Although Belgian diplomats analysed the nazi-regime from the very first moment as intrinsically crimina!, inhuman, dictatorial and revenge seeking, they showed the nazis in 1934-1935 that dialogue was possible. The nazi-diplomacy, with secrecy as a keystone, permitted some of the most important Belgian politicians and businessmen to meet the.nazi-leaders without being disapproved by public opinion or even parliament. This resulted in a «practical» way to improve political and above all economical relations between Belgium and nazi-Germany. It can be seen as (...) a Belgian answer to the inability of France and Great Britain to force the Third Reich to respect the international security treaties which were to guarantee the sovereignty of Belgium. (shrink)

How do hearers manage to understand speakers? And how do speakers manage to shape hearers' understanding? Lepore and Stone show that standard views about the workings of semantics and pragmatics are unsatisfactory. They advance an alternative view which better captures what is going on in linguistic communication.

In “Truth by Convention” W.V. Quine gave an influential argument against logical conventionalism. Even today his argument is often taken to decisively refute logical conventionalism. Here I break Quine’s arguments into two— the super-task argument and the regress argument—and argue that while these arguments together refute implausible explicit versions of conventionalism, they cannot be successfully mounted against a more plausible implicit version of conventionalism. Unlike some of his modern followers, Quine himself recognized this, but argued that implicit conventionalism was (...) explanatorily idle. Against this I show that pace Quine’s claim that implicit conventionalism has no content beyond the claim that logic is firmly accepted, implicit rules of inference can be used to distinguish the firmly accepted from the conventional. As part of my case, I argue that positing syntactic rules of inference as part of our linguistic competence follows from the same methodology that leads contemporary linguists and cognitive scientists to posit rules of phonology, morphology, and grammar. The upshot of my discussion is a diagnosis of the fallacy in Quine’s master critique of logical conventionalism and a re-opening of possibilities for an attractive conventionalist theory of logic. (shrink)

SummaryI discuss a simple case in which theories with different ontologies appear equally adequate in every way. . I contend that the appearance of equal adequacy is correct, and that what this shows is that the notion of “existence” has a variety of different but legitimate uses. I also argue that this provides a counterexample to the claim advanced by Davidson, that conceptual relativity is incoherent.RésuméJe discute un cas simple où des théories comportant des ontologies différentes apparaissent également adéquates à (...) tout point de vue. . Je prétends que ľapparence ?on;égale adéquation est correcte et ceci montre que la notion ?on;existence a plusieurs sens différents, mais également légitimes. Je montre aussi que cela constitue un contre‐exemple à la thèse avancée par Davidson, selon laquelle la relativité con‐ceptuelle est incoherénte.ZusammenfassungIch diskutiere einen einfachen Fall, wo Theorien mit verschiedenen Ontologien in jeder Beziehung als gleich adäquat erscheinen. . Ich behaupte, dass die Ansicht, wonach gleiche Adäquatheit bestehen soil, korrekt ist und dass entsprechend der Begriff der Existenz mehrere verschiedene Verwendungs‐weisen hat, die alle legitim sind. Ich argumentiere, dass damit ein Gegenbeispiel zu Davidsons Auffassung vorliegt, wonach die These der begrifflichen Relativität inkohärent sein soil. (shrink)

It is widely accepted among medical ethicists that competence is a necessary condition for informed consent. In this view, if a patient is incompetent to make a particular treatment decision, the decision must be based on an advance directive or made by a substitute decision-maker on behalf of the patient. We call this the competence model. According to a recent report of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights (...) of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) presents a wholesale rejection of the competence model. The High Commissioner here adopts the interpretation of article 12 proposed by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. On this interpretation, CRPD article 12 renders it impermissible to deny persons with mental disabilities the right to make treatment decisions on the basis of impaired decision-making capacity and demands the replacement of all regimes of substitute decision-making by supported decision-making. In this paper, we explicate six adverse consequences of CRPD article 12 for persons with mental disabilities and propose an alternative way forward. The proposed model combines the strengths of the competence model and supported decision-making. (shrink)

It is widely held that the current refugee Convention is inadequate with respect to its specification of who counts as a refugee and in its assignment of responsibility concerning refugees to states. At the same time, there is substantial agreement among scholars that the negotiation of a new Convention would lead states to extricate themselves from previously assumed responsibilities rather than sign on to a set of more desirable legal norms. In this paper, I argue that states should (...) ultimately negotiate a new Convention, but that first they must alleviate the institutional and motivational constraints that make progress currently unattainable. (shrink)

David Lewis presented Convention as an alternative to the conventionalism characteristic of early-twentieth-century analytic philosophy. Rudolf Carnap is well known for suggesting the arbitrariness of any particular linguistic convention for engaging in scientific inquiry. Analytic truths are self-consistent, and are not checked against empirical facts to ascertain their veracity. In keeping with the logical positivists before him, Lewis concludes that linguistic communication is conventional. However, despite his firm allegiance to conventions underlying not just languages but also social customs, (...) he pioneered the view that convening need not require any active agreement to participate. Lewis proposed that conventions arise from “an exchange of manifestations of a propensity to conform to a regularity” (87–8). In reasserting the conventional quality of languages and other practices resting on mutual expectations, Lewis comfortably works within the analytic tradition. Yet he also deviates from his predecessors because his conventionalist approach is comprehensively grounded in instrumentalism. Lewis adopts an extension of David Hume's desire-belief psychology articulated in rational choice theory. He develops his philosophy of convention relying on the highly formal mid-twentieth-century expected utility and game theories. This attempt to account for language and social customs wholly in terms of instrumental rationality has the implication of reducing normativity to preference satisfaction. Lewis’ approach continues in the trend of undermining normative political philosophy because institutions and practices arise spontaneously, without the deliberate involvement of agents. Perhaps Lewis’ Convention is best seen as a resurgent form of analytic philosophy, characterized by “a style of argument, hostility to [ambitious] metaphysics, focus on language, and the dominance of logic and formalization” that solves the dilemma of “combining the analytic inheritance…with normative concerns” by reducing normativity to individuals’ preference fulfillment consistent with the axioms of rational choice. (shrink)

With the publication of the final report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, it becomes clear that there is considerable convergence between a policy agenda rooted on social epidemiology and one rooted in a concern for human rights. As commentators like Jonathan Mann have argued, concern for human rights and the achievement of social justice can inform and improve public health. In this article, we ask a different question: what does a health perspective adds to the (...) enduring fight for a more just world? We consider three possibilities: (1) that public health, in an inversion of Mann's argument, actually provides useful tools for specifying social injustice; (2) that, contrary to the usual critical stance and assumption of weakness, the institutions of public health bring powerful capacities to the practical promotion of social justice; and (3) that health as a banner mobilizes people who would not be mobilized to act in the name of social justice. (shrink)

In _War by Agreement_ (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), Yitzhak Benbaji and Daniel Statman argue that the ‘war convention’ – i.e. the international laws and conventions that are widely accepted to govern the use of force between sovereign states – represents a morally binding contract. On their understanding, the war convention replaces a pre-contractual morality governed by principles that so-called reductive individualists have identified and argued for over the past twenty years. This paper argues that (...) if we take Benbaji and Statman’s contractarian interpretation of the war convention seriously, we have to conclude that its _in bello_ rules have moral force only in contexts where its _ad bellum_ rules were breached non-culpably. While Benbaji and Statman do not attend to this limitation of their argument, it has important ramifications in practice, as it is frequently unclear in the context of war whether one’s adversary is acting in good faith. (shrink)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is being used to argue for wider recognition of the legal capacity of people with mental disabilities. This raises a question about the implications of the Convention for attributions of criminal responsibility. The present paper works towards an answer by analysing the relationship between legal capacity in relation to personal decisions and criminal acts. Its central argument is that because moral and political considerations play an essential (...) role in setting the relevant standards, legal capacity in the context of personal decisions and criminal acts should not be thought of as two sides of the same coin. The implications of particular moral or political norms are likely to be different in these two legal contexts, and this may justify asymmetries in the relevant standards for legal capacity. However, the analysis highlights a fundamental question about how much weight moral or political considerations should be given in setting these standards, and this is used to frame a challenge to those calling for significantly wider recognition of the legal capacity of people with mental disabilities on the basis of the Convention. (shrink)

The 2008 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a landmark articulation of the universality of human rights. It affirms in strong terms that all human beings have a claim to full inclusion and equal participation in society, something denied to many because of disability. The CRPD is an ambitious document with far-reaching and fundamental implications. This interdisciplinary collection of essays takes up pressing philosophical, legal, and practical issues raised by the CRPD and the ongoing (...) process of its implementation. Combining clear legal and philosophical overviews with ground-breaking conceptual analyses, the collection aims to advance the academic debate about human rights and disability and to serve as a useful resource for policymakers, ethicists, disability activists, jurists, and all those interested in the human rights of persons with disabilities. With contributions by Jackie Leach Scully, Marcus Düwell, Jenny Goldschmidt, Sigrid Graumann, Caroline Harnacke, Jan Vorstenbosch, Esther van Weele, Joel Anderson, Jos Philips. (shrink)

A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a philosophically informed study of the methods of interpretation used by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. By drawing on Anglo-Americal legal, political and moral philosophy, the book also aims to provide a normative theory of the foundations of the ECHR rights.

This article examines the recent Council of Europe Convention on violence against women through the lens of postcolonial feminist critiques. The article argues that, while there is certainly cause for optimism, the Convention still falls into some of the traps identified by postcolonial feminists. The Convention largely circumvents the stigmatising risks that arise from framing certain VAW forms primarily as a problem of some ‘cultures’. Yet dangers linger in the Convention’s approach to ‘honour’ as an unacceptable (...) justification for VAW. Inherent risks also remain in the vulnerability frame through which the Convention views migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeker women. Applied uncritically, these approaches risk re-inscribing images of inherently powerless women victimised by their non-European ‘cultures,’ reminiscent of colonial times. (shrink)

This case note discusses the case of Baczkowski v. Poland in the European Court of Human Rights. The Court ruled that, where an elected mayor makes comments disapproving of homosexuality, and officials subsequently ban a Gay Pride march, then courts may be able to infer that the ban was discriminatory under Article 14 ECHR.

How do hearers manage to understand speakers? And how do speakers manage to shape hearers' understanding? Lepore and Stone show that standard views about the workings of semantics and pragmatics are unsatisfactory. They advance an alternative view which better captures what is going on in linguistic communication.

This paper asks whether persistence can be a matter of convention. It argues that in a rather unexciting de dicto sense persistence is indeed a matter of convention, but it rejects the notion that persistence can be a matter of convention in a more substantial de re sense. However, scenarios can be imagined that appear to involve conventional persistence of the latter kind. Since there are strong reasons for thinking that such conventionality is impossible, it is desirable (...) that our metaphysical-cum-semantic theories of persistence be able to account for such scenarios in terms of conventions of the first kind. Later parts of the article therefore investigate whether three of the currently most influential metaphysical-cum-semantic theories of persistence—the endurance theory, the stage theory, and the perdurance theory—can do this. Fortunately, for them, it turns out that all can, though some philosophers have disputed this. However, when we ask how they account for a typical case of “conventional persistence” some problematic features of the theories—having to do with reference, persistence conditions, how they relate, and the epistemology of persistence—are revealed. (shrink)

Argues that it is not only a point of literal construction, but also inherent in the object and purpose of the 1951 Refugee Convention, that displaced stateless persons unable to return to their countries of former habitual residence may be eligible for refugee status even if unpersecuted. 'Unable to return' as it occurs in the clause following the semi-colon of 1(A)2 of the 1951 Refugee Convention must be understood as a term of art subject to appropriate canons of (...) construction in its own right. Its construal must therefore be more restrictive than many commentators have suggested, though not so strict as to preclude all but persecuted persons. Then argues that, as a case study, those who are displaced from their island nations because those nations have submerged beneath the sea will count as 'unable to return' in the relevant sense, and so will qualify for Convention refugee status, if they count as lacking a nationality, i.e. as stateless. (shrink)

Determination of the structure of the nucleic acids involved inter alia identification of the ring atom of the purines to which ribose or deoxyribose was attached. This in turn depended on knowledge of the ring atoms that could be so substituted and hence that were bonded to replaceable hydrogens. In 1897 E. Fischer adopted a convention of depicting this hydrogen at position 7 of the purine ring, although he was aware that it was equally correct to depict it at (...) position 9. Many later workers apparently came to believe that the 7H structure was more than just a convention, and considered that the sugar was attached solely at position 7 and could not be attached to position 9. When evidence was presented in 1933 that the sugar was in fact attached to position 9, the force of this convention apparently was so strong that many were reluctant to accept this evidence. More than 20 years was required for complete acceptance of the new view, and Fischer's convention was still being used in other contexts until at least 1967. (shrink)

On April 30, 1982, the Eleventh Session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea endorsed the final version of the Draft Convention of the Law of the Sea by a vote of 130 to 4, with 17 abstentions.1 The Session met at UN Headquarters in New York from March 8 to April 30.2.

In 2014 the Essex Autonomy Project undertook a six month project, funded by the AHRC, to provide technical advice to the UK Ministry of Justice on the question of whether the Mental Capacity Act is compliant with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Over the course of the project, the EAP research team organised a series of public policy roundtables, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, and which brought together leading experts to discuss and (...) debate the issues. A one-day public conference was held at the Institute for Government in July. In September 2014, the EAP research team submitted its findings to the Ministry of Justice. (shrink)

Bryce, Ian Robertson's talk was an analysis of the legal positions around many of the crimes of organised religion, and consequent legal actions already in progress or possible in the future.

Many Hume scholars have partially anticipated the essential links between his magnum opus—the History of England—and other writings, but we lacked an appropriate theoretical framework. According to Andrew Sabl,2 the key to the breakthrough is provided by “coordination theory.” The approach to Hume’s work through the lens of twentieth-century political theories has been preceded, to take one example, by Russell Hardin, who envisions Hume’s notion of convention as a prototype of game theory. Hardin also mentions coordination theory in relation (...) to game theory,3 but it is Sabl who elucidates its comprehensiveness and significance, and successfully grasps the essential features of Hume as a political theorist. The most... (shrink)

_ Convention_ was immediately recognized as a major contribution to the subject and its significance has remained undiminished since its first publication in 1969. Lewis analyzes social conventions as regularities in the resolution of recurring coordination problems-situations characterized by interdependent decision processes in which common interests are at stake. Conventions are contrasted with other kinds of regularity, and conventions governing systems of communication are given special attention.

Drawing on debates about Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) safeguarding at the local and international level, Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development: Inside a UNESCO Convention, explores the theoretical and practical implications of the intertwinement between these policy fields. Considering how Sustainable Development (SD) priorities are influencing representations of ICH, the volume questions how they are expanding the frontiers of the heritage realm and unsettling accepted understandings of the social uses of heritage. The contributing authors, who hail from a variety (...) of different contexts and disciplinary backgrounds, explore these issues from a unique vantage point as both scholars and actors of the processes they analyze. Playing different roles in the implementation of the Convention, their positioning as insiders allows for a unique analytical perspective that is based on first-hand engagement with the practices of the Convention. Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development: Inside a UNESCO Convention sheds light on the complexity, potential and consequences of combining ICH and SD at the policy-making level and in heritage practices on the ground. It will be of interest to academics and students working in heritage studies, development studies, anthropology, archaeology, international law, political science, international relations and sociology. (shrink)

In this article, we present findings from a participatory action research program in France on the exercise of human rights and supported and substitute decision-making, inspired by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (“CRPD”). Bringing together persons with the lived experience of disability, academics, and health and social care and support professionals, the project used the method of “experience-based construction of public problem” to transform experience into collective expertise. This enabled the exploration of support (...) that persons in vulnerable situations, whose capacity to exercise their human rights has weakened, need to make decisions in their lives and participate meaningfully in public debate. The relationship between the awareness of rights and exercise of rights is discussed. We argue for the need to balance out the positions of different contributors in participatory action research, in a reasoned manner, by recognizing the scientific and citizen-based participation of all partners. (shrink)