This chapter examines economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights under international human rights law. It covers the right to property, the right to a healthy environment, the right to adequate housing, the right to health, and the right to education. The chapter discusses the legal standards and protections for these rights, the obligations of states to ensure their realization, and the role of international bodies in monitoring compliance. It also highlights the challenges in achieving these rights, particularly in the context of economic inequality, environmental degradation, and social exclusion, and the importance of adopting comprehensive and inclusive policies to address these issues.

This chapter considers Percy Shelley’s concern with ancient Greek literature through a close reading of ‘With a Guitar. To Jane’. The second half of the poem unfolds a description of the guitar modelled on the representation of the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. In the course of this account, Shelley presents an instrument which is akin to its ancient counterpart in its bewitching power, but which derives qualities from its environment in a manner quite different from anything envisaged in the hymn. When refashioned through Shelley’s imagination, the guitar acts as a figure both for poetry’s capacity to animate as well as to reflect perception, and for the power of creative appropriations to change the terms on which we relate to ancient literature.

Environmental policies and enforcement pose fundamental corruption issues relating to the tensions between economic self-interest and the public good. By directing our attention to the challenges of collective action, they also highlight the importance of state-level institutional and political characteristics – notably, the political clout of industrial and environmental lobby groups. High levels of corruption and low levels of trust both weaken the stringency and enforcement of environmental policies and affect levels of emissions, although as levels of trust in a state increase, the effects of corruption weaken or vanish. Our environmental findings closely parallel those in other chapters having to do with COVID policies – not surprising, as they raise similar questions of policy and compliance – and support our argument that thinking solely in terms of specific acts of rule- or law-breaking is an incomplete understanding of corruption, its causes, and its consequences.

This chapter outlines a historiography of the papacy and the environment and begins with several observations. First, papal approaches to the environment are shaped by the historical evolution of the papacy itself. Second, notions of environment and environmentalism are varied across secular, religious, and, by extension, papal discourse and action. Relatedly, these pluriform conceptions are influenced by locations that include geographic, epistemological, and socio-cultural. Thus informed, the chapter engages two distinct periods. The first is the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, wherein papal approaches to the environment were variously shaped by notions of wilderness, classical natural history, anthropocentrism, monastic spiritualities and activities, and expanding ecclesial infrastructure and temporal power. The second period begins with global industrialization around 1750 and continues through to today. Therein, papal environmentalism is especially expressed in modern Catholic social teaching that began with Leo XIII in 1891 and continues through Francis I, especially Laudato si’ in 2015.

Chapter 4 begins to discuss decoherence, and, thus, to address the overarching question: How does the classical world—classical states that are responsible for the objective reality of our everyday experience—emerge from within the Universe that is, as we know from compelling experimental evidence, made out of quantum stuff. The short answer to this question is that decoherence selects (from the vast number of superpositions that populate Hilbert space in the process of environment-induced superselection (also known as einselection) the few states that are—in contrast to all the other alternatives—stable in spite of their immersion in the environment. Decoherence is illustrated with a detailed discussion of two models. A spin decohered by an environment of spins as well as quantum Brownian motion have become paradigmatic models of decoherence for good reason: They are exactly solvable and yet they capture (albeit in an idealized manner) the emergence of the preferred classical states in settings that are relevant for quantum measurements and for Newtonian dynamics in effectively classical phase space.

While the concept of reasonable adjustments is well-established in academia, and it is enshrined in university policy that we must support the provision of these adjustments for our students, autistic employees may not always feel empowered to ask for necessary adjustments to thrive in an academic workplace. In this chapter participants reflect on the process of requesting and receiving adjustments, including those that have been denied and those that they wish they could ask for.

This chapter explores the bi-directional challenges of autistics in the academy. Many of the challenges experienced by autistic people in academia are similar to those experienced in other aspects of our lives – dealing with sensory challenges, different processing styles, social interaction, and communication. Other challenges that are inherent to academia include the breadth of activity, the performance and competitive aspects of the role, and complicated institutional politics.

This chapter examines the role of national and regional institutions in promoting integrated regulation and administration of biodiversity and forest management in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Drawing lessons from Morocco, it evaluates current legal and institutional challenges in the integrated management of forest and biodiversity. This chapter examines four fundamental themes raised by the legal and judicial protection of the forests. First, it examines the need for integrated regulation of biodiversity and forest management, given the interconnectedness of these two elements. Second, it evaluates integration gaps and challenges in laws relating to forest management and biodiversity in Morocco. Third, it evaluates institutional arrangements in forest management in Morocco, especially the role of the Water and Forestry Agency in activating integrated management of forest and biodiversity in Morocco. Fourth, it offers recommendations on how to advance integrated management of forest and biodiversity in Morocco and across the Maghreb region.

In this conversation, Professor Hiroto Koda investigates the innovation needs of Japanese society. They include embracing digital transformation, addressing the contraction of the population, in particular outside of the Tokyo metropolitan area, and finding solutions for environmental challenges. Against this background, this chapter focuses on five issues: (i) the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerating regional degeneration and the delay in digital transformation, (ii) the development of new business models, (iii) the solution of social issues that arise, (iv) collaboration between industry, government, academia and financial institutions and (v) the strengthening of human resources.

The UN General Assembly, a body including representatives of all UN member governments, serves as the primary forum for defining a better world order through peaceful change. It has endorsed programs of peaceful change at all levels of ambition at different times and on different issues. Much of its activity has focused on the minimalist goal of averting or ending particular wars. On other issues, most notably decolonization, national economic development, and adding environmental concerns to the intergovernmental agenda, it has contributed to incremental change in the states system. Yet the limits on what governments would endorse became clear on issues such as human rights where changes would affect domestic political orders. The end of the Cold War and related domestic-level political changes provided the context for higher ambition, which peaked in 2005 when the General Assembly endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs offered a vision of deep peace in which universal respect for human rights, human development, and human security prevail within ecologically sustainable societies. Yet the subsequent spread of authoritarian rule within states and increased geopolitical tensions between major states have reinforced governments’ traditional approaches to states system, reducing the ambition of programs for peaceful change.