibilisation

Lab‐Grown Meat and Veganism: A Virtue‐Oriented Perspective

The project of growing meat artificially represents for some the next best thing to humanity. If successful, it could be the solution to several problems, such as feed- ing a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact of raising animals for food and, of course, reducing the amount and degree of animal cruelty and suffering that is involved in animal farming. In this paper, I argue that the issue of the morality of such a project has been framed only in terms of the best conse- quences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic princi- ples. I argue that to appreciate how deep and difficult this issue is, it is necessary to consider it in terms of a virtue-oriented approach. Such an approach will reveal aspects that are not apparent, not contemplated by typical approaches, but are essen- tial to our understanding of the morality of lab-grown meat. As I argue, evaluating the issue from a virtue-oriented perspective suggests that the project of in vitro meat should not be supported because it stems from unvirtuous motivations

The Lessons of TPP and the Future of Labor Chapters in Trade Agreements

The agenda to link labor standards to trade agreements, in the hopes of improving working conditions in developing countries and preventing unfair labor competition for workers in rich countries, reached its culmination in TPP. Beginning with NAFTA and over a span of twenty-five years, labor standards became fully included in trade agreements and their violation subject to trade sanctions as means of enforcement. Thus, proponents of TPP offered it as the “gold standard” of globalization. This chapter argues that the debate about TPP, and the US labor movement’s opposition to it, made clear that this was not a story of success but of disenchantment. Unions in the US criticized TPP’s labor chapter for not going far enough, substantially and procedurally. But they also turned the focus to other chapters of TPP that may be just as or more important to workers in the US than the labor chapter: investment, rules of origin, procurement and currency manipulation. These areas have become the new frontier for labor advocates in trade agreements and they highlight the need to rebalance the treatment of capital and labor. The chapter argues that a significant, though overlooked achievement of TPP, was to encourage several TPP parties to enact domestic labor reforms using labor side agreements and US pressure. More than any ideal labor chapter, it was these domestic reforms that held the most promise for improving working conditions in Vietnam and Mexico. The US withdrawal of TPP has set those reforms back. Opposition to TPP has also made clear that the expected losses from trade in the form of job loss and wage decline will not be made palatable in the absence of effective safety nets and compensatory mechanisms at the domestic level. In fact, international trade reputation will continue to suffer and opposition to it harden without them. To the extent that the debate about TPP was a referendum about liberal globalization as we know it, opposition to TPP in the US has given a resounding no. A pressing question is whether there is an alternative to the nationalist retrenchment embraced by the Trump administration. The revival of TPP without the US, unfortunately, does not seem to chart a different path

Labor Flexibility, Legal Reform and Economic Development

The current global financial crisis has provoked intense criticism of the regulatory framework for financial markets. Financial market flexibility, once considered the key to successful financial institutions and economic growth, has now come under intense scrutiny. In contrast, labor market flexibility is still promoted by scholars and international policymakers as an essential part of the recipe for economic development. This Article argues that the predominant understanding of labor flexibility is misguided and needs to be revised. To illustrate why, the Article undertakes a critical examination of labor flexibility as developed by a leading World Bank project, called “Doing Business.” It argues that the project mischaracterizes countries’ labor regulations by failing to consider the full range of legal sources, surveying only the law in the books, and remaining blind to the realities of lack of enforcement and rampant economic informality. More importantly, the project promotes a binary understanding of flexibility that fails to capture the relational character of legal entitlements. Proposed legal reforms in the direction of “flexibilization” can therefore be both costly and ineffective. As an alternative, this Article develops a framework which, incorporating insights from comparative law and legal theory, proceeds in two steps. First, it undertakes a doctrinal assessment of the respective rights, duties, and privileges of employers and employees in the labor market, and asks whose flexibility is enhanced. Second, it pays attention to the link between the formal and informal economic sectors. Using the examples of the United States and Mexico, the Article illustrates how this new framework can lead to a better sense of the relationship between labor law and a country’s economy, and can be used as a better map for regulatory reforms

Looking Beyond “Mow, Blow and Go”: A Case Study of Mexican Immigrant Gardeners in Los Angeles

Abstract: Recent research on Mexican immigrants focuses on the working conditions of farm workers, garment workers, janitors and day laborers. This coincides with successful efforts by organized labor and immigrant advocacy groups to organize these marginalized workforces. Little attention, however, has been given to Mexican paid gardeners. As part of the household service economy, paid gardeners represent a difficult labor sector to organize and research because they typically operate as independent contractors in the informal economy. This paper seeks to provide a more holistic picture of this dynamic, informal workforce. Drawing primarily upon ethnographic techniques, the paper documents how this informal sector operates and its social organization. Based on research conducted in Los Angeles, the paper also demonstrates how a select group of self-employed, Mexican gardeners function as petty-entrepreneurs, benefiting financially and socially in the informal economy by successfully utilizing their social capital and social networks

The Incoherence of Moral Relativism

Abstract: This paper is a response to Park Seungbae’s article, “Defence of Cultural Relativism”. Some of the typical criticisms of moral relativism are the following: moral relativism is erroneously committed to the principle of tolerance, which is a universal principle; there are a number of objective moral rules; a moral relativist must admit that Hitler was right, which is absurd; a moral relativist must deny, in the face of evidence, that moral progress is possible; and, since every individual belongs to multiple cultures at once, the concept of moral relativism is vague. Park argues that such contentions do not affect moral relativism and that the moral relativist may respond that the value of tolerance, Hitler’s actions, and the concept of culture are themselves relative. In what follows, I show that Park’s adroit strategy is unsuc-cessful. Consequently, moral relativism is incoherent