This book examines the creation and formative years of the United Nations Human Rights Council which was created in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights. The book assesses the extent to which the Council has fulfilled its mandate. International law and theories of international relations relating to international organizations are used to examine the Council and its functions. Council sessions, procedures and mechanisms are analysed in depth and particular consideration is given to whether the Council has become politicised to the same extent as the Commission.

This book explains the consequences of global policy initiatives against money laundering, terrorist financing, and tax evasion on financial centres located in offshore jurisdictions in the Caribbean region. Adding to the existing literature by detailing international policy initiatives against money laundering and tax evasion from the early 1920s to date, this book examines the factors that have contributed to their gradual development over time, their role in contributing to money laundering, terrorist financing, and tax evasion, the international policy initiatives that came about to address these financial crimes, as well as the consequences of these policy initiatives on the legislative systems, institutions, offshore business sectors, and economies of these financial centres.

This volume takes a more comprehensive view of past familial dynamics than has been previously attempted. By applying interdisciplinary perspectives to periods ranging from the Prehistoric to the Modern, it informs a wider understanding of the term family, and the implications of family dynamics for children and their social networks in the past. Contributors drawn from across the humanities and social sciences present research addressing three primary themes: modes of kinship and familial structure, the convergence and divergence between the idealised image and realities of family life, and the provision of care within families. These themes are interconnected, as the idea and image of family shapes familial structure, which in turn defines the type of care and protection that families provide to their members. The papers in this volume provide new research to challenge assumptions and provoke new ways of thinking about past families as functionally adaptive, socially connected, and ideologically powerful units of society, just as they are in the present. A broad focus on the networks created by familial units also allows the experiences of historically underrepresented women and children to be highlighted in a way that underlines their interconnectedness with all members of past societies. The Family in Past Perspective builds a much-needed bridge across disciplinary boundaries. The wide scope of the book hmakes important contributions, and informs fields ranging from bioarchaeology to women's history and childhood studies.

Most of the islands of the Caribbean have long histories of herpetological exploration and discovery, and even longer histories of human-mediated environmental degradation. Collectively, they constitute a major biodiversity hotspot – a region rich in endemic species that are threatened with extinction. This two-volume series documents the existing status of herpetofaunas (including sea turtles) of the Caribbean, and highlights conservation needs and efforts. Previous contributions to West Indian herpetology have focused on taxonomy, ecology and evolution, particularly of lizards. This series provides a unique and timely review of the status and conservation of all groups of amphibians and reptiles in the region. This volume introduces the issues particularly affecting Caribbean herpetofaunas, and gives an overview of evolutionary and taxonomic patterns influencing their conservation.

The ecosystems present a great diversity worldwide and use various functionalities according to ecologic regions. In this new context of variability and climatic changes, these ecosystems undergo notable modifications amplified by domestic uses of which it was subjected to. Indeed the ecosystems render diverse services to humanity from their composition and structure but the tolerable levels are unknown. The preservation of these ecosystemic services needs a clear understanding of their complexity. The role of the research is not only to characterise the ecosystems but also to clearly define the tolerable usage levels. Their characterisation proves to be important not only for the local populations that use it but also for the conservation of biodiversity. Hence, the measurement, management and protection of ecosystems need innovative and diverse methods. For all these reasons, the aim of this book is to bring out a general view on the biogeochemical cycles, the ecological imprints, the mathematical models and theories applicable to many situations.

This monograph investigates the International, European and Commonwealth Caribbean approaches to human trafficking from an Analytical Eclectic perspective. It presents a compelling, empirically based argument that although there is currently a panoply of measures aimed at preventing human trafficking, prosecuting offenders and protecting trafficked victims in both Europe and the Commonwealth Caribbean, these measures have in practice been fraught with a number of challenges, whether of a normative, institutional or individual nature. The continued existence of these challenges strongly suggests that there exists a 'disconnect' between anti-trafficking law and practice which is not peculiar to small-island developing States since they also extend to developed States, including the United Kingdom. Although these challenges are not insurmountable, this monograph advances the argument that sustained social, economic, political and legal commitments are both necessary and desirable, and that without such commitments, only pyrrhic victories would be won in the fight to eradicate the scourge of the twenty-first century. Given the importance of the issue of human trafficking and its inescapable impact on victims, families, communities, nations, regions and the international community as a whole, this monograph will serve as an important resource for policy makers, scholars, students and practitioners actively working in this increasingly dynamic area of law.