This chapter explains the reasons for the popularity of the anti-Iranian movie Not Without My Daughter in 1990s Türkiye despite the country’s own harrowing experience with Hollywood’s Midnight Express (1977). In conjunction, I analyze a moment of failed outreach from Iranian woman reformists to a devout, US-educated Turkish woman politician called Merve Kavakçı, who was denied her seat in parliament because of her headscarf in 1999. The chapter demonstrates how US discourses and Iran–Türkiye comparisons influenced the work of Turkish and Iranian women’s activists who sought to expand Muslim women’s political participation and reform repressive clothing codes in the 1980s and 1990s.

Chapter 1 offers a historical introduction as well as an overview of existing research in the field. It argues that by mapping out the trajectories of former volunteer soldiers, it is possible to see the many ways in which the Spanish Civil War and the broader anti-fascist engagement of the inter-war period could constitute a transformative experience and event; an event that expanded volunteers’ political horizons and gradually opened up possibilities for border-crossing political engagement in the post-war era. Thus, it sets the stage for the case studies constituting the main part of the book, showing that the political and military influence of the volunteers in Spain did not necessarily come to an end in 1938/1939 or even in 1945. In a few yet significant cases, it stretched across the globe far into the Cold War period.

This chapter explores aspects of individual visions and visionaries that increase the traction to create social change. It begins by examining epistemic gaps – knowledge deficits that inspire visionary ideas – and the role of imagination in addressing these gaps. The chapter then focuses on compelling narratives, discussing the importance of storytelling, relatable characters and moral alignment in crafting transformative visions. It continues by discussing the factors that enable a vision to be spread, such as social identity and network positions that bridge social divides. The chapter also considers how visionary ideas interact with group dynamics and system attributes that facilitate or hinder change. Case studies of William Shakespeare, Martin Luther, and Karl Marx are presented: transformative visions arise from unmet needs; are effective when they offer innovative social relationships; are marked by clear, moral narratives; are more likely to emerge in societies with diverse, autonomous subgroups; and spread via networks of higher trust.

Chapter 1 presents the main argument of Escaping Justice. Accounting for the demand for norm compliance and the domestic risks inherent in norm adoption, this chapter elaborates the ways in which governments strategically adapt transitional justice to advance state impunity. In making this argument I identify a growing global norm of accountability for human rights violations putting pressure on governments to hold perpetrators of wrongdoings to account. Adhering to international norms can carry domestic risks, particularly in cases where governments are culpable for wrongdoings. In responding to the risks of accountability, governments strategically adapt transitional justice to comply with international norms. I identify three strategies that governments use to advance impunity while seemingly complying with international norms, namely coercion, containment, and concession. These strategies are selected based on a government’s ability to control its norm response. The chapter closes with a discussion of the research methodology of the book and ethical considerations.

Clare Johnson provides a careful discussion of the “other” six sacraments that the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church celebrate. Relying on the liturgical books themselves, she investigates their biblical roots, the logic behind their coherence, and their theological significance.

Chapter 4 uses assemblage theory, which is an anti-colonialist theory of social and spatial construction that has traction in the Global South, to show how urban inequalities become assembled, disassembled, and reassembled over time and yet how grassroots activism for social and environmental justice and for community resilience can change the form and functions of cities. Buchanan arose at a time when the role of urban planning in the US cities was growing but largely conceived as the top–down imposition of order and dominant values on urban space. However, we are increasingly aware of just how contested and evolving the practice of urban planning and urban development are. Case studies of green gentrification from Los Angeles, California and Accra, Ghana illustrate the competing ideological perspectives on resilience in cities and the potential for and yet tentativeness of progress towards social justice in urban planning. The chapter explores the connections of racism in American land use with colonialism in the Global South, and the commonalities in the experiences of grassroots social-justice movements across cities worldwide.

Antimicrobial resistance is a multidisciplinary issue that has been high in the global agenda since the 2015 WHO Global Action Plan (GAP) and the 2016 UNGA Declaration. The Quadripartite Coalition has set up a consolidated global governance structure to coordinate AMR responses, including a Global Leaders Group, an Independent Panel of Experts and a stakeholders’ platform. At the national level, countries have set up more or less formal mechanisms to coordinate AMR management, develop and implement National Action Plans.

This chapter will draw on these pilot experiences to identify options for broader One Health governance and regulation. The chapter will examine global and regional governance and regulation of AMR – focusing on the EU as a case study – to explore possible applications to other priority areas such as zoonotic diseases.

Chapter 5 traces the history of a number of existing UN mechanisms which represent the interests of particular vulnerable groups in the international system (persons with disabilities, women, and children). The aim of this analysis is to see what types of normative discourses have found traction and led to the development of institutions to represent these vulnerable groups, in order to ascertain the type of normative arguments that would gain support in arguing for international institutions to represent future generations. An important lesson from the case studies is that a normative discourse in which development concerns feature prominently, has been a common thread running through the history of these UN mechanisms. The chapter analyses the differences and similarities between arguments which justify the institutions which have been put in place to represent these vulnerable groups, with arguments used to justify institutions to represent future generations.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) agreed to ‘draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response’ (Pandemic Treaty).

Proposals for a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System were included from the earliest drafts of the Pandemic Treaty. Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) is a transactional mechanism with its origins in international environmental law, where access to genetic resources for use in research and development is provided in exchange for a share of the benefits associated with their use. The purpose is to generate benefits that can be channelled into environmental conservation and sustainable use activities in countries where the genetic resources originate.

The PABS System could be a mechanism for incorporating One Health considerations into the Pandemic Treaty, but this will depend on its design and implementation. This chapter analyses the proposed PABS System in the Pandemic Treaty negotiating texts to determine whether it constitutes a genuine attempt to apply a One Health approach to pathogen ABS.

In the technological wave of the twenty-first century, artificial intelligence (AI), as a transformative technology, is rapidly reshaping our society, economy, and daily life. Since the concept of AI was first proposed, this field has experienced many technological innovations and application expansions. Artificial intelligence has experienced three booms in the past half century and has developed rapidly. In the 1960s, marked by the Turing test, the application of knowledge reasoning systems and other technologies set off the first boom. Computer scientists at that time began to explore how to let computers simulate human intelligence. Early AI research focused on rule systems and logical reasoning. The rise of expert systems and artificial neural networks brought a second wave of enthusiasm (McDermott, 1982). The third boom is marked by deep learning and big data, especially the widespread application of artificial intelligence-generated content represented by ChatGPT. During this period, AI technology shifted from traditional rule systems to methods that relied on algorithms to learn patterns from data. The rise of deep learning enabled AI to achieve significant breakthroughs in areas such as image recognition and natural language processing.

Companies can innovate their business models to increase nonoperational profits, which helps reduce their sensitivity to supply–demand mismatches. Such companies have different supply chain priorities. Instead of focusing on perfectly matching supply with demand, they aim to improve cash flow management and reduce the cash conversion cycle. They can also benefit from supply chain finance solutions to offset the negative impact of their strategies on supply chain partners. This chapter presents an in-depth analysis of innovative business development with a focus on (1) inventory financing, (2) inventory securitization, (3) vendor-put insurance, (4) reverse factoring, (5) dynamic discounting, and (6) the letter of credit.

This chapter investigates how advantaged group members perpetuate and deepen inequality, setting the stage for Chapter 4, which addresses their actions to reduce inequality in solidarity with disadvantaged groups. The chapter begins by discussing various forms of material, symbolic and systemic advantages that benefit advantaged groups. It then explores the psychological mechanisms that enable these groups to deny their privilege and engage in competitive victimhood, positioning themselves as aggrieved to justify their entitlement to discriminatory and repressive tactics. Further, this chapter also addresses more extreme manifestations of these behaviours, such as repression, hate crimes, genocide, and colonisation. The psychological processes that sustain these actions, including diffusion of responsibility, system justification, and desensitisation, are discussed. The chapter also considers the intersectional nature of privilege, highlighting how different identities, such as gender and economic status, influence the experience of advantage and perpetration of discrimination and violence.