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Congratulations to City University's Charlotte Bellamy and Raphael Gray, who gave an exceptionally polished and professional performance and won the Oxford University Press (OUP) and BPP National Mooting Competition 2014-2015 on 25 June 2015. His Honour Judge Charles Gratwicke of Chelmsford Crown Court presided over the final and praised the hard work and depth of knowledge the students demonstrated. Indeed, it was the the closest final in years.
In July 2014 Yusuf Sarwar and his associate, Mohammed Ahmed, both aged 22, pleaded guilty to conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, contrary to s5 of the Terrorism Act. Sarwar was given an extended sentence (for ‘dangerous’ offenders under s226A of the Criminal Justice Act 2013) comprising 12 years and eight months custody, plus a 5 year extension to his period of release on licence.
Professor Jane Holder of University College London has been named Law Teacher of the Year 2015. The prestigious national teaching award, which is sponsored by Oxford University Press, was presented at a lunch event held on Friday, 27 February 2015.
Over the last 15 years, research into various online addictions has greatly increased. Prior to the 2013 publication of the American Psychiatric Association’s fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), there had been some debate as to whether ‘Internet addiction’ should be introduced into the text as a separate disorder. Alongside this, there has been debate as to whether those in the online addiction field should be researching generalized Internet use and/or the potentially addictive activities that can be engaged on the Internet (e.g. gambling, video gaming, sex, shopping, etc.).
It should also be noted that given the lack of consensus as to whether video game addiction exists and/or whether the term ‘addiction’ is the most appropriate to use, some researchers have instead used terminology such as ‘excessive’ or ‘problematic’ to denote the harmful use of video games. Terminology for what appears to be for the same disorder and/or its consequences include problem video game playing, problematic online game use, video game addiction, online gaming addiction, Internet gaming addiction, and compulsive Internet use.
Following these debates, the Substance Use Disorder Work Group (SUDWG) recommended that the DSM-5 include a sub-type of problematic Internet use (i.e. Internet gaming disorder (IGD)) in Section 3 (‘Emerging Measures and Models’) as an area that needed future research before being included in future editions of the DSM. According to Dr. Nancy Petry and Dr. Charles O’Brien, IGD will not be included as a separate mental disorder until the
(i) defining features of IGD have been identified,
(ii) reliability and validity of specific IGD criteria have been obtained cross-culturally,
(iii) prevalence rates have been determined in representative epidemiological samples across the world, and
(iv) etiology and associated biological features have been evaluated.
Although there is now a rapidly growing literature on pathological video gaming, one of the key reasons that Internet gaming disorder was not included in the main text of the DSM-5 was that the Substance Use Disorder Work Group concluded that no standard diagnostic criteria were used to assess gaming addiction across these studies. In 2013, some of my colleagues and I published a paper in Clinical Psychology Review examining all instruments assessing problematic, pathological, and/or addictive gaming. We reported that 18 different screening instruments had been developed, and that these had been used in 63 quantitative studies comprising 58,415 participants. The prevalence rates for problematic gaming were highly variable depending on age (e.g. children, adolescents, young adults, older adults) and sample (e.g. college students, Internet users, gamers, etc.). Most studies’ prevalence rates of problematic gaming ranged between 1% and 10%, but higher figures have been reported (particularly amongst self-selected samples of video gamers). In our review, we also identified both strengths and weaknesses of these instruments.
The main strengths of the instrumentation included the:
(i) the brevity and ease of scoring,
(ii) excellent psychometric properties such as convergent validity and internal consistency, and
(iii) robust data that will aid the development of standardized norms for adolescent populations.
However, the main weaknesses identified in the instrumentation included:
(i) core addiction indicators being inconsistent across studies,
(ii) a general lack of any temporal dimension,
(iii) inconsistent cut-off scores relating to clinical status,
(iv) poor and/or inadequate inter-rater reliability and predictive validity, and
(v) inconsistent and/or dimensionality.
It has also been noted by many researchers (including me) that the criteria for Internet gaming disorder assessment tools are theoretically based on a variety of different potentially problematic activities including substance use disorders, pathological gambling, and/or other behavioral addiction criteria. There are also issues surrounding the settings in which diagnostic screens are used, as those used in clinical practice settings may require a different emphasis that those used in epidemiological, experimental, and neurobiological research settings.
Video gaming that is problematic, pathological, and/or addictive lacks a widely accepted definition. Some researchers in the field consider video games as the starting point for examining the characteristics of this specific disorder, while others consider the Internet as the main platform that unites different addictive Internet activities, including online games. My colleagues and I have begun to make an effort to integrate both approaches, i.e., classifying online gaming addiction as a sub-type of video game addiction but acknowledging that some situational and structural characteristics of the Internet may facilitate addictive tendencies (e.g. accessibility, anonymity, affordability, disinhibition, etc.).
Throughout my career I have argued that although all addictions have particular and idiosyncratic characteristics, they share more commonalities than differences (i.e. salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict, and relapse), and likely reflects a common etiology of addictive behavior. When I started research Internet addiction in the mid-1990s, I came to the view that there is a fundamental difference between addiction to the Internet, and addictions on the Internet. However, many online games (such as Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) differ from traditional stand-alone video games as there are social and/or role-playing dimension that allow interaction with other gamers.
Irrespective of approach or model, the components and dimensions that comprise online gaming addiction outlined above are very similar to the Internet gaming disorder criteria in Section 3 of the DSM-5. For instance, my six addiction components directly map onto the nine proposed criteria for IGD (of which five or more need to be endorsed and resulting in clinically significant impairment). More specifically:
preoccupation with Internet games [salience];
withdrawal symptoms when Internet gaming is taken away [withdrawal];
the need to spend increasing amounts of time engaged in Internet gaming [tolerance],
unsuccessful attempts to control participation in Internet gaming [relapse/loss of control];
loss of interest in hobbies and entertainment as a result of, and with the exception of, Internet gaming [conflict];
continued excessive use of Internet games despite knowledge of psychosocial problems [conflict];
deception of family members, therapists, or others regarding the amount of Internet gaming [conflict];
use of the Internet gaming to escape or relieve a negative mood [mood modification]; and
loss of a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of participation in Internet games [conflict].
The fact that Internet gaming disorder was included in Section 3 of the DSM-5 appears to have been well received by researchers and clinicians in the gaming addiction field (and by those individuals that have sought treatment for such disorders and had their experiences psychiatrically validated and feel less stigmatized). However, for IGD to be included in the section on ‘Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders’ along with ‘Gambling Disorder’, the gaming addiction field must unite and start using the same assessment measures so that comparisons can be made across different demographic groups and different cultures.
For epidemiological purposes, my research colleagues and I have asserted that the most appropriate measures in assessing problematic online use (including Internet gaming) should meet six requirements. Such an instrument should have:
(i) brevity (to make surveys as short as possible and help overcome question fatigue);
(ii) comprehensiveness (to examine all core aspects of problematic gaming as possible);
(iii) reliability and validity across age groups (e.g. adolescents vs. adults);
(iv) reliability and validity across data collection methods (e.g. online, face-to-face interview, paper-and-pencil);
(v) cross-cultural reliability and validity; and
(vi) clinical validation.
We also reached the conclusion that an ideal assessment instrument should serve as the basis for defining adequate cut-off scores in terms of both specificity and sensitivity.
The good news is that research in the gaming addiction field does appear to be reaching an emerging consensus. There have also been over 20 studies using neuroimaging techniques (such as functional magnetic resonance imaging) indicating that generalized Internet addiction and online gaming addiction share neurobiological similarities with more traditional addictions. However, it is critical that a unified approach to assessment of Internet gaming disorder is urgently needed as this is the only way that there will be a strong empirical and scientific basis for IGD to be included in the next DSM.
Today, 10 December, is Human Rights Day, commemorating The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. In celebration, we’re sharing an edited extract from International Human Rights Law, Second Edition by Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.
The modern state can be a source of both good and evil. It can do much good – protecting our security, ensuring our basic necessities, nurturing an environment in which people can flourish to the best of their abilities. But when it represses its people, shirks its duties, or misapplies its resources, it can be the source of much suffering.
International human rights law sets forth the core obligations of governments toward their people, prescribing the basic freedoms that governments must respect and the steps they must take to uphold public welfare. But the application of that law often differs from the enforcement of statutes typically found in a nation’s law books.
In countries that enjoy the rule of law, the courts can usually be relied on to enforce legislation. The rule of law means that courts have the independence to apply the law free of interference, and powerful actors, including senior government officials, are expected to comply with court orders.
In practice, there is no such presumption in most of the countries where my organization, Human Rights Watch, works, and where international human rights law is most needed. The judges are often corrupt, intimidated, or compromised. They may not dare hold the government to account, or they may have been co-opted to the point that they do not even try, or the government may succeed in ignoring whatever efforts they make.
International human rights law should be seen as a law of last resort when domestic rights legislation fails. Judicial enforcement is always welcome, but when it falls short, human rights law provides a basis that is distinct from domestic legislation for putting pressure on governments to uphold their obligations.
Human rights groups investigate and report on situations in which governments fall short of their obligations. The resulting publicity, through the media and other outlets, can undermine a government’s standing and credibility, embarrassing it before its people and peers and generating pressure for reform.
Beyond documenting and reporting violations of human rights law, human rights groups must shape public opinion to ensure that the exposure of government misconduct is met with opprobrium rather than approval. In part this is done by citing international law to convince the public of a global consensus about what is right or wrong in a given context. By presenting an issue in terms of rights, human rights groups help the public to develop a moral framework for assessing governmental conduct beyond public sentiment in any particular case or incident.
For the law to play this role of moral instruction, it is not enough simply to recite it. When people’s security or traditions are at stake, it takes more than a mere reference to the law to change the public’s sense of moral propriety. Human rights groups must be creative in moving the public to embrace what the law demands.
Sometimes it is difficult to convince a local public to disapprove of its government’s conduct. Thus, the great challenge facing human rights groups is often less concerned with arguing the law’s fine points or applying them to the facts of a case than with convincing the public that violations are wrong. That requires the hard work of helping the public to identify with the victim’s plight, making the law come alive, and generating outrage at its violation with some public of relevance. When human rights law can be made to correspond with the public’s sense of right and wrong, governments face intense pressure to respect that law. Shame can be a powerful motivator.
Today is United Nations Day, celebrating the day that the UN Charter came into force in 1945. We thought it would be an excellent time to share thoughts from one of their former Commissioners to highlight the work this organization undertakes. The following is an edited extract by Navanethem Pillay, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from International Human Rights Law, Second Edition.
I was born a non-white in apartheid South Africa. My ancestors were sugarcane cutters. My father was a bus driver. We were poor.
At age 16 I wrote an essay which dealt with the role of South African women in educating children on human rights and which, as it turned out, was indeed fateful. After the essay was published, my community raised funds in order to send this promising, but impecunious, young woman to university.
Despite their efforts and goodwill, I almost did not make it as a lawyer, because when I entered university during the apartheid regime everything and everyone was segregated. However, I persevered. After my graduation I sought an internship, which was mandatory under the law; it was a black lawyer who agreed to take me on board, but he first made me promise that I would not become pregnant. And when I started a law practice on my own, it was not out of choice but because no one would employ a black woman lawyer.
Yet, in the course of my life, I had the privilege to see and experience a complete transformation in my country. Against this background it is no surprise that when I read or recite Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I intimately and profoundly feel its truth. The article stated that: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood’.
The power of rights made it possible for an ever-expanding number of people, people like myself, to claim freedom, equality, justice, and well-being.
Human rights underpin the aspiration to a world in which every man, woman, and child lives free from hunger and protected from oppression, violence, and discrimination, with the benefits of housing, healthcare, education, and opportunity.
Yet for too many people in the world, human rights remain an unfulfilled promise. We live in a world where crimes against humanity are ongoing, and where the most basic economic rights critical to survival are not realized and often not even accorded the high priority they warrant.
The years to come are crucial for sowing the seeds of an improved international partnership that, by drawing on individual and collective resourcefulness and strengths, can meet the global challenges of poverty, discrimination, conflict, scarcity of natural resources, recession, and climate change.
United Nations Building. Photo by Ashitaka San. CC BY-NC 2.0 via mononoke Flickr.
In 2005, the world leaders at their summit created the UN Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body which replaced the much-criticized UN Human Rights Council, with the mandate of promoting ‘universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all’. The Council began its operations in June 2006. Since then, it has equipped itself with its own institutional architecture and has been engaged in an innovative process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The UPR is the Council’s assessment at regular intervals of the human rights record of all UN member states.
In addition, at each session of the Council several country-situations are brought to the fore in addresses and documents delivered by member states, independent experts, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Today, the Office of the High Commissioner is in a unique position to assist governments and civil society in their efforts to protect and promote human rights. The expansion of its field offices and its presence in more than 50 countries, as well as its increasing and deepening interaction with UN agencies and other crucial partners in government, international organizations, anad civil society are important steps in this direction. With these steps we can more readily strive for practical cooperation leading to the creation of national systems which promote human rights and provide protection and recourse for victims of human rights violations.
In the final instance, however, it is the duty of states, regardless of their political, economic, and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms. Our collective responsibility is to assist states to fulfil their obligations and to hold them to account when they do not.
What range of career options are out there for those attending law school? In this series of podcasts, Martin Partington talks to influential figures in the law about topics ranging from restorative justice to legal journalism.
Restorative Justice: An interview with Lizzie Nelson
The Restorative Justice Council is a small charitable organisation that exists to promote the use of restorative justice, not just in the court (criminal justice) context, but in other situations of conflict as well (e.g. schools). In this podcast Martin talks to Lizzie Nelson, Director of the Restorative Justice Council.
Handling complaints against lawyers: An interview with Adam Sampson
In this podcast, Martin talks to Adam Sampson, Chief Legal Ombudsman. They discuss the work of the Legal Ombudsman, how it operates, the kinds of issue it deals with, and some of the limitations the office has to deal with matters raised by dissatisfied clients.
Reporting the law: An interview with Joshua Rozenberg
Joshua Rozenberg is one of a very small number of specialist journalists who cover legal issues in a serious and thoughtful way. He has worked in a wide variety of media, including the BBC, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian. In this interview, he describes how he decided to become a journalist rather than a practising lawyer and comments on the challenges of devising ways to enable legal issues to be raised in mass media.
Making the leap between school and university can be a stretch at the best of times, but for UK law students it can be a real struggle. As there is no requirement to study law at school before beginning an undergraduate programme, many new law students have a very limited knowledge of how the law works and what they can expect from their studies.
We asked a group of 77 law students from around the UK about how they prepared for their courses. It turns out, only a third of them did any reading before starting, but a vast majority would have done, if only their university had given them a bit of advice.
For the first time in its history, the American Society of International Law (ASIL) is partnering with the American Branch of the International Law Association (ILA) to combine each organization’s major conference into an extraordinary joint event. Oxford University Press is looking forward to exhibiting at the conference taking place in Washington on 7-12 April 2014. The conference theme is “The Effectiveness of International Law,” and no doubt there will be much to debate and discuss during the week. Organizers released a set of questions they hope will be addressed during the course of the conference. To kick off the debate we posed two of them to Ademola Abass, author of Complete International Law.
Are there greater challenges to effectiveness in some areas of international law practice than in others? If so, what are they, and how can they be addressed?
Keen followers of international affairs often wonder why, despite the prohibition on the use of force by the UN Charter, States still resort to this means of addressing international disputes. Explanations vary. Legal experts offer various technical explanations for this development. This includes that the rules governing the use of force are outdated and do not offer enough protection for States. Non-lawyers blame the ‘double-standard’ of international law which allows rich and powerful States to act with impunity while weak and poor States are held accountable for their conducts. Others blame the special status accorded to the five permanent members of the Security Council by the veto vote. Regardless of divergent viewpoints, all agree the prohibition of the use of force is less effective than other areas of international law. This is due principally to lack of compliance by some States, and lack of enforcement against rich and powerful States. It is also difficult for States not to defend themselves against threatening States until those have attacked them. The presence of nuclear weapons makes it difficult for most States to sit and wait for an attack before they respond. Overcoming these challenges requires making the Security Council work more evenly and responsibly; ensuring greater transparency and consistency in the administration of collective security by the United Nations. More importantly, it requires the interpretation of the law prohibiting the use of force in accordance with the reality of the twenty first century.
Do the challenges facing international law vary in different parts of the world, and, if so, how might those challenges be met?
It is often argued that international law began in the West. While one can contest whether it is possible (or purposeful) to seek locating the birthplace of international law, in contradistinction from its development, not many will argue that international law faces severe challenges in the developing world in contrast to the developed world. In the developing world, the first problem of international law is lack of its popularity. This arises through a combination of lack of awareness, of most law students, about the utility and relevance of international law to their societies. Secondly, the marketing of international institution and materials, has almost a Western bias: international institutions such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court (ICC), World Bank, are all located in the West. Most international law books report cases and jurisdictions that are preponderant Western as if cases and courts in developing countries make no contribution to international law development.
Addressing these challenges calls for a greater balancing acts in the citing and administration of international institutions; it requires a more even coverage of international law; it necessitates making international law more visible to developing countries, and making their contributions to international law more visible to the world. On their own, developing countries must do more to popularize international law in their academic curricula, expose their judges more greatly to international law, and afford international lawyers from the developing countries more opportunity in the dissemination and practice of international law.
Professor Ademola Abass joined the UNU Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) as a Research Fellow in Peace and Security in 2010. He is also the Head of Peace and Security Programme. He is a former Professor of International Law and Organisation at Brunel University, West London and was educated at the Universities of Lagos, Cambridge, and Nottingham. He holds a Ph.D. in International Law and has previously taught in several British universities. He is the author of Complete International Law.
Oxford University Press is a leading publisher in international law, including the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, latest titles from thought leaders in the field, and a wide range of law journals and online products. We publish original works across key areas of study, from humanitarian to international economic to environmental law, developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars, and practitioners worldwide. For the latest news, commentary, and insights follow the International Law team on Twitter @OUPIntLaw.
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Image credit: The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York. Photo by Patrick Gruban, 2006. CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
