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People still attach a social value to the domestic cutting of peat and do not always recognise a contradiction with peatland preservation. (Renou-Wilson, Bolger, Bullock, Convery, Curry, Ward, Wilson and Müller, 2011 : xii) Introduction It tends to be overlooked just how important biodiversity is in maintaining a prosperous and stable future for the world's population. Ireland may
The first chapter establishes the methodological framework for the book’s investigation of Livingstone’s legacies by developing a theory of metabiographical analysis. This recent approach, devised by Nicolaas Rupke, insists on the political embeddedness of biographical practice; it argues that the ideological predisposition of the biographer inevitably impinges on the construction of the subject. While different authors, across time and space, deal with the same biographical material, they interpret it in different ways. Biography does not simply record a life, but rather lends it shape: as a literary genre, it translates the complexity of a life into a coherent life story. Metabiography, or a biography of biographies, is occupied with the differences in the way that such a story is told over a lengthy period. Instead of pursuing the biographee’s authentic identity, metabiography interrogates the underlying preoccupations of differing representations. This chapter develops the theory by exploring its relationship to reception studies and the postmodern challenge to historical enquiry. A metabiographical approach suggests that in life-writing the biographee is not only reread but reconstructed. Metabiography weds theories of reading and writing; it is a theory of both hermeneutics and narrative, interpretation and inscription.
humanitarian response system relies to rebuild sustainable livelihoods and resilience. Human activity has so damaged the planet’s ecosystems that deforestation, freshwater degradation, ocean acidification, environmental pollution and biodiversity loss are singularly and cumulatively causing unprecedented and premature mortality, threatening the very existence of people ( Corvalen et al. , 2005 ; IPBES, 2019 ; McMichael et al. , 2006 ; McMichael and Bennett, 2016 ; Whitmee et al
EU environmental directives illustrate the challenges involved for the effective implementation of European Union policies. This book explores the response of Ireland’s political-administrative system to the implementation of environmental directives in the cases of waste management, water reform and biodiversity. Ireland represents the implementation challenges of a small EU member state with a weak background in environmental governance, and has struggled to adapt to the complexities of enforcing environmental rules. This has resulted in infringement proceedings and critical rulings against Ireland from the Court of Justice of the European Union. The book details how efforts to comply with these measures have been a source of significant pressure on Ireland’s institutional framework but have also prompted considerable learning and adaptation in environmental governance. Using a theoretical framework inspired by traditional implementation analysis and insights from the Europeanisation literature, the book traces the implementation process in three directives. The main conclusion of this study is that Ireland’s implementation performance in waste management, water reforms and nature conservation is influenced by the low issue salience of environmental policy and the need to overcome structural problems in the public administration system in order to give effect to EU legislation.
The law of the sea is an up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of this branch of public international law. It begins by tracing the historical origins of the law of the sea and explaining its sources, notably the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This is followed by chapters examining the various maritime zones into which the sea is legally divided, namely internal waters, the territorial sea, archipelagic waters, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone, the high seas and the International Seabed Area. In each case the legal nature of the zone and its physical dimensions are analysed. Separate chapters deal with the baselines from which the breadths of most maritime zones are delineated and the law governing the delimitation of boundaries between overlapping maritime zones. Later chapters discuss how international law regulates the safety of navigation, fisheries and scientific research, and provides for protection of the marine environment from pollution and biodiversity loss. The penultimate chapter addresses the question of landlocked States and the sea. The final chapter outlines the various ways in which maritime disputes may be settled. Throughout the book detailed reference is made not only to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but also to other relevant instruments, the burgeoning case law of international courts and tribunals, and the academic literature.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, museums in Europe and North America were at their largest and most powerful. New buildings were bigger; objects flooded into them, and more people visited them than ever before. The Manchester Museum is an ideal candidate for understanding cultures of display in twentieth-century Britain. It is a treasure trove of some four million priceless objects that are irreplaceable and unique. Like many large European collections, the origins of the Manchester Museum are to be found in a private cabinet: that of John Leigh Philips. This book traces the fate of his cabinet from his death in 1814. The establishment of the Manchester Natural History Society (MNHS) allowed naturalists to carve out a space in Manchester's cultural landscape. The Manchester Museum's development was profoundly affected by the history of the University in which it operated. In January 1868, the Natural History Society formally dissolved, and an interim commission took control of its collections; the Manchester Geological Society transferred its collections the following year. The new collection was to be purely scientific, comprising geology, zoology and botany, with no place for some of the more exotic specimens of the Society. The objects in the collection became part of Manchester's civic identity, bringing with them traces of science, empire and the exotic. Other museological changes were afoot in the 1990s. Natural history collections became key sites for public engagement with environmental issues and biodiversity and more recently as sites for exhibiting art.
Introduction The concept of marine biodiversity was introduced in chapter fifteen , and the harm to marine biodiversity from human activities was outlined at the beginning of that chapter. In this chapter we examine the considerable number of treaties and other instruments that the international community has adopted to address increasing concerns about such harm
policy and understand the genesis of the implementation deficit are also identified. To underpin this and provide a context for the empirical cases investigated in Chapters 5–7 , the environmental, social and economic problems of three major environmental areas –waste management, water and biodiversity – are considered concurrently with an overview of EU policy responses. EU and international environmental policy developments Although evidence of actions to protect the environment may be traced back to the nineteenth
point of view of law and policy, protection of the marine environment has two principal elements: the prevention of marine pollution and the conservation of marine biodiversity. The two are not, however, entirely distinct since pollution usually harms biodiversity. Chapter sixteen discusses the numerous ways in which international law seeks to prevent and control marine pollution; while chapter
state with a weak background in environmental policy and a highly centralised system of public administration. Central to the argument is the observation that Ireland's implementation record in waste, water and biodiversity policies has been influenced by structural shortcomings in public administration. The theoretical framework for exploring the empirical cases was introduced in the first part of this book. It is influenced by traditional implementation theory and the ‘goodness of fit’ argument informed by the Europeanisation school. It thereby links the process of