The Responsibility of Transnational Corporations in the Realization of Children’s Rights

Transnational Corporations (TNCs), especially those operating in developing countries, have enormous socio-economic power— sometimes more than states. Many TNCs seek poor and unregulated markets, employing cheap, underage and fragile children, so they can create an economic competitive advantage and meet increasing international marketing demands. While many of them bring business and prosperity to a region, the damages can outweigh these benefits they perpetuate when behaving irresponsibly - occasionally irreparably - detrimentally impacting on children’s enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. The problem is exacerbated when national governments are unable or unwilling to regulate TNCs’ operations. It shall be argued that despite the private legal status of TNCs, they are subjected to human rights obligations because some forms of exploitative child labor has become universally condemned and thus possess jus cogens status. The analysis shows that there is no deficiency within international human right standards regarding child labor and these maybe interpreted as giving direct obligations to TNCs to respect, protect and fulfill children’s rights. The rising numbers of exploitative child labor, however, raises serious doubts about the effectiveness of those standards to adequately regulate powerful TNCs, which are not limited to concepts of territorial sovereignty. The results of the research depicts the desperate need for a renewed international legal framework going beyond soft law approaches, to clearly define legal obligations and methods to enforce responsibilities on: TNCs; states; other non-state actors; and the child itself, which is key to ensuring effective protection and fulfillment of children’s rights

The Responsibility of Transnational Corporations in the Realization of Children’s Rights

Transnational Corporations (TNCs), especially those operating in developing countries, have enormous socio-economic power— sometimes more than states. Many TNCs seek poor and unregulated markets, employing cheap, underage and fragile children, so they can create an economic competitive advantage and meet increasing international marketing demands. While many of them bring business and prosperity to a region, the damages can outweigh these benefits they perpetuate when behaving irresponsibly - occasionally irreparably - detrimentally impacting on children’s enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. The problem is exacerbated when national governments are unable or unwilling to regulate TNCs’ operations. It shall be argued that despite the private legal status of TNCs, they are subjected to human rights obligations because some forms of exploitative child labor has become universally condemned and thus possess jus cogens status. The analysis shows that there is no deficiency within international human right standards regarding child labor and these maybe interpreted as giving direct obligations to TNCs to respect, protect and fulfill children’s rights. The rising numbers of exploitative child labor, however, raises serious doubts about the effectiveness of those standards to adequately regulate powerful TNCs, which are not limited to concepts of territorial sovereignty. The results of the research depicts the desperate need for a renewed international legal framework going beyond soft law approaches, to clearly define legal obligations and methods to enforce responsibilities on: TNCs; states; other non-state actors; and the child itself, which is key to ensuring effective protection and fulfillment of children’s rights

Using routes or itineraries to create networks in regions with low competitiveness

There are territories where the ability of territorial competitiveness can be conditioned by the availability of resources, access, and capacity to attract and retain tourists. The barrier of competitiveness of territories, especially desertified territories with scarce resources, can be overcome through the involvement of all and the integration of stakeholders in a collaborative network. In this sense, with the aim of structuring the offer of tourist routes and itineraries according to the needs of the demand, based on the available resources, it is proposed to structure three models of itineraries according to demand, which can be stated as follows: i) have a reduced cost through a standardized itinerary; ii) be directed towards a group of customers through a segmented itinerary; or iii) make the offer as flexible as possible to meet the specific needs, desires or expectations of a tourist, through a customized itinerary. This paper uses action research to contribute to the improvement of the functioning of routes and itineraries in low-density territories.info:eu-repo/semantics/draf

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Educomunicação e suas áreas de intervenção: Novos paradigmas para o diálogo intercultural

oai:omp.abpeducom.org.br:publicationFormat/1O material aqui divulgado representa, em essência, a contribuição do VII Encontro Brasileiro de Educomunicação ao V Global MIL Week, da UNESCO, ocorrido na ECA/USP, entre 3 e 5 de novembro de 2016. Estamos diante de um conjunto de 104 papers executivos, com uma média de entre 7 e 10 páginas, cada um. Com este rico e abundante material, chegamos ao sétimo e-book publicado pela ABPEducom, em seus seis primeiros anos de existência. A especificidade desta obra é a de trazer as “Áreas de Intervenção” do campo da Educomunicação, colocando-as a serviço de uma meta essencial ao agir educomunicativo: o diálogo intercultural, trabalhado na linha do tema geral do evento internacional: Media and Information Literacy: New Paradigms for Intercultural Dialogue

¡Protection Starts at Home But does not Stop There! The Dynamics of the Human Rights Obligations of States for Protecting Environmentally Displaced Persons

La degradación ambiental y los efectos del cambio climático impactan directa e indirectamente en la posibilidad de gozar de los derechos humanos. Los países donde los efectos del cambio ambiental y la degradación son más latentes tienen mayor probabilidad de ser vulnerables al desplazamiento, debido a la falta de recursos disponibles para la adaptación, poca capacidad para la ejecución de los recursos y a menudo un récord insuficiente de protección de derechos humanos. Tales países son también los que con menor probabilidad ejercerán presión en los gobiernos a escala nacional e internacional. Aunque el número exacto de desplazados es difícil de calcular, las predicciones son de aproximadamente 150 millones de desplazados ambientales para el año 2050. Este artículo comienza mostrando el impacto del cambio climático sobre las personas, para luego centrarse en las obligaciones de los Estados según los estándares del derecho internacional humanitario en conjunto con la jurisprudencia regional e internacional. El objetivo es establecer los deberes de cada Estado en términos de respetar los derechos humanos y asegurar un ambiente seguro y sano evitando la degradación del medio ambiente. Un segundo objetivo es establecer cómo los deberes de los Estados son transferibles en el contexto del cambio climático; en particular, cuáles son sus obligaciones sobre proteger a los desplazados ambientales. El ensayo explora el deber de los Estados de proteger a los desplazados ambientales mediante un “modelo dinámico de internalización de deberes de protección”: respetar y satisfacer las necesidades de la gente en un proceso interactivo, cooperativo, participativo y con asistencia internacional. Finalmente, el sistema de gobierno de los Estados debe encontrar formas de lidiar con los nuevos retos legislativos del mundo actual y sus permanentes emergencias de degradación y cambio climático, bien sean naturales o generadas por las personas.Environmental degradation and the effects of climate change have direct and indirect impacts on the effective enjoyment of human rights. Countries where the effects of environmental change and degradation occur are mostly likely to be vulnerable to human displacement, due to the lack of available adaptation resources, poor human resource implementation capacity and often a deficient human rights protection record. Such countries are also the ones least likely to proactively lobby governments at the national and international levels. While the exact number of people displaced is hard to estimate predictions are of approximately 150 million of environmentally displaced persons by 2050. This analysis starts by portraying the human impacts of environmental change, and then concentrates on the home states obligations under international human rights standards in parallel scrutiny with regional and international jurisprudence. The aim is to establish which duties home states have with regards to respecting human rights and ensuring a healthy and safe environment by avoiding environmental degradation. A further aim is to establish how states duties are transferable in the environmental change context; in particular, what protecting obligations states have towards environmentally displaced persons. This paper explores the duty of states to protect environmentally displaced people through a dynamic model of internalisation of protection obligations: respecting and fulfilling people’s needs in an interactive, international assistance, cooperative and participatory process. Ultimately, the global polity of states must find ways to deal with new legislative challenges in this current world of permanent emergencies of natural and human made environmental degradation and change

International Law and Environmental Displacement: Towards a New Human Rights-Based Protection Paradigm

Documentos apresentados no âmbito do reconhecimento de graus e diplomas estrangeiro

¡Protection Starts at Home But does not Stop There! The Dynamics of the Human Rights Obligations of States for Protecting Environmentally Displaced Persons

La degradación ambiental y los efectos del cambio climático impactan directa e indirectamente en la posibilidad de gozar de los derechos humanos. Los países donde los efectos del cambio ambiental y la degradación son más latentes tienen mayor probabilidad de ser vulnerables al desplazamiento, debido a la falta de recursos disponibles para la adaptación, poca capacidad para la ejecución de los recursos y a menudo un récord insuficiente de protección de derechos humanos. Tales países son también los que con menor probabilidad ejercerán presión en los gobiernos a escala nacional e internacional. Aunque el número exacto de desplazados es difícil de calcular, las predicciones son de aproximadamente 150 millones de desplazados ambientales para el año 2050. Este artículo comienza mostrando el impacto del cambio climático sobre las personas, para luego centrarse en las obligaciones de los Estados según los estándares del derecho internacional humanitario en conjunto con la jurisprudencia regional e internacional. El objetivo es establecer los deberes de cada Estado en términos de respetar los derechos humanos y asegurar un ambiente seguro y sano evitando la degradación del medio ambiente. Un segundo objetivo es establecer cómo los deberes de los Estados son transferibles en el contexto del cambio climático; en particular, cuáles son sus obligaciones sobre proteger a los desplazados ambientales. El ensayo explora el deber de los Estados de proteger a los desplazados ambientales mediante un “modelo dinámico de internalización de deberes de protección”: respetar y satisfacer las necesidades de la gente en un proceso interactivo, cooperativo, participativo y con asistencia internacional. Finalmente, el sistema de gobierno de los Estados debe encontrar formas de lidiar con los nuevos retos legislativos del mundo actual y sus permanentes emergencias de degradación y cambio climático, bien sean naturales o generadas por las personas.Environmental degradation and the effects of climate change have direct and indirect impacts on the effective enjoyment of human rights. Countries where the effects of environmental change and degradation occur are mostly likely to be vulnerable to human displacement, due to the lack of available adaptation resources, poor human resource implementation capacity and often a deficient human rights protection record. Such countries are also the ones least likely to proactively lobby governments at the national and international levels. While the exact number of people displaced is hard to estimate predictions are of approximately 150 million of environmentally displaced persons by 2050. This analysis starts by portraying the human impacts of environmental change, and then concentrates on the home states obligations under international human rights standards in parallel scrutiny with regional and international jurisprudence. The aim is to establish which duties home states have with regards to respecting human rights and ensuring a healthy and safe environment by avoiding environmental degradation. A further aim is to establish how states duties are transferable in the environmental change context; in particular, what protecting obligations states have towards environmentally displaced persons. This paper explores the duty of states to protect environmentally displaced people through a dynamic model of internalisation of protection obligations: respecting and fulfilling people’s needs in an interactive, international assistance, cooperative and participatory process. Ultimately, the global polity of states must find ways to deal with new legislative challenges in this current world of permanent emergencies of natural and human made environmental degradation and change