This chapter offers an assessment of judicial fragmentation in international human rights law. The first part of the chapter presents a comparative analysis of the case-law of the three regional systems and the UN Human Rights Committee on rights that are the highly susceptible to trigger fragmentation, either for the relevance of religious, cultural and political concerns or for the vagueness of some terms in the norms’ provisions that could possibly allow very different interpretations. As this analysis shows a substantial convergence or absence of fragmentation, the second part of the chapter focuses on the detailed analysis of the few cases of judicial fragmentation identified, exploring their features in depth. They include case-law on freedom to wear religious attire, indigenous rights and the right to marry for same-sex couples.

This chapter introduces the concepts of convergence and fragmentation in international human rights law (IHRL) by providing and discussing their definitions and meanings. Building on the conclusion of the 2006 ILC Report on Fragmentation in international law and drawing on existing literature on the matter, the chapter assesses the extent of normative fragmentation and proposes a new definition of judicial fragmentation in IHRL. Moreover, this chapter also engages in a discussion of how convergence and fragmentation relate to the concepts of universality and relativism, key for any comparative discussion on human rights.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that: 1) there is no single ‘cookie-cutter approach’ to health systems strengthening, and 2) health systems must be significantly more holistic and equitable. This chapter examines the global spread of COVID-19 and its impacts on health systems and communities. By analysing public health gaps and challenges in L&MICs, the authors provide concrete examples of innovations and interventions that were effective in responding to the pandemic. It explores how different health systems across L&MICs and HICs can be better equipped to mitigate health emergencies and maintain routine health services by leveraging a range of essential public health functions, primary health care, and risk management capacities. Health systems resilience is only possible when systems thinking is operationalized and aligned with the wider SDGs. There is a case for multisectoral engagement in mounting a comprehensive health systems response to COVID-19 at the national and global levels. The chapter offers lessons on why strengthening health systems -- through integrated investments and with equity and resilience as key objectives – is key to sustainably achieving health security and universal health coverage.

This chapter describes how judicial bureaucrats characterize the state conduct or measure that gave rise to the proceedings. That characterization is a value-laden exercise whereby discrete aspects of reality are captured into the gravitational fields of the various courts and tribunals. In its normal course, state action is irreducibly pluralistic and does not lend itself to univocal labels: no domestic measure is ever only about ‘borders’, ‘investment’, or ‘human rights’. Yet, labels are necessary to attract the measure to the jurisdiction of this or that institution. The choice of the terms by which one describes state conduct determines the normative prism through which one looks at it, and reflects a struggle for appropriation among competing fora.

The story finally gets to the interpretation and application of legal norms to the facts of the case. This chapter deals with the first interpretive step, called law-ascertainment, where the interpreter identifies the rules that are relevant to the case at hand. Donning the hat of an explorer, the interpreter maps the body of norms precedents in concentric circles – starting with the sources closest to the centre of gravity of their judicial regime and gradually venturing into more peripheral territory. The results of these practices explains the degree of cohesion or fragmentation in international law. As the legal system grows more complex, interpreters no longer have time and resources to master it all, and prove increasingly partial and selective in their legal readings. The emergence of self-contained regimes is largely due to epistemic constraints which, in turn, reflect the social structures of the international judicial community.

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo effect, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. This article provides the first detailing of the psychofunctionalist account of belief. The picture of belief that emerges is one where belief fixation is automatic and effortless, and independent of controlled and effortful belief rejection. Belief is then stored in fragmented networks of causally isolated, context-sensitive databases. Finally, beliefs can be changed by two distinct updating systems, with one hewing to more or less normatively appropriate methods of Bayesian updating, and the other relying on a psychological immune system, which functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Understanding belief’s role in our cognitive economy allows us to illuminate broader real-world issues such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world.

This chapter demonstrates that personal relationship networks (guanxi) are still an important element of the Chinese corporate ecosystem, undermining central control through subversive, self-interested informal social structures. Though not as necessary in everyday commercial transactions any more due to the rise of e-commerce and standardized contracts, guanxi is still essential for private firms to gain access to limited natural resources and large-scale finance from state banks during their growth phase and to receive protection from predation by rapacious officials or powerful competitors. The chapter uses the case of Ye Jianming and the CEFC Group to illustrate both the importance of guanxi for private firm development and the risks of collapse when guanxi strays over the line into corruption. The chapter also shows how multinational financial and pharmaceutical firms have attempted to negotiate the narrow path between guanxi and corruption in China, with only limited success.

This chapter analyzes the major problem of corporate-political corruption in more detail, using case studies of Bo Xilai and the Shide Group ("white gloves"), Zhou Yongkang and CNPC ("protection umbrellas"), and Zhao Zhengyong in Shaanxi Province ("predatory corruption" and "symbiotic parasitism") to illustrate the key types of collusive corruption between officials and corporations and their harmful impacts on Chinese society and politics. At the same time, the chapter introduces the case of Shenzhen's gray property market to show that sometimes a degree of symbiotic corruption is necessary to overcome inflexible and outdated regulations in a rapidly developing economy.

“Fragmentation” – the breakdown in communication among many providers treating a single patient, such that multiple decision makers make a set of health care decisions that would be made better through unified decision-making1 – is frequently cited as a major problem in the US health care system.2 It plagues both the payment system (which has multiple payers) as well as the delivery system (which has siloed providers). This chapter focuses on the latter problem of fragmentation among care providers and calls to correct it via “care coordination.” The problem is not just provider fragmentation, however. It is also the lack of clarity regarding what care coordination (the proposed solution) means, what benefits it confers, and how to do it.

This chapter looks at the International Law Commission’s changed approach in codifying and developing international law. Increasingly, the ILC’s work has not aimed at codifying international treaties, as in the first fifty years of its activity (1949–2000), but rather at drafting guidelines, or articles which would not end up discussed in a conference to become binding treaties. This method of codification is based on the customary nature of the guidelines and articles, and relies on the extended network of judges and arbitrators that will potentially make use of them. It is mainly through the domestic and international judiciary that these written guidelines and articles become legally relevant and eventually crystallise into binding rules. The chapter reflects on the importance of the historical context of the proliferation of courts and tribunals in promoting this different endeavour, and, in conclusion, points out the central role of the practice underlying the rules, rather than the Vienna Convention rules on the interpretation of treaties, as the essential point of reference in interpreting them.

The law of the sea is a great laboratory for observing the fabric of international law through the interactions between a variety of judicial bodies with jurisdiction to interpret and apply the same legal rules and principles. At first, the plurality of judicial fora available under UNCLOS has created concerns of fragmentation and of competition and forum shopping. These have proved so far unwarranted, since the tribunals generally deliver a uniform interpretation of the applicable law or tend at least toward harmonization. Tribunals have aimed to achieve clarity and consistency of the case law as well as transparency and predictability of the delimitation process. The concept of acquis judiciaire has been used to designate this mechanism of gradual building of a uniform law through the reiteration and cross-referral to existing judicial decisions. It is both a concept and a regulatory tool. It underlies a wilful search of harmonization and shows that judges are essential actors for ensuring the coherence of the international legal system.

This chapter proposes a theoretical framework in which the absence or the presence of cross-fertilization depends on how a court and its judges strike the balance between the potential persuasive value of external citations and the potential concerns about deference that may arise from grounding decisions in external sources. It then tests observable implications from this theoretical perspective using a new data set of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) references to international court rulings and international legal materials. The findings generally support the theoretical framework. The ECtHR mentions external international law sources in 15 per cent of the judgments that engage in some form of new legal interpretation, but most of these references are to Council of Europe (CoE) documents or institutions, which are typically not controversial from a deference perspective. By contrast, the ECtHR cites international court judgments in only 3 per cent of its judgments and does so even more rarely in violation findings, which raise more deference concerns. The conclusion discusses the implications for other courts.

An exploration of the cultural mechanism of quotation in modernity and antiquity. An overview of the process of ancient poetic fragmentation (how fragments of poetry are made) and a brief history of scholarly editions and collections of Latin poetic fragments. An overview of techniques used by Cicero to quote poetry, and the impact of his methods upon the modern understanding of fragmentary Latin poetry.