Italy and the Italian Red Cross (ItRC) have recently developed a strong institutional partnership aimed at the promotion of international humanitarian law (IHL), both domestically and in international fora. This cooperation has been particularly evident in the last few years and culminated during the 34th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (International Conference) in 2024, when Italy and the ItRC worked side by side in the preparation of the event and actively followed up to turn commitments into concrete outcomes. Their close coordination also stands out in the participation and engagement of relevant administrations and national stakeholders in Italy’s National IHL Committee, re-established in 2021, whose role and functioning features prominently in this contribution as a concrete example of Italy and the ItRC’s renewed collaboration. Through a qualitative review of previous initiatives, including the adoption of the first IHL Voluntary Report, the cooperation on a new IHL military manual and the joint engagement in the last International Conference, this paper assesses how cooperation between States and National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies influences both IHL’s implementation and its elevation as a political priority, analyzing enabling factors, suggesting avenues for further improvements and potentially illustrating an example that could inform similar efforts in other national contexts.

Compliance with court decisions is essential for the rule of law. Generally, regimes comply with decisions that serve their interests; however, compliance with decisions against government interests is less certain. In 1947–2005 and 2014–2023, the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) decided many politically important cases in favour of the prevailing authoritarian and hybrid regimes. However, between 2005 and 2013, although the SCP reached decisions against the government’s interests in politically important cases, the government still complied. Why would authoritarian and hybrid regimes, such as those in Pakistan between 2005 and 2013, comply with decisions in politically important cases that were against their interests instead of disobeying or ignoring them? Very few studies have addressed this puzzling phenomenon. This article argues that increasing public support for courts coupled with reinforcement mechanisms—supported by both the judiciary and external actors—contributes to such compliance. The article concludes that a combination of social, political, and legal factors is essential for compliance by authoritarian and hybrid regimes in politically important cases.

This Article brings together two important concepts in international law scholarship that have thus far been studied in isolation from each other: reputation and interpretation. Interesting insights lie hidden in their overlap. While interpretation is still commonly perceived as a sterile exercise in “legal logic,” the Article suggests that it is often better studied as a social practice, within which the relationships between the interpreters that are arguing with each other frequently matter as much as the arguments themselves. The Article therefore suggests a new way of looking at interpretation in international law: Interpretation as a practice of reputation management, where collective actors like states present themselves to others in the interpretations they adopt, and are evaluated by various audiences on the basis of these interpretations. The main argument can be summarized like this: If international law is relatively indeterminate, interpretation is a situated choice. By making that choice, an interpreter reveals something fundamental about itself to its audiences. Interpreters therefore carefully manage their interpretive expressions out of a desire to be well-regarded by these audiences. This phenomenon of reputation management has important implications for the practice of interpretation in international law.

Zinc supplementation is a critical adjunct therapy for managing acute childhood diarrhoea, particularly in low-income countries (LICs) and lower middle-income countries (LMICs). However, adherence to the recommended zinc regimen remains a major challenge, limiting its effectiveness in real-world settings. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the pooled adherence rates to zinc supplementation for diarrhoea in children under 5 and identify key determinants of adherence. A comprehensive search of PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Google Scholar, ProQuest, and CINAHL was conducted between 2000 and 2024. A total of 10 observational studies were included, with pooled adherence of 63.45% (95% CI: 51.62–75.28) for 10 days regimen and 34.58% (95% CI: 7.08–62.09) for 14 days regimen, along with high heterogeneity. Sensitivity analysis confirmed robustness of these estimates. Key factors associated with adherence included caregiver education, provider counselling, medication acceptability, and economic constraints related to caregiver buying capacity. Doi plot asymmetry suggested possible publication bias for 10 and 14 days regimen. Overall, adherence to zinc therapy remains sub-optimal, particularly for 14 days regimen compared to 10 days regimen. Targeted interventions addressing behavioural, provider, and formulation related barriers are urgently needed to optimize zinc adherence and improve diarrhoea outcomes globally.

In three between-subject experiments, involving a total of 3180 participants, the majority of respondents indicated that during a weather emergency they would continue to use high bandwidth functions after receiving a text message requesting only emergency use. Projected excess demand for bandwidth could bring down the cellular communication network in the affected area. Messages incorporating an appeal to altruism, the incentive of a reduced phone bill, and the disincentive of an imminent collapse of the network for 24 hours all had no effect on intentions to use high bandwidth functions. Younger respondents and male respondents were less compliant than older respondents and female respondents. Their responses imply that an increasing number of individuals view even a brief separation from their cell phone as an existential threat that overrides other concerns including empathy for people in life-threatening circumstances.

Global crises have wreaked havoc on the world economy, causing severe instability and retrenchment of employees in many countries. This necessitates interrogating the retrenchment laws that seek to resolve issues and encourage fruitful outcomes throughout the work ecosystem. This article explores stakeholders’ perceptions of Zimbabwe’s retrenchment laws. The research utilised a qualitative approach with 68 participants, including employers, employees, trade unionists, legal practitioners, and labour consultants. The study revealed that employers were not utilising available special measures to avoid retrenchment. Stakeholders faced challenges such as difficulties in interpreting the retrenchment sections in the Labour Act, distance, processes which are lengthy and costly, and compliance. Further, this study underscores the tension between organisational survival and employee rights, framed through proximity justice and organisational justice theories. The primary recommendation is that retrenchments should be carefully planned, well-thought-out, and purposefully carried out in order to prevent legal disputes. Employers should exercise patience to carry out a thorough analysis of the problems before retrenching employees. Although this research sought to increase knowledge of retrenchment laws, such findings call for additional research using longitudinal and cross-sectional field surveys.

How do legal and medical professionals construct patients’ legal status and mental states in courtrooms, and how do patients themselves shape those constructions? This paper analyzes 300 hearings in Paris and New York City where people who have been involuntarily hospitalized in psychiatric facilities ask to be released. In both cities, courts reject the vast majority of requests. They do so by drawing on the two systems’ distinctive legal repertoires and control capacity to make patients into different kinds of serviceable subjects: people whose rights are given nominal consideration in the courtroom, but who are nonetheless classified as needing the forced interventions that the psychiatric system has the resources to provide. In Paris, legal professionals emphasize procedural rights while deferring to medical evaluations of patients’ consent, defined as their underlying willingness to accept long-term treatment. In New York, lawyers challenge psychiatric expertise but bargain with doctors and patients over compliance, understood as a short-term acceptance of medication. This paper reorients attention from the self-governing subjects that hybrid medical-legal-welfare interventions claim to ultimately produce toward the more contingent and situational serviceable subjects that allow for ongoing professional collaboration and institutional processing in contexts of diminished resources and expanded patients’ rights.

In this paper, we adopt an evolutionary model to describe the coevolution of technological transition and pollution in a country, where the choice of technology does not only give firms access to cleaner (but more expensive) or dirtier (cheaper and illegal) forms of production, but also access to social groups and information. Firms’ activity may be harmful to the environment and, due to the existence of ambient pollution charges, economic activity is affected by the level of pollution in the country. Our analysis describes how the evolution of the transition to clean technology and pollution generates a rich set of possible equilibria, which include stable pure strategies (where all firms choose the same technology) and inner equilibria (where both technologies could be adopted in the long run). We also observe more complex behavior and coexistence of different attractors as well as highlight the importance of initial conditions and uncover how the regulator may face possible pollution traps.

International treaties commonly request States to submit periodic reports on measures adopted to facilitate compliance with relevant obligations, permitting them to identify shortcomings and develop appropriate policies, promote transparency and facilitate the exchange of good practices. International humanitarian law (IHL) might appear at odds with this approach as its core instruments do not establish a periodic reporting procedure; indeed, only limited reporting activities have been required from States party to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols. The present paper challenges this perspective, exploring mandatory periodic national reporting activities provided by other treaties forming part of the IHL framework, as in relation to cultural property and weapons systems, as well as more informal reporting mechanisms on IHL developed outside treaty regimes, including those addressing organized armed groups. Taking stock of existing approaches and practices, the paper identifies relevant trends, opportunities and challenges for IHL reporting activities.

Falls account for 95 percent of hip fractures in older adults. Wearable hip protectors reduce hip fracture risk in long-term care settings, but their use is low among community-dwelling older adults. We conducted interviews to explore how hip protectors are perceived by 27 community-dwelling older adults who visited the Fraser Health Fall Prevention Mobile Clinic in British Columbia. Directed content analysis focused on perceived benefits, design preferences, and cost as a barrier to use of hip protectors. Most participants acknowledged the benefits of hip protectors in reducing the risk of hip fracture, enhancing physical activity, and reducing the fear of falling. However, most participants did not perceive they were at high enough risk to warrant the use of hip protectors. Participants also discussed how willingness to wear depended on design features, including style, pad thickness, appearance, ease of use, fit, comfort, and laundering. Participants also noted the cost, ranging from $60 to $120, as a barrier.