This book argues that Chapter XI of the UN Charter should be applied to military occupations. The book operates in two parts. First, it describes the status quo of the law of military occupation and ...the economic incentive that this status quo holds for the occupant. Second, it shows by way of a contemporary interpretation, how Chapter XI should be applied and what it would mean for the economic rights of the inhabitants. It will be argued that the application of Chapter XI would make it economically unattractive for an occupant to stay in the foreign territory, while leaving his right to self-defense intact. This book is of interest to scholars and practitioners who are seeking new avenues for the laws of military occupation.
The scientific evidence on applications of microalgae in bioremediation of wastewaters, increasing agricultural productivity, and biomass production strengthens their potential in supporting global ...socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Microalgae can consume organic compounds and pollutants present in domestic, agricultural, and industrial wastewater. This leads to biomass production in wastewater and water being relatively safe to be disposed of into water bodies and safeguard life in water. The extensive diversity of microalgae, encompassing a distinct array of physiological, reproductive, and functional traits, along with their remarkable efficiency in wastewater treatment, positions this group of organisms as exceptionally superior to other organisms. Molecular and biotechnological approaches have provided promising tools for improving the biomass production of microalgae from wastewater. Recent technological innovations have facilitated harvesting algal biomass from wastewater treatment plants for developing a range of bioproducts like bioenergy, biofertilizer and other various high value biochemicals. Microalgal communities and their biomass produced from wastewater are investigated for the restoration of degraded lands. The potential use of diverse microalgal species and their biomass from wastewater for restoration of degraded lands such as salt-affected lands, drought ridden arid areas, fly ash contaminated lands, and metal-polluted mine spoils is discussed. Moreover, this review elaborates on how use of microalgae from wastewater to wastelands can contribute to various sustainable development goals (SDGs). It is found that extending microalgae research and use from wastewater to wastelands can support achieving all SDGs by directly contributing to 10 goals.
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•Diverse microalgae species are effective in wastewater treatment.•Biologically remediated wastewater can be used for various socio-economic purposes.•Microalgae-based land restoration mechanisms and strategies are proposed.•Leveraging microalgae research is proposed to attain UN Sustainable Development Goals•Water-soil-plant-algae nexus is vital for environmental sustainability.
Over the last 20 years, earth's increasing surface temperature has dramatically altered local climates and risks associated with agricultural work. In parallel, increasing automation has continued to ...be a hallmark of innovation in agriculture, promising to lower the economic and health externalities of labor in food production by reducing worker demand and hazardous exposure. However, many of these automations neither eliminate labor nor ameliorate climate change pressures on farms. As a result of the confluence between automation and environmental change, empirical studies into the social determinants of agricultural health and safety in rapidly automating industries impacted by local effects of climate change are essential for a responsive agricultural health and safety science. In this commentary, I suggest that looking outside of our disciplinary boundaries to the lessons learned from rural studies (RS), environmental social science (ESS), and science and technology studies (STS) can lend useful theoretical framing for the development of new research trajectories in the areas of automation and climate change as they impact agricultural health and safety.
The Jewish Labor Bund was one of the major political forces in early twentieth-century Eastern Europe. But the decades after the Second World War were years of enormous difficulty for Bundists. Like ...millions of other European Jews, they faced the challenge of resurrecting their lives, so gravely disrupted by the Holocaust. Not only had the organization lost many members, but its adherents were also scattered across many continents. In this book, David Slucki charts the efforts of the surviving remnants of the movement to salvage something from the wreckage.Covering both the Bundists who remained in communist Eastern Europe and those who emigrated to the United States, France, Australia, and Israel, the book explores the common challenges they faced-building transnational networks of friends, family, and fellow Holocaust survivors, while rebuilding a once-local movement under a global umbrella. This is a story of resilience and passion-passion for an idea that only barely survived Auschwitz.
The United Nations is dedicated to bringing countries together to solve international problems and to shape a better future. One of the greatest challenges facing society today is meeting the ...population’s basic needs, while protecting the environment, hence the UN Sustainable Development Goals — 17 goals to overcome current and future sustainability challenges. We incorporate the 17 goals into a simplified global socio-ecological model to analyze what actions are necessary to promote a desirable future. We find that the current population size and resource use are not sustainable with any one goal or combination of goals. In the sustainable scenarios described here the global population decreases, while maintaining higher consumption levels. We estimate that sustainability hinges on maintaining an equivalence between natural and agricultural land areas and the human population — approximately 1ha of land per person is necessary to promote human well-being and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, we find that long-term sustainability hinges on changes within the next 50 years and goals that solely target environmental degradation or consumption are too slow to drive sustainability. Social progress is occurring much faster than environmental progress, therefore actions that target shifts in power dynamics, inequality, development and education in lower income countries should be prioritized to maintain ecosystem services and promote well-being. The goals that incorporate a combination of socio-ecological policies (SDGs 3,6,8,9,10,11) promote well-being and sustainability.
•Addressing inequality in management and consumption is critical•The next 50 years will be pivotal in defining long-term socio-ecological well-being•Socio–ecological well-being and sustainability require a decrease in population size•Human well-being and maintenance of natural processes requires ≈ 1ha N & A land/pers
•Coated ZrN sphere-UO2 as surrogates for UN-UO2 accident tolerant fuel composites.•Spheres coated with Mo or W nanopowders by developed processes and W by CVD.•Use of spark plasma sintering to ...fabricate the composites at 1773 K and 80 MPa.•Both coating methods provide dense layers of Mo and W.•Mo and W layers can protect the nitride fuel against interactions with UO2.
Uranium nitride (UN) spheres embedded in uranium dioxide (UO2) matrix is considered an innovative accident tolerant fuel (ATF). However, the interaction between UN and UO2 restricts the applicability of such composite in light water reactors. A possibility to limit this interaction is to separate the two materials with a diffusion barrier that has a high melting point, high thermal conductivity, and reasonably low neutron cross-section. Recent density functional theory calculations and experimental results on interface interactions in UN-X-UO2 systems (X = V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Mo, W) concluded that Mo and W are promising coating candidates. In this work, we develop and study different methods of coating ZrN spheres, used as a surrogate material for UN spheres: first, using Mo or W nanopowders (wet and binder); and second, using chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of W. ZrN-UO2 composites containing 15 wt% of coated ZrN spheres were consolidated by spark plasma sintering (1773 K, 80 MPa) and characterised by SEM/FIB-EDS and EBSD. The results show dense Mo and W layers without interaction with UO2. Wet and binder Mo methods provided coating layers of about 20 µm and 65 µm, respectively, while the binder and CVD of W methods layers of about 12 µm and 3 µm, respectively.
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•Efficient synthesis of highly stable Pd NPs immobilized on Schiff base modified Unye bentonite.•Structural verification of Pd NPs@UN by FTIR, XRD, TEM, STEM, TG/DTG, XPS, EDS and ...elemental mapping analyses.•Catalytic activity of Pd NPs@UN in the treatment of 4-NP, CR, K3Fe(CN)6, RhB and Cr(VI) at room temperature in eco-friendly media.•The antibacterial and antifungal activities of the synthesized Pd NPs@UN catalyst were tested.•Nanocatalyst can be recovered and reused seven times without any notable loss in catalytic performance.
Efficient decoration and characterization of highly catalytic, active Pd nanoparticles (NPs) onto a novel Schiff base modified Unye bentonite (UN-Sch) with high coordination performance of structurally defined 2-pyrrolaldehyde ligands against palladium ions (Pd NPs@UN) have been described. Amine modified UN/Pd NPs were fabricated via a facile multi-step approach without utilizing any additional reducing agents. To check the applicability of the synthesized Pd NPs@UN as highly active nanocatalysts in water and wastewater treatment, the reduction of highly toxic compounds such as 4-nitrophenol (4-NP), hexavalent chromium Cr(VI), Rhodamine B (RhB), potassium hexacyanoferrate(III) (K3Fe(CN)6) and congo red (CR) at ambient temperature in eco-friendly media has been investigated. The surface nature of Unye bentonite was altered after modification, leading to notable increase in the catalytic properties. The ensuing Pd NPs@UN demonstrated superior catalytic prowess (100% conversion within a few seconds for the aforementioned pollutants), excellent stability (~4 months) and superior recyclability (~96% yield after seven successive cycles). Notably, the present procedure is a clean and green one in which aqueous sodium borohydride (NaBH4) or formic acid (HCOOH) are used as reducing agents in the absence of any toxic reductants. Moreover, the results showed that Pd NPs@UN was effective against fungi and bacteria.
The Covid-19 pandemic, on account of its widespread impact on the questions of stability of polity and economy, has brought non-traditional security concerns to the fore and underlined the need for ...reforming the UN Security Council in view of the changing security needs of the international community. In its current form and composition, the United Nations Security Council does not sufficiently factor the non-traditional security concerns which primarily affect the developing countries The anti-colonial struggle, sharing of platforms such as NAM based on common views on the impacts of the militarisation of the Cold War and similar socio-economic problems placed India in a favorable vantage point to understand and address non-traditional security concerns affecting other developing countries compared to the existing permanent members of the UN Security Council.
This paper charts the milestones in the oft demanded structural and functional reforms of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). A body originally conceived as the guardian of international ...political stability, more than half century later, “the UNSC (still) remains the most authoritative institution on international peace and security issues”. The clarion calls for reform, since the last century, underscore the importance of the UNSC for the sustenance and legitimacy of rule-based international order. The 2005 World Summit outcome document states that, through reform the Council can be made “broadly representative, efficient and transparent and thus to enhance its effectiveness and the legitimacy and implementation of its decisions”.
