From 1994 onwards, radiocarbon discharges from the Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant have been made largely to the northeast Irish Sea. They represent the largest contributor to UK and European populations of the collective dose commitment derived from the entire nuclear industry discharges. Consequently, it is important to understand the long-term fate of 14C in the marine environment. Research undertaken in 2000 suggested that the carbonate component of northeast Irish Sea sediments would increase in 14C activity as mollusk shells, which have become enriched in Sellafield-derived 14C, are broken down by physical processes including wave action and incorporated into intertidal and subtidal sediments. The current study, undertaken in 2011, tested this hypothesis. The results demonstrate significant increases in 14C enrichments found in whole mussel shells compared to those measured in 2000. Additionally, in 2000, there was an enrichment above ambient background within only the largest size fraction (>500 μm) of the intertidal inorganic sediment at Nethertown and Flimby (north of Sellafield). In comparison, the present study has demonstrated 14C enrichments above ambient background in most size fractions at sites up to 40 km north of Sellafield, confirming the hypothesis set out more than a decade ago.

Widely divergent views exist among modern scholars concerning the relationship between natural law and natural rights. Some hold that the two concepts are logically incompatible with one another. Others maintain that natural rights were derived from natural law in the work of Aquinas or, alternatively, that natural law was derived from natural right in the work of Hobbes. All these views seem open to criticism. An alternative approach is suggested by a consideration of the idea of permissive natural law.

Maitland once observed that, in the Middle Ages, “Law was the point where life and logic met.” This aphorism of the master must serve as my apology for including in one essay two topics so diverse, according to some opinions, as abstract political theory and concrete constitutional problems. It may be that the mediaeval jurists can provide a link between the two spheres, for their reflections on mediaeval government were not mere philosophical abstractions. They were rooted in real life. An essential ingredient of the jurists' raw material was a practical experience of the workings of mediaeval society. It is not surprising, therefore, that eminent historians on both sides of the Atlantic have called attention to the need for legal studies as a basis for further advance in mediaeval constitutional research, and that, in recent years, we have heard a great deal about the importance of feudal law and folk law, of Roman law and English common law in the formation of mediaeval ideas and institutions. My task will be to state briefly the case for the canonists.

I find myself in a difficult situation, beleaguered on all sides. According to Finnis, Aquinas derived a doctrine of natural rights from his teaching on natural law. According to Kries, echoing Fr. Fortin, the two ideas, natural rights and natural law, are radically opposed to one another. This leaves me with a hope that some readers, faced by these extremely opposed assertions, may find a note of sweet reasonableness, a sort of golden mean, in my own position, namely that Aquinas did not himself articulate a doctrine of natural rights, but that this doctrine was not inconsistent with his teaching on natural law. The two doctrines could coexist, as they did in some later neoscholastic writings.

Let us consider first the criticisms of Finnis. My own position was set out succinctly in a previous work. “When Aquinas was writing unreflectively and following the common practice of his age, he did use the word ius in a subjective sense in phrases like ius dominii. … Yet it remains true that he developed no explicit doctrine of subjective rights or natural rights.” This still seems to me a correct judgment. Moreover it corresponds quite closely to Finnis's reading of Aquinas in his earlier book.

It is just fifty years since the distinguished legal historian, Adhémar Esmein, addressing an international conference in London, discussed the interpretation of the Roman law maxim Princeps legibus solutus est by the medieval glossators, and the influence of their teachings on the growth of French government. Esmein thought that the glossators had perverted a doctrine of classical constitutional law, which had merely exempted the emperor from the observance of certain legal rules, into a general principle of irresponsible absolutism. Certain French constitutional lawyers of the sixteenth century, he maintained, struggled stoutly against this doctrine but, none the less, its acceptance opened the way to various abuses in French public life ranging from the arbitrary decision of legal cases to the issuance of lettres de cachet. Esmein accordingly took advantage of the occasion to congratulate his English hosts on having escaped the glossators' baneful influence.

In spite of all the complex controversies concerning the interplay of religious ideas and economic forces at the end of the Middle Ages the investigation of the pre-existing medieval poor law has been rather neglected by modern scholars. Evidently enough attitudes toward the relief of poverty are as significant as attitudes toward the acquisition of wealth in gauging the climate of economic thought in any given age. Yet, apart from studies on hospital administration, little has been done in this field of medieval research since the pioneering works of Ratzinger, Emminghaus, Ehrle, Uhlhorn and Ashley in the nineteenth century. Since then the attitudes of social welfare experts to the problems of poor relief have radically changed and a great mass of source material unknown to the earlier writers, notably the work of the medieval canonists, has come to the attention of historians. Both these facts suggest a need for some reconsideration of medieval attitudes to the poor and to the relief of poverty.

Today's complex geo-political climate has forced the U.S. armed services into new operational strategies. The prevalence of international terrorism, the threat from chemical and biological weapons, and the pressure to “do more with less” has placed increasing demands on the military. This new operational environment requires highly mobile troops having enhanced decision-making capability provided through the rapid transfer and dissemination of information to each member of the squad. What is missing is the ability to process and use this information via an Intranet at the level of the individual soldier. The purpose of our work has been to develop, evaluate and implement such a wearable conductive network for the dismounted soldier.

The ability to integrate electrical functionality into textile garments is becoming increasingly desired both on the battlefield and in the work environment. In order to accomplish this, the issue of compatibility of mechanical properties between dissimilar materials needs to be addressed. Textiles are typically selected for comfort while electrical materials are chosen for superior electrical properties with secondary consideration given to properties such as flexibility. As a result many attempts to integrate electrical functionality into textiles result in stiff, unwieldy garments that have difficulty gaining user acceptance.

Part of the electrotextile work done at Foster-Miller has focused on the integration of these dissimilar materials in a manner that does not degrade the wearability of the garment. Our work has included the development of textile cables that carry power and data using both electrical and optical media. In order to assess the wearability of these cables a method was needed of testing their stiffness. Several methods of measuring textile stiffness existed but did not address the many issues and material characteristics unique to conductive textiles.

In this paper I want to present some background material about the interplay of religious concepts and rights theories during the Christian middle ages. We may note at the outset that there always were elements in the Judeo-Christian tradition that could be conducive to the growth of a doctrine of rights, especially the fundamental command to respect the person and property of our neighbor. Ronald Dworkin pointed out that the necessary basis of all other rights is an “abstract right to concern and respect taken to be fundamental and axiomatic.” The axiom entered the mainstream of medieval jurisprudence in the first words of Gratian's Decretum, the foundation of the whole subsequent structure of Western canon law. “The human race is ruled by two means, namely by natural law and usages. The law of nature is what is contained in the Law and the Gospel, by which each is ordered to do to another what he wants done to himself and is forbidden to do to another what he does not want done to himself.” Or in modern language, one might say, “Show concern and respect.”

Francisco Suarez devoted the opening chapter of his major work, De legibus ac Deo legislatore, to definitions of the words lex (law) and ius (right). In one sense, he wrote, ius could mean the same as lex, as in phrases like ius civile (civil law) or ius divinum (divine law). But there were other meanings too. In discussing them, Suarez quoted Isidore of Seville, ‘Ius is so called because it is just’, and Augustine, ‘What is done by right (iure) is done justly’—two texts that earlier had been incorporated into the medieval Corpus iuris canonici. According to this etymology, Suarez wrote, ius could mean ‘the just and fair’ or ‘what is prescribed by law’. Then Suarez presented a third, ‘strict’ definition.