The use of biometric identification systems is rapidly increasing across the world, owing to their potential to combat terrorism, fraud, corruption and other illegal activities. However, critics of the technology complain that the creation of an extensive central register of personal information controlled by the government will increase opportunities for the state to abuse citizens. There is also concern about the extent to which data about an individual is recorded and kept. This book reviews some of the most current and complex legal and ethical issues relating to the use of biometrics. Beginning with an overview of biometric systems, the book goes on to examine some of the theoretical underpinnings of the surveillance state, questioning whether these conceptual approaches are still relevant, particularly the integration of ubiquitous surveillance systems and devices. The book also analyses the implementation of the world's largest biometric database, Aadhaar, in detail. Additionally, the identification of individuals at border checkpoints in the United States, Australia and the EU is explored, as well as the legal and ethical debates surrounding the use of biometrics regarding: the war on terror and the current refugee crisis; violations of international human rights law principles; and mobility and privacy rights. The book concludes by addressing the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by private-sector entities such as Axciom and Facebook, and government use of these tools to profile individuals. By examining the major legal and ethical issues surrounding the debate on this rapidly emerging technology, this book will appeal to students and scholars of law, criminology and surveillance studies, as well as law enforcement and criminal law practitioners.

The various contributors are leading academics in the children's rights field drawn from a wide range of countries and jurisdictions (including those with common law, civilian and mixed traditions) in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia

Human rights is an interdisciplinary subject as well as a foundational aspect of the law. The importance of human rights at the intersection of business and society is central, yet under-analyzed. This book provides an accessible understanding of what human rights are, how business enterprises may impact human rights for better or for worse, and how such impacts can or should be managed. Human Rights: A Key Idea for Business and Society equips readers interested in the relationship between business and society with the foundational knowledge for engaging in debates and operational tasks related to the roles and responsibilities of business with regard to human rights. It covers human rights aspects relevant to common management tasks, including supply chain management, human resource management, risk management, non-financial reporting, finance, and stakeholder engagement. It covers opportunities and challenges related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change mitigation. The book explains the foundations for human rights, social expectations, and legal requirements on businesses to respect human rights and how business enterprises should identify and manage their human rights impacts. A concise introduction to a complex topic, this book is perfect reading for students of corporate social responsibility, business ethics, and international business, as well as an illuminating guide for researchers, managers, civil society organizations, government officials, and reflective practitioners.

Human rights is an interdisciplinary subject as well as a foundational aspect of the law. The importance of human rights at the intersection of business and society is central, yet under-analyzed. This book provides an accessible understanding of what human rights are, how business enterprises may impact human rights for better or for worse, and how such impacts can or should be managed. Human Rights: A Key Idea for Business and Society equips readers interested in the relationship between business and society with the foundational knowledge for engaging in debates and operational tasks related to the roles and responsibilities of business with regard to human rights. It covers human rights aspects relevant to common management tasks, including supply chain management, human resource management, risk management, non-financial reporting, finance, and stakeholder engagement. It covers opportunities and challenges related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change mitigation. The book explains the foundations for human rights, social expectations, and legal requirements on businesses to respect human rights and how business enterprises should identify and manage their human rights impacts. A concise introduction to a complex topic, this book is perfect reading for students of corporate social responsibility, business ethics, and international business, as well as an illuminating guide for researchers, managers, civil society organizations, government officials, and reflective practitioners.

This collection discusses the concept of fraternity and examines the issue of its role in law. Since the end of World War II, fraternity has been cited in several national constitutional charters, in addition to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But is there space for fraternity in law? The contributions to this book form an ideal "bridge" between the past and present to trace the different pathways taken to address the meaning of fraternity, and to identify its possible legal relevance. The book lays out paths that have placed fraternity in varied and challenging legal contexts in an age of globalization and conflict, where the multiplicity of national and supranational sources of law seems to show its inadequacy to govern complexity, and coexistence between diversities that appear irreconcilable. The purpose is not to recover fraternity as a forgotten principle, but to reimagine it today to address the aim and force of law within a plurality of cultures. The analysis considers a possible universal dimension that models unity within diversity, and aspires to serve as a prologue to a transition from research to dialogue between different legal systems and traditions. The book will be of interest to academics and researchers working in the areas of Comparative Law, Legal History and Legal Philosophy.

This book examines the nexus between political borders, pastoral nomadism, and human security in Africa. It uses a host of applied interdisciplinary insights to analyse social, political, and cultural processes, circumstances, and consequences to showcase the human security crisis in the context of climate change, inter-group relations, leadership strategies, institutions, and governance within the region. With a special focus on West Africa and Nigeria, the volume discusses crucial themes that highlight the role of borders in the security architecture of the region which include, * Political economy of herdsmen-farmers' conflicts in West Africa; * The scarcity-migration perspective of the Sahel region; * Population pressure, urbanization, and nomadic pastoral violence in West Africa; * Human trafficking and kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria; * Drivers of 'labour' migration of Fulani herders to Ghana, and other topics. A key contribution to a pressing issue, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of history, political science, anthropology, geography, international relations, literature, environmental science, and peace and conflict studies.

This book provides a comprehensive examination of land law for Arab Palestinians under Israeli law. Land is one of the core resources of human existence, development and activity. Therefore, it is also a key basis of political power and of social and economic status. Land regimes and planning regulations play a dynamic role in deciding how competing claims over resources will be resolved. According to legal geography, spatial ordering impacts legal regimes; whilst legal rules form social and human space. Through the lenses of international law, colonisation and legal geography, the book examines the land regime in Israel. More specifically, it endeavours to understand the spatial strategies adopted by Israel to organise the entire territorial expanse of the country as Jewish, while also excluding Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem from the landscape. The book then details how the systematic nature and processes of marginalisation are mapped out across the civil, political and socio-economic landscape. This monograph will be of interest to international legal theorists, legal geographers, land lawyers and human rights practitioners and students; as well as to international scholars, NGOs and others focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Archives, Recordkeeping, and Social Justice expands the burgeoning literature on archival social justice and impact. Illuminating how diverse factors shape the relationship between archives, recordkeeping systems, and recordkeepers, this book depicts struggles for different social justice objectives. Discussions and debates about social justice are playing out across many disciplines, fields of practice, societal sectors, and governments, and yet one dimension cross-cutting these actors and engagement spaces has remained unexplored: the role of recordkeeping and archiving. To clarify and elaborate this connection, this volume provides a rigorous account of the engagement of archives and records-and their keepers-in struggles for social justice. Drawing upon multidisciplinary praxis and scholarship, contributors to the volume examine social justice from historical and contemporary perspectives and promote impact methodologies that align with culturally responsive, democratic, Indigenous, and transformative assessment. Underscoring the multiplicity of transformative social justice impacts influenced by recordmaking, recordkeeping, and archiving, the book presents nine case studies from around the world that link the past to the present and offer pathways towards a more just future. Archives, Recordkeeping, and Social Justice will be an essential reading for researchers and students engaged in the study of archives, truth and reconciliation processes, social justice, and human rights. It should also be of great interest to archivists, records managers, and information professionals.

International criminal justice indeed is a crowded field. But this edited collection stands well above the crowd. And it does so with dignity. Through interdisciplinary analysis, the editors skillfully turn shibboleths into intrigues. Theirs is a kaleidoscopic project that scales a gamut of issues: from courtroom discipline, to gender, to the defense, to history. Through vivid deployment of unconventional methods, this edited collection unsettles conventional wisdom. It thereby pushes law and policy toward heartier horizons.' - Mark A. Drumbl, Washington and Lee University, School of Law, USInternational criminal justice as a discipline throws up numerous conceptual issues, engaging disciplines such as law, politics, history, sociology and psychology, to name but a few. This book addresses themes around international criminal justice from a mixture of traditional and more radical perspectives. While law, and in particular international law, is at the heart of much of the discussion around this topic, history, sociology and politics are invariably infused and, in some aspects of international criminal justice, are predominant elements. Fundamentally the exploration concerns questions of coherence and legitimacy, which are foundational to both the content and application of the discipline, and the book charts an illuminating path through these diverse perspectives. The contributions in this book come from some of the eminent scholars and practitioners in the area, and will provide some profound insight into and an enriched understanding of international criminal justice, helping to advance the field of study. This ambitious and necessary book will appeal to academics and students of international criminal law, international criminal justice, international law, transitional justice and comparative criminal law, as well as practitioners of international criminal law. Contributors include: G. Boas, I. Bonomy, R. Cryer, H. Durham, S. Garkawe, M. Ierace, P. Morrissey, J. Potter, B. Saul, M. Scharf, G. Simpson, G. Skillen

This book explores, through the lens of the conflict in Syria, why international law and the United Nations have failed to halt conflict and massive human rights violations in many places around the world which has allowed tens of millions of people to be killed and hundreds of millions more to be harmed. The work presents a critical socio-legal analysis of the failures of international law and the United Nations (UN) to deal with mass atrocities and conflict. It argues that international law, in the way it is set up and operates, falls short in dealing with these issues in many respects. The argument is that international law is state-centred rather than victim-friendly, is, to some extent, outdated, is vague and often difficult to understand and, therefore, at times, hard to apply. While various accountability processes have come to the fore recently, processes do not exist to assist individual victims while the conflict occurs or the abuses are being perpetrated. The book focuses on the problems of international law and the UN and, in the context of the many enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Syria, why nothing has been done to deal with a rogue state that has regularly violated international law. It examines why the responsibility to protect (R2P) has not been applied and why it ought to be used, generally, and in Syria. It uses the Syrian context to evaluate the weaknesses of the system and why reform is needed. It examines the UN institutional mechanisms, the role they play and why a civilian protection system is needed. It examines what mechanism ought to be set up to deal with the possible one million people who have been disappeared and detained in Syria. The book will be a valuable resource for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of public international law, international human rights law, political science and peace and security studies.

This book explores, through the lens of the conflict in Syria, why international law and the United Nations have failed to halt conflict and massive human rights violations in many places around the world which has allowed tens of millions of people to be killed and hundreds of millions more to be harmed. The work presents a critical socio-legal analysis of the failures of international law and the United Nations (UN) to deal with mass atrocities and conflict. It argues that international law, in the way it is set up and operates, falls short in dealing with these issues in many respects. The argument is that international law is state-centred rather than victim-friendly, is, to some extent, outdated, is vague and often difficult to understand and, therefore, at times, hard to apply. While various accountability processes have come to the fore recently, processes do not exist to assist individual victims while the conflict occurs or the abuses are being perpetrated. The book focuses on the problems of international law and the UN and, in the context of the many enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Syria, why nothing has been done to deal with a rogue state that has regularly violated international law. It examines why the responsibility to protect (R2P) has not been applied and why it ought to be used, generally, and in Syria. It uses the Syrian context to evaluate the weaknesses of the system and why reform is needed. It examines the UN institutional mechanisms, the role they play and why a civilian protection system is needed. It examines what mechanism ought to be set up to deal with the possible one million people who have been disappeared and detained in Syria. The book will be a valuable resource for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of public international law, international human rights law, political science and peace and security studies.

UN peace operations are increasingly asked to pursue stabilization mandates with lofty expectations of being able to stabilize conflict zones, achieve national reconciliation, and rebuild state legitimacy. This book investigates the relationship between UN stabilization mandates and the concept of 'human security'. The book is divided into three parts. Part I outlines the emergence of stabilization and other trends in peacekeeping practice and outlines an analytical framework of human security. Part II applies the analytical framework to case studies of MINUSMA, MINUSCA, and UNMISS examining issues, such as human rights, empowerment, protection, and vulnerability. In Part III the book draws out several concerns that arise from stabilization mandates, including the militarisation of UN peace operations and the consequences under international humanitarian law, the risks of close cooperation with the host state and engagement in counter-terror activities, and the potential clash between peacebuilding activities and militarisation. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, policymakers and practitioners working on UN peacekeeping generally, and those specifically looking at stabilization, from the perspective of international relations, international law, peace and conflict studies, security studies and human rights.

This book presents an analysis of the concepts of female empowerment and resilience against violence in the informal entertainment and sex industries. Generally, the key debates on sex work have centred on arguments proposed by the oppressive and empowerment paradigms. This book moves away from such debates to look widely at the micro issues such as the role of income in the lives of sex workers, the significance of peer organisations and networks of women, and how resilience is enacted and empowerment experienced. It also uses positive deviancy theory as a useful strategy to bring about notable changes in terms of empowerment and agency for women working in this sector and also for addressing the wider issues of migration, HIV/AIDS, and violence against women and girls. The focus is on moving beyond a victimisation framework without downplaying the extent of the violence that women in this industry experience. It conceptualises the theories of empowerment and power which have not been tested against women who work in this sector, combined with in-depth interviews with women working in the industry as well as academics, activists, and personnel in the NGO and donor sector. In doing so, it informs the reader of the numerous social, political, and economic factors that structure and sustain the global growth of the industry and analyses the diverse factors that lead many thousands of women and girls around the world to work in this sector. The work presents an important contribution to the study of citizenship and rights from a non-Western angle and will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policymakers across human rights, sociology, economics, and development studies.

This book addresses the issue of agency in relation to child marriage. In international campaigns against child marriage, there is a puzzle of agency: While international human rights institutions celebrate girls' exercise of their agency not to marry, they do not recognize their agency to marry. Child marriage, usually defined as 'any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age', is normally considered as forced - which is to say that it is assumed that are not capable of consenting to marriage. This book, however, re-examines this assumption, through a detailed socio-legal examination of child marriage in Indonesia. Eliciting the multiple competing frameworks according to which child marriage takes place, the book considers the complex reasons why children marry. Structural explanations such as lack of opportunities and oppressive social structures are important, but not exhaustive, explanations. Exploring the subjective reasons by listening to children's perspectives, their stories show that many of them decide to marry for love, desire, to belong to the community, and for new opportunities and hopes. The book, then, demonstrates how the child marriage framework - and, indeed, the human rights framework in general - is constructed on too narrow a vision of human agency: One that cannot but fail to respect and promote the agency of all, regardless of gender, race, religion, and age. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in the areas of children's rights, legal anthropology, and socio-legal studies.

This book proposes a normative framework specifically designed for the complex and legally uncertain time period between armed conflicts and peace. As such, it contributes both to the furthering of a jus post bellum framework, and to enhanced legal clarity in complex and legally uncertain environments. This, in turn, contributes to strengthened protection engagements, and thus to improved prospects of enabling sustainable peace and security in both national and international perspectives. The book offers a novel but persuasive argument for a legal framework specific for transitional environments. Such legal framework, it is argued, is warranted in order to enable legal clarity to contemporary and outstanding legal issues, as well as to furthering peace efforts in complex environments. The legal framework suggested proposes a dividing line between applicable legal frameworks that, it is submitted, enhances both legal clarity on protection engagements and the quest for sustainable peace. The framework proposed is founded on a legal analysis of the protective nature and function of law. It thus provides a rare but important perspective on law that is of value in the quest for sustainable peace and security. The research draws uniquely on both contemporary legal debates, and on peace and conflict research. It does so in order to enable legal analysis that is both legally sound, as well as appropriate and adequate in today's peace and security realities. The book provides a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of Public International Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law, (the law of) Peace Operations, and Peace and Security Studies.

From the UK government's Brexit Bill, to China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, violations of international law have made headlines across the world in recent years. This book offers a comprehensive and accessible guide to the essential rules and facts of international law, explaining what international law is and how it shapes the world around us. Graham and Noortmann provide specific examples to contextualise key concepts in international law, directing readers to a range of further sources to supplement their reading. Topics range from the place of international law in the national legal order, the United Nations and other global international organisations, international human rights, and international environmental law. An essential quick reference text for students and practitioners of international law. -- .

This volume bridges two different research fields and the current debates within them. On the one hand, the transitional justice literature has been shaken by powerful calls to make the doctrine and practice of justice more transformative. On the other hand, collective memory studies now tend to look more closely at meaningful silences to make sense of what nations leave out when they remember their pasts. The book extends the scope of this heuristic approach to the different mechanisms that come under the umbrella of transitional justice, including legal prosecution, truth-seeking and reparations, alongside memorialisation. The 15 chapters included in the volume, written by expert scholars from diverse disciplinary and societal backgrounds, explore a range of practices intended to deal with the past, and how making the invisible visible again can make transitional justice - or indeed, any societal engagement with the past - more transformative. Seeking to combine contextual depth and comparative width, the book features two key case analyses - South Africa and Sri Lanka - alongside discussions of multiple cases, including such emblematic sites as Rwanda and Argentina, but also sites better known for resisting than for embracing international norms of transitional justice, such as Turkey or Cote d'Ivoire. The different contributions, grouped in themed sections, progressively explore the issues, actors and resources that are typically forgotten when societies celebrate their pasts rather than mourning their losses and, in doing so, open new possibilities to build more inclusive processes for addressing the present consequences of past injustice.

The Punta del Este Declaration, and this book dedicated to elaborating upon it, is devoted to exploring the ways that human dignity for everyone everywhere can be a useful tool in helping to address the challenges and strains facing human rights in the world today. In 2018, an initiative was instigated to revitalize the human rights project by way of engaging the notion of human dignity. This resulted in the Punta Del Este Declaration on Human Dignity for Everyone Everywhere (Punta Del Este Declaration), a declaration co-authored by over 30 human rights experts from all over the world. The Punta Del Este Declaration simplifies and brings coherence to the concept of human dignity in 10 brief statements that capture the many dimensions and aspects of human dignity and the practical ways that human dignity is useful in the promotion of human rights. This book provides an overview of how the notion of human dignity has been used to strengthen human rights. It discusses how human dignity playsmany different roles in human rights discourse and has the force to revitalize the human rights project; it is the foundational principle upon which the human rights project is built. But it is also the telos, or end goal, of human rights. At the same time, it is an important evaluative mechanism for assessing how well a country is doing in the implementation of human rights. The book will be a valuable resource for all those working in the areas of International Human Rights Law, Legal Philosophy, and Law and Religion.

Written by an international judge, professor and former ambassador with decades of experience in the field, this is an incisive and highly readable book about international law as well as realpolitik in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy in the quest for justice by victims of serious human rights violations amounting to grave crimes of international concern. Focusing on the plight of the ethnic and religious group of persons called the 'Rohingya', normally residing in Myanmar, as the case study, the book elaborates the complex legal technicalities and impediments in international courts and foreign domestic criminal courts exercising 'universal jurisdiction' in relation to acts amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. It builds on and adds value to existing literature on the international law applicable to the protection of human rights as interpreted by the International Court of Justice as well as that on the international criminal justice meted out by domestic criminal courts, ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the permanent International Criminal Court. The book will be essential reading for students, researchers and academics in public international law, international criminal law, international human rights law as well as government officials and those working for NGOs and international organizations with mandates in these fields.

Written by an international judge, professor and former ambassador with decades of experience in the field, this is an incisive and highly readable book about international law as well as realpolitik in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy in the quest for justice by victims of serious human rights violations amounting to grave crimes of international concern. Focusing on the plight of the ethnic and religious group of persons called the 'Rohingya', normally residing in Myanmar, as the case study, the book elaborates the complex legal technicalities and impediments in international courts and foreign domestic criminal courts exercising 'universal jurisdiction' in relation to acts amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity and/or war crimes. It builds on and adds value to existing literature on the international law applicable to the protection of human rights as interpreted by the International Court of Justice as well as that on the international criminal justice meted out by domestic criminal courts, ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the permanent International Criminal Court. The book will be essential reading for students, researchers and academics in public international law, international criminal law, international human rights law as well as government officials and those working for NGOs and international organizations with mandates in these fields.

This book focuses on Youth Climate Courts, a bold new tool that young people in their teens and twenties can use to compel their local city or county government to live up to its human rights obligations, formally acknowledge the climate crisis, and take major steps to address it. Tom Kerns shows how youth climate leaders can form their own local Youth Climate Court, with youth judges, youth prosecuting attorneys, and youth jury members, and put their local city or county government on trial for not meeting its human rights obligations. Kerns describes how a Youth Climate Court works, how to start one, what human rights are, what they require of local governments, and what governmental changes a Youth Climate Court can realistically hope to accomplish. The book offers young activists a brand new, user-friendly, cost-free, barrier-free, powerful tool for forcing local governments to come to terms with their obligation to protect the rights of their citizens with respect to the climate crisis. This book offers a unique new tool to young climate activists hungry for genuinely effective ways to directly move governments to aggressively address the climate crisis.

This book focuses on Youth Climate Courts, a bold new tool that young people in their teens and twenties can use to compel their local city or county government to live up to its human rights obligations, formally acknowledge the climate crisis, and take major steps to address it. Tom Kerns shows how youth climate leaders can form their own local Youth Climate Court, with youth judges, youth prosecuting attorneys, and youth jury members, and put their local city or county government on trial for not meeting its human rights obligations. Kerns describes how a Youth Climate Court works, how to start one, what human rights are, what they require of local governments, and what governmental changes a Youth Climate Court can realistically hope to accomplish. The book offers young activists a brand new, user-friendly, cost-free, barrier-free, powerful tool for forcing local governments to come to terms with their obligation to protect the rights of their citizens with respect to the climate crisis. This book offers a unique new tool to young climate activists hungry for genuinely effective ways to directly move governments to aggressively address the climate crisis.

In September 2001, the world witnessed the horrific events of 9/11. A great deal has happened on the counterterrorist front in the 20 years since. While the terrorist threat has greatly diminished in Northern Ireland, the events of 9/11 and their aftermath have ushered in a new phase for the rest of the UK with some familiar, but also many novel, characteristics. This ambitious study takes stock of counterterrorism in Britain in this anniversary year. Assessing current challenges, and closely mirroring the 'four Ps' of the official CONTEST counterterrorist strategy - Protect, Prepare, Prevent, and Pursue - it seeks to summarize and grasp the essence of domestic law and policy, without being burdened by excessive technical detail. It also provides a rigorous, context-aware, illuminating, yet concise, accessible, and policy-relevant analysis of this important and controversial subject, grounded in relevant social science, policy studies, and legal scholarship. This book will be an important resource for students and scholars in law and social science, as well as human rights, terrorism, counterterrorism, security, and conflict studies.

The European Court of Human Rights ("ECtHR") suffers from the burgeoning caseload and challenges to its authority. This two-pronged crisis undermines the ECtHR's legitimacy and consequently the functioning of the whole European human rights regime. Domestic courts can serve as welcome allies of the Strasbourg Court. They have a potential to diffuse Convention norms domestically, and therefore prevent and filter many potential human rights violations. Yet, we know very little about how domestic courts actually treat the Strasbourg Court's rulings. This book brings unique empirical findings on how often, how and with what consequences domestic judges work with the ECtHR's case law. It moves beyond the narrow concept of compliance and develops a new three-level methodology for analysing the role played by domestic courts in the implementation of ECtHR case law. Moreover, using the example of Czechia, it shifts the attention from Western countries to a more volatile Central and Eastern European region, which has recently witnessed democratic backsliding and backlash against international checks on human rights and the rule of law standards. Looking at a wider social and legal context, this book identifies factors helping transitional countries to adapt to regional human rights regimes. The work will be an essential resource for students, academics and policy-makers working in the areas of Constitutional law, Politics and Human Rights law. Its global appeal is enhanced by the methodological framework which is applicable in other international systems.

This book examines the engagement of African states with the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism. This human rights mechanism is known for its pacific and non-confrontational approach to monitoring state human rights implementation. Coming at the end of the first three cycles of the UPR, the work offers a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of African states' engagement and its potential impact. It develops a framework which comprehensively evaluates aspects of states' UPR engagement, such as the pre-review national consultation process and implementation of UPR recommendations which, until recently, have received little attention. The book considers the potential for acculturation in engagement with the UPR and unpacks the impact of politics, regionalism, cultural relativism, rights ritualism and civil society. The work provides a useful guide for policymakers and international human rights law practitioners, as well as a valuable resource for international legal and international relations academics and researchers.