International criminal law (ICL) is an achievement, but at the same time a challenge to the traditional conception of the principle of legality (_lex praevia_, _scripta_, and _stricta_ – Sect. 1). International criminal tribunals have often based conviction for international crimes on unwritten norms the existence and scope of which they have failed to substantiate. In so doing, they have evaded the objection that they were applying _ex post facto_ criminal laws. This approach, the relaxation of the concept of law (...) by including norms whose existence is doubtful, has apparently served to maintain a concept of strict legality, but it is unsatisfying (Sect. 2). In my opinion, the strict principle of legality that has linked its absolute validity to the positivity of law is not the correct premise. It makes sense to state that positivity and validity do not necessarily go hand in hand (Sect. 3). Applied to ICL, this means that it is neither necessary nor convincing to “conceal” supra-positive law as positive law, as some decisions of the international criminal tribunals do. For this reason, I consider that Radbruch’s formula, consisting in admitting that there are supra-positive limits which positive law must respect in order to be valid, is well-founded (Sect. 4). The path taken by this significant philosopher of law is methodologically convincing, and it squarely faces the problem of the value of positive law. Nevertheless, if we admit Radbruch’s formula and thereby the limited value of positive law (if we claim that the validity of the law depends on it respecting supra-positive minimums of justice), we must also face the problem of the definition of supra-positive values, the epistemological difficulties of having access to them (Sect. 5), and the question of the scope and enforceability of supra-positive law (Sect. 6). In summary, this article aims to explain why Radbruch’s formula offers a convincing conceptual basis for international criminal legality and, in doing so, aims to contribute to the discussion about the foundations of ICL. (shrink)

The hypothesis of this paper is that writers with similar academic backgrounds express personal attitudes in English and in Spanish differently in research papers. Thus, the main objectives are, first, to study the differences in the use of attitude devices in Spanish and English academic discourse; second, to compare the results in the different sections of articles; and finally to study the positive or negative semantic implications of the lexical items by carrying out a sentiment analysis. To this end, fifteen (...) Spanish industrial engineering papers were compared with fifteen English industrial engineering papers. The results showed that there are in fact differences in the way academic writers communicate attitude, but the sentiment analysis revealed that neutral lexical items were the most commonly used in engineering research papers. Even though engineering researchers share the knowledge of the specialist content and the academic style of expressing their thoughts, personal attitudes were expressed in different ways in Spanish and in English. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals often face ethical conflicts and challenges related to decision-making that have necessitated consideration of the use of conscientious objection (CO). No current guidelines exist within Spain’s healthcare system regarding acceptable rationales for CO, the appropriate application of CO, or practical means to support healthcare professionals who wish to become conscientious objectors. As such, a procedural framework is needed that not only assures the appropriate use of CO by healthcare professionals but also demonstrates its ethical validity, legislative compliance through (...) protection of moral freedoms and patients’ rights to receive health care. Our proposal consists of prerequisites of eligibility for CO (individual reference, specific clinical context, ethical justification, assurance of non-discrimination, professional consistency, attitude of mutual respect, assurance of patient rights and safety) and a procedural process (notification and preparation, documentation and confidentiality, evaluation of prerequisites, non-abandonment, transparency, allowance for unforeseen objection, compensatory responsibilities, access to guidance and/or consultative advice, and organizational guarantee of professional substitution). We illustrate the real-world utility of the proposed framework through a case discussion in which our guidelines are applied. (shrink)

Desgraciadamente, las amenazas a la infancia son muy numerosas y son muchos los menores de edad que mueren por un sinfín de causas o sufren condiciones de vida que les colocan en situación de grave riesgo familiar y psicosocial.

Abstract:This paper examines the American sojourn of the Enlightenment philosopher and theologian George Berkeley. While living in coastal Rhode Island between 1729 and 1731, Berkeley penned his longest philosophical tract, Alciphron: Or, the Minute Philosopher (1732), which criticized “freethinking,” mechanical conceptions of nature in favor of those that emphasized God's providence. To illustrate these two ways of knowing nature, Berkeley, a careful prose stylist, evoked nearby coastal landscapes for contrast. Accordingly, his work broke down dichotomies between ideas and matter and, (...) by extension, culture and nature, which could, this paper argues, inform an environmental ethic for a “hybrid” world. (shrink)

This study evaluates the comprehension of generalized conversational implicatures (GCI) in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using a GCI test constructed based on the Levinson model, which distinguishes between three types of implicatures: type Q (or scalar: “what is not referred to does not occur”); type I (“by default, it is not necessary to say what can be assumed”); and type M (“if someone is expressing something in a not very simple or marked way, it is because (...) s/he is describing a situation that is not very typical, frequent, or prototypical”). In addition to the ASD group ( n = 22), two comparison groups were utilized: a group matched on chronological age with the ASD group, but with a higher linguistic age (TCD group, n = 22), and a group matched on linguistic age with the ASD group, but with a lower chronological age (TLD group, n = 22). In all cases, linguistic age was assessed with the Peabody test. The performance of the three groups on the GCI test was compared (overall and on each type of implicature), and performance on the three types of implicature was compared within each group. The ASD group obtained worse performance than the other two groups, both overall and for each implicature type, without also obtaining differences in performance on the three implicature types. The TCD group obtained better performance than the TLD group on overall performance, but not on each implicature type, and both groups obtained lower performance on the type M heuristics than on the type I. Based on these results, the children with ASD in our study presented limitations in the comprehension of the three types of GCI, but it was not possible to obtain evidence for an inferential continuum of the three types of GCI. However, in the two typical development groups, this evidence was obtained, leading us to propose an inferential continuum model based on the different levels of dependence on the context of each of the three types of implicatures, with type M implicatures being more contextually dependent. (shrink)

Histories of ocean science have emphasized the ways that state-sponsored deep-sea expeditions ushered in a new age of oceanic understanding during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This essay, on the other hand, examines the ways that shallow waters played host to less formal but nevertheless important efforts to create oceanic natural knowledge, often centuries earlier. By documenting the legends and experiences of people who worked on and lived by the ocean—divers, sailors, and fishermen, among others—and corroborating their stories (...) with firsthand observation, seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century natural historians built a nascent science of the sea. In its close focus on “sea beans” and “barnacle geese,” subjects of wide conjecture and earnest curiosity, the essay shows how shallow waters welcomed new actors onto the scientific stage and decentered the geographies of knowledge production, thereby advancing contemporary knowledge of oceanic circulation as well as the taxonomies and ecologies of coastal creatures. (shrink)

El análisis de nuestra filogenia, basado esencialmente en los registros fósiles y arqueológicos, nos ofrece información crucial sobre la trayectoria evolutiva del género Homo. Sin embargo, el problema radica es la escasez de muestras para un análisis concluyente, ya que la diversidad de especies en muchos casos se infiere a partir de unos pocos individuos o fragmentos óseos distribuidos en amplias zonas geográficas. No obstante, el notable éxito evolutivo de nuestro género no se atribuye únicamente al incremento en la capacidad (...) cerebral -desde Australopithecus, con un volumen cerebral aproximado de 500 cm3 a Homo sapiens entre 1500-1700 cm3- o a las variaciones genómicas. También deben considerarse otros factores, como los culturales, sociales y ecológicos. La interacción entre las distintas especies y su entorno en un ecosistema es fundamental en cualquier proceso evolutivo. Todo ajuste, regulación o interacción en el mismo, como indica Margalef, determinará el equilibrio necesario hacia la supervivencia o el declive del sistema. Para establecer un diálogo interdisciplinar entre la ecología integral y la antropología evolutiva, hemos considerado incluir las teorías cognitivas modernas como la Teoría del Compromiso Material (MET), la ciencia cognitiva (CS) y la biología cognitiva (BC). Estas teorías resaltan la importancia de considerar la cognición no solo como un proceso interno, sino como algo que está profundamente arraigado en el contexto material y social. Este artículo examina cómo el ambiente pudo influir en la evolución del género Homo y viceversa, proponiendo un análisis interdisciplinario que integra ecología ambiental, económica, social y cultural, o lo que el papa Francisco denominó ecología integral, con la antropología evolutiva. (shrink)

We live in an era of unprecedented interconnectivity and challenges that require global mindsets and creative approaches. While research on global identification has increased in recent years, the question of whether it can facilitate creativity remains largely unexplored. Moreover, despite the evidence linking multicultural experiences and global identities, migrant populations have been overly underrepresented in this area of research. We examine the association between global culture identification and creativity in the Alternate Uses Test, across two different samples residing in Spain: (...) a host national and majorly student sample and a culturally diverse immigrant sample. Additionally, we test the predictive value of ethnic identification and host culture identification. Regression analyses reveal that global culture identification positively predicts creativity among host national participants, and host culture identification predicts creativity among immigrant participants. Our results suggest that developing a cultural identity that transcends the one acquired through enculturation has the potential of facilitating creative behavior. (shrink)

This article discusses the imbrication of racialising and sexualising scientific practices of gender testing and verification in elite athletics competition, and their intersection with social politics, using as a theoretical frame the feminist, anti-racist work of Hortense Spillers (2003), Judith Butler (1990, 1993a, 1993b, 2004) and Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000), among others. It traces the practice of sex-gender testing of ‘women’ at sanctioned International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) track and field competitions in order to contextualise (...) South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya’s experiences at the 2009 Berlin World Championships and the subsequent spectacularisation of her body through the discursive practices of representation. (shrink)

Le funzioni del diritto -- I fini e i valori del diritto -- I mezzi e gli strumenti -- Le pratiche giuridiche -- Le trasformazioni del diritto --.

La gestión de la emergencia pandémica ha amplificado algunas tenden-cias en marcha en la estructura actual de las fuentes del derecho. La discipli-na jurídica se configura en un contexto caracterizado por la convivencia y el concurso de varias fuentes y múltiples sujetos reguladores. Esto produce una relativización del principio de tipicidad de las formas y de las fuerzas nor-mativas, así como una creciente variedad de las reglas jurídicas, que oscure-ce su orden jerárquico. El sistema de las fuentes se desestructura, se (...) frag-menta y adquiere una dimensión reticular. En la fase actual de profunda reestructuración del paisaje jurídico el ordenamiento existe en la relación que conecta múltiples actos normativos, diversamente vinculantes. La regu-lación hard y soft refleja una compleja articulación de las fuentes que afecta a la seguridad jurídica y a la interpretación. (shrink)