After decades of rejection of direct applicability of Article 11 ICESCR, recognizing among other things the human right to food including water, a District Court in the Netherlands ruled in June 2008 that the provision can be invoked in a court of law. The decision was inspired by a presumed change of tides in politics, when the former Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that the Netherlands joined the group of countries who recognize the right to water as a human right. In appeal, the decision did not hold, but no judgment was given on the question whether Article 11 ICESCR can indeed be invoked in the courts. There are however no indications that case aw is to be expected that supports the ruling of the District Court in favour of direct applicability of Article 11 ICESCR.
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[ENG] Water Nation is an artistic research project and short film exploring archival footage of the Institute of Sound & Vision of flooding in The Netherlands. Told from the artist’s perspective it is a reflection on how to connect and make climate change and the Dutch history around water and flooding palpable. Through artistic and AI experiments a short animated film was created. [NL] Water Nation is een artistiek onderzoeksproject en een korte film waarin archiefmateriaal van het Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid over overstromingen in Nederland is verwerkt. Vanuit het perspectief van de kunstenaar is het een reflectie op hoe klimaatverandering en de Nederlandse geschiedenis rond water en overstromingen invoelbaar kunnen worden gemaakt en met elkaar kunnen worden verbonden. Door middel van artistieke en AI-experimenten werd een korte animatiefilm gecreëerd.
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Urban green and shading are adaptation measures that reduce urban heat. This is evident from meteorological measurements and investigations with surveys and has been described in many papers (e.g. Klemm et al., 2015). The cooling effect of these adaptation measures is reflected by lower air temperatures and an improved thermal comfort. Shading and urban green are also experienced as cooler than impervious urban spaces without vegetation or shading. However, the cooling effect of water bodies in cities, such as rivers, lakes, ponds, canals,fountains, is not clear yet (Steeneveld et al., 2014). Several studies show that the cooling effect of water bodies in cities is small, or can even be a source of heat during nighttime. The effect depends on the characteristics of the water body and the meteorological conditions. Nevertheless, water is often mentioned as an adaptation measure to reduce urban heat.To support urban professionals in designing cooler urban environments by using water bodies, we investigated in more detail how different water types in msterdam contribute to cooling the environment. During five summer days, we measured the cooling effect of five different water bodies: a pond, a fountain, a canal, and two rivers. We used measurements from mobile weather stations (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, global radiation and globe temperature) and collected almost 1000 surveys near the water bodies and a reference location. From these data, we could determine the effect of the water bodies on air temperature, thermal comfort and thermal sensation. The research question that we tried to answer with this study is: What is the cooling effect of different water types in the city of Amsterdam during hot days? The study has been carried out within the framework of a Dutch research project ‘Urban climate resilience – Turning climate adaptation into practice’ and supports urban professionals to decide on the right adaptation measures to reduce urban heat.
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This paper explores whether constitutional litigation contributes to sustaining the equity element of the right to health. Equity entails a fair distribution of the burden of healthcare financing across the different socio-economic groups of the population. A shift towards uncontrolled private healthcare provision and financing raises equity challenges by disproportionately benefitting those who are able to afford such services. The extent to which equity is enforced is an indicator of the strength of the right to health. However, do domestic constitutional courts second-guess, based on equity, policy decisions that impact on healthcare financing? Is it the task of constitutional courts to scrutinize such policy decisions? Under what conditions are courts more likely to do so? The paper addresses these questions by focusing on the case of Hungary, where the right to health has been present in the Fundamental Law adopted in 2010 and the Constitutions preceding it. While the Hungarian Constitutional Court has been traditionally cautious to review policy decisions pertaining to healthcare financing, the system has been struggling with equity issues and successive government coalitions have had limited success in tackling these. The paper discusses the role of constitutional litigation in addressing such equity concerns. In doing so, it contributes to the discussion on the role of domestic constitutional courts in the protection of social and economic rights.
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In this article, Isaac argues that since 1948, Israel's control of water resources has been the result of military actions that forced between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians into exile and claimed the most fertile part of the disputed territory for the state. It thereby paved the way for subsequent military occupation. Isaac maintains that the Israeli occupation has violated the Palestinian right to the equitable and reasonable utilization of shared water resources. In his view, from the end of the 1967 war, Israel initiated its occupation of the territories of Palestine and quickly imposed military order with a view to achieving full control over land and water resources. To Isaac, these military orders served to dissolve the pre-1967 legal systems and which consisted of Ottoman, British, Jordanian (West Bank) and Egyptian (Gaza Strip) laws. This critical review article concentrates on the concept of justice tourism as a response to these assumed Israeli violations of Palestinian rights to equitable and reasonable utilization of shared water resources. The article sheds light on why and how justice tourism conceivably contributes to the Palestine host communities' transformation and hence to the development of higher level self-consciousness about their rights as "a sovereign nation".
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'Interview' with water. Edited version of an interview in The Value of Void, Navid Nuur (Onomatopee, Eindhoven, 2010).
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In this book of examples we present possible implementations of straightforward and manageable climate-resilient ideas and options for residential streets. Examples from ordinary Dutch street views show how climate resilience can be implemented with simple solutions and how this does not need to be more costly than traditional measures, particularly in flat areas (such as we often find in the Netherlands). This observation is based on comparative studies across various Dutch cities. We hope that the examples will inspire you to find ways to implementclimate-resilient measures in your city, because the climate is right up your street.
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When addressing urban heat problems, climate- conscious urban design has been assuming that urban water bodies such as canals, ditches or ponds cool down their surroundings. Recent research shows that this is not necessarily the case and that urban water bodies may actually have a warming e ect, particularly during late summer season nights. There are however indications that water can have a cooling potential if brought together with the right shading, evaporation and ventilation strategies. Yet, it is not clear how this should be achieved. Knowledge on such spatial configurations should thus be developed and made available to design practice. This challenge is directly addressed by the “REALCOOL” project, a research aiming to define design prototypes showing the physical processes behind the e ective cooling potential of urban water bodies, that design professionals can take as conceptual design frameworks.
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There has probably never been such an intense debate about the layout of the countryside as the one that is currently raging. There are serious concerns about the landscape, which is being rapidly transformed by urbanization and everything associated with this process, and not only in the Netherlands but also far beyond its borders. Everyone has something to say in this society-wide debate, from local to national governments, from environmental factions to the road-user's lobby, and from those who are professionally involved to concerned private parties. In many cases it is a battle between idealized images and economic models, between agricultural reality and urban park landscapes, between ecological concerns and mobility. This issue of OASE explores the potential significance of architectonic design for transformation processes on the regional scale. Besides considering the instruments that are available to the designer to fulfil this task, the authors also consider how the design can exercise a 'positive' influence on such processes. The various contributions shed light on the potential significance of territory in contemporary design practice and offer critical reflection on the topical discourse that has evolved over recent years.
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Control methods are applied worldwide to reduce predation on livestock by European red foxes (Vulpes vulpes). Lethal methods can inflict suffering; however, moral debate about their use is lacking. Non-lethal methods can also inflict suffering and can unintentionally lead to death, and yet both the welfare consequences and ethical perspectives regarding their use are rarely discussed. The aim of this study was to investigate the animal welfare consequences, the level of humaneness, the ethical considerations and the moral implications of the global use of fox control methods according to Tom Regan’s animal rights view and Peter Singer’s utilitarian view. According to Regan, foxes ought not to be controlled by either lethal or potentially harmful non-lethal methods because this violates the right of foxes not to be harmed or killed. According to Singer, if an action maximises happiness or the satisfaction of preferences over unhappiness or suffering, then the action is justified. Therefore, if and only if the use of fox control methods can prevent suffering and death in livestock in a manner that outweighs comparable suffering and death in foxes is one morally obligated t
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