In its Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled not only that Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territory systematically violated international law, but also that Israel’s ‘continued presence’ (i.e. occupation) as such had become illegal, so that Israel was required to withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories as rapidly as possible. The ICJ’s finding that Israel engaged in a sustained abuse of its position as an occupying power, through annexation of territory and frustration of Palestinian self-determination, was central to its reasoning, as was its holding that the legality of the occupation was to be judged against the jus ad bellum. This article unpacks the concept of an illegal occupation. It argues that, as matter of the jus ad bellum, it is only the right to self-defence that could, in theory, justify Israel’s continued occupation. Curiously, however, the Opinion does not mention self-defence, although it preoccupied many of the judges writing separately. The article argues that two approaches to the occupation’s ad bellum illegality are most persuasive: first, that the occupation could not meet the necessity and proportionality criteria of lawful self-defence; and, second, that even a valid self-defence claim can be vitiated by a predominant ulterior purpose.

The first globalisation of the world occurred under the motivation of the Avis dynasty of Portugal, aimed at discovering new lands and wealth, exploring ocean routes, especially with the successful epic journey to India. The political decisions of the Avis dynasty kings, along with Christianity’s interest in expanding into Africa and Asia, were key factors in the success of these maritime explorations. However, the Coriolis force was a significant force of nature for the outcome of this journey. Here we investigate Caminha’s letter, the scribe of Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet when he found the lands of Brazil. This letter contains detailed scientific data, distances travelled, dates, geographical features, fauna and flora, initial anthropological information on indigenous peoples, and records of coastal depths. Analysis of these elements and facts lead to a new proposal for the location of Mount Pascoal and the so-called safe harbour, where Cabral’s fleet landed.

Non-native languages tend to be acquired through a combination of explicit and implicit learning, where implicit learning requires coordination of language information with referents in the environment. In this study, we examined how learners use both language input and environmental cues to acquire vocabulary and morphology in a novel language and how their language background influences this process. We trained 105 adults with native languages (L1s) varying in morphological richness (English, German, Mandarin) on an artificial language comprising nouns and verbs with morphological features (number, tense, and subject-verb [SV] agreement) appearing alongside referential visual scenes. Participants were able to learn both word stems and morphological features from cross-situational statistical correspondences between language and the environment, without any instruction. German-speakers learned SV agreement worse than other morphological features, which were acquired equally effectively by English or Mandarin speakers, indicating the subtle and varied influence of L1 morphological richness on implicit non-native language learning.

In the contemporary business-to-business (B2B) context, marked by technological, economic, and geopolitical turbulence, creating and maintaining Customer Engagement (CE) is both challenging and necessary for buyers and suppliers. However, while prior studies have already investigated how suppliers are adapting their practices to retain and attract customers, the buyers’ perspective is largely unexplored in existing literature. Therefore, drawing on the Paradox Theory as an interpretative lens, this research investigates the tensions that characterize CE through interviews with buyers from medium to large companies across various sectors. Results highlight that buyers are not merely passive recipients but active participants in the generation and management of tensions related to CE. At a managerial level, the study proposes an operational framework to support suppliers in adapting their engagement practices. Finally, the study suggests future research directions.

We are in the early stage of a revolution in the field of comparative genomics. Within the past five years, thousands of animal, plant, and fungal genomes have been sequenced and assembled to high quality. There is even serious discussion around sequencing the genomes of every eukaryotic species on earth. Here, I explain why this genomic revolution is happening and discuss the feasibility of sequencing genomes on a massive scale. Having a very wide diversity of genome sequences will accelerate applied research in biomedicine, biotechnology, aquaculture, agriculture, and conservation, and facilitate fundamental research in areas such as ecology, physiology, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology. In this article, I explore new findings and new questions in evolutionary biology emerging from animal genome analyses. Examples are drawn from marine animals such as polychaetes, bivalves, cephalopods, fish, and bryozoans, plus unusual terrestrial groups such as gerbils, moths, and bee-flies. I highlight patterns of mutation, the dynamics of gene families, and chromosomal organisation of genomes as areas ripe for further research. An even wider diversity of genome sequences will be needed to fill the knowledge gaps or investigate emerging puzzles, and a case is made for sequencing the genomes of over 100,000 species.

In 1679, the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini published a large print detailing the entire visible surface of the moon with unprecedented meticulousness. This Grand Selenography is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular pictures ever produced within the Académie royale des sciences. However, it has remained widely neglected by historians up to now. This study offers the first account of the making and early reception of the print. It argues that the Grand Selenography remains uncompleted because it failed to satisfy Cassini and his contemporaries. Furthermore, its history allows us to shed new light on the range of issues that scientific pictures might have raised during Louis XIV’s reign.

Servitization is a key strategy for enhancing competitiveness in manufacturing, yet the managerial drivers behind this transformation remain underexplored. This study investigates the impact of top executives’ service cognition on servitization using a novel index derived from text-mined disclosures of Chinese listed manufacturing firms (2007–2020). Results show that executives’ service cognition significantly promotes servitization, even after controlling for endogeneity using instrumental variables and Heckman’s two-stage model. Mechanism analysis reveals that this cognitive orientation enhances human capital accumulation and R&D investment, which in turn drive higher service levels. Furthermore, the relationship is moderated by executive power concentration and regional internet penetration. Heterogeneity tests indicate stronger effects in high-tech industries, state-owned enterprises, and large firms. These findings highlight the critical role of executive cognition in shaping strategic transformation and offer practical implications for firms and policymakers aiming to foster servitization through leadership development and supportive digital infrastructure.

Employers purchase health benefits for more than 60% of the nonelderly population, making employers both important custodians of employee well-being and important actors in the health care ecosystem. Because employers typically have unilateral control over health and retirement benefits, the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), enacted in 1974, imposes fiduciary obligations on employers when they manage or administer benefits. We provide evidence, from a novel survey of respondents who administer or oversee health benefits for their companies, that many employers appear to neglect even the most basic of their fiduciary obligations to their employees. This neglect may help explain the poor performance of employer plans in controlling costs and providing access to health care, and it suggests that many employers may be vulnerable to liability from ERISA lawsuits.

This article investigates sample selection bias in early-stage investment. We use comprehensive administrative data on the universe of new firm starts in Norway, allowing us to compare venture-backed firms with ex ante similar firms that do not receive venture funding. The valuation premium for venture backing is sizeable at firm birth and doubles over the first 5 years, implying a substantial upward bias in venture capital (VC) returns relative to comparable firms. In contrast, the premium for firms receiving multiple rounds of outside equity emerges only after the first year and remains significantly smaller than the VC premium throughout the firm life cycle.

The current study examined how early smartphone ownership impacts parent-child informant discrepancy of youth internalizing problems during the transition to adolescence. We used four waves of longitudinal data (Years 1–4) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD; Baseline N = 11,878; White = 52.0%, Hispanic = 20.3%, Black = 15.0%, Asian = 2.1%, Other = 10.5%; Female = 47.8%). Across the full sample, significant parent-child informant discrepancy, such that parents underestimated child reports, appeared at Year 2 (Mage = 12.0) and increased across the remainder of the study (b = −0.21, SE = .042, p < .001, 95%CI [−.29, −.23]). Further, multi-group models indicated that significant parent-child informant discrepancy emerged in the years following initial smartphone acquisition, whereas youth who remained non smartphone owners did not demonstrate such a pattern. Moreover, this discrepancy grew with additional years of smartphone ownership. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on adolescent smartphone use and mental health by documenting a novel, longitudinally observed risk to timely parental detection of mental health problems by early smartphone ownership.