Publications

Today a plenitude of legal instruments for the protection of a vast number of human rights exists. Many of these rights have reached almost universal ratification. Regional courts have developed and their jurisdiction has brought relief to individual victims of human rights violations and has influenced national legislation and practice. The perpetrators of the most severe human rights violations can be held responsible before the International Criminal Court. Why is it, then, that we are still facing systematic and widespread violations, and that the gap between the high aspirations and the sobering reality, between human rights law and its implementation still exists?

The establishment of a World Court of Human Rights could help bridging the gap between codified rights and reality. The idea of such a Court dates back to 1947. Due to the Cold War, however, the proposal did not find consensus among States. Thus the World Court of Human Rights was never realised and remained stigmatised as utopian.

Probably due to this sense of political infeasibility, scholars have never undertaken to look into the legal possibilities of drafting a statute for the Court. The authors of this publication tried not only to come up with a solid statute but also took into consideration major challenges to the protection of human rights in our time.

Pervasive Mobile and Ambient Wireless Communications reports the findings of COST 2100, a project of the European intergovernmental COST framework addressing various topics currently emerging in mobile and wireless communications. Drawing on experience developed in this and earlier COST projects, the text represents the final outcome of collaborative work involving more than 500 researchers in 140 institutions and 30 countries (including outside Europe).

The main objective of this Action was to provide the basic framework and knowledge required for the efficient and sustainable use of timber as a structural and building material. This will be achieved by building on three main research activities: the identification and modelling of relevant load and environmental exposure scenarios, the improvement of knowledge concerning the behaviour of timber structural elements and the development of a generic framework for the assessment of the life-cycle vulnerability and robustness of timber structures. The Action serves as a development platform for the European timber engineering research community to improve the knowledge about the life-cycle performance of timber structures.

Proceedings of the Workshop and Managing Committee Meeting CHEMBIOGENESIS 2006, which took place in Barcelona on 14-17 December 2006.