It is possible to define conversation policies, such as communication or dialogue protocols, that are based strictly on what messages and, respectively, what performatives may follow each other. While such an approach has many practical applications, such protocols support only „local coherence“ in a conversation. In a mixed-initiative dialogue between two agents cooperating on some joint task,...

Health has gained recognition as a foreign policy concern in recent years. Political leaders increasingly address global health problems within their international relations agendas. The confluence of health and foreign policy has opened these issues to analysis that helps clarify the tenets and determinants of this linkage, offering a new framework for international health policy. Yet as healt...

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used a fake vaccination programme to obtain DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) samples in the search for Osama Bin Laden, which caused distrust and hampered polio eradication and other public health efforts in Pakistan.1,2 The Obama administration’s vow that the CIA will never again exploit a vaccination programme in its counterterrorism efforts ther...

Estimates of 21st Century global-mean surface temperature increase have generally been based on scenarios that do not include climate policies. Newly developed multigas mitigation scenarios, based on a wide range of modeling approaches and socioeconomic assumptions, now allow the assessment of possible impacts of climate policies on projected warming ranges. This article assesses the atmospheri...

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is a seminal event in tobacco control and in global health. Scientific evidence guided the creation of the FCTC, and as the treaty moves into its implementation phase, scientific evidence can be used to guide the formulation of evidence-based tobacco control policies. The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC Project) is ...

A shift in the culture and practice of health and development research is required to maximise the real-world use of evidence by non-academic or non-research-oriented audiences. Many frameworks have been developed to guide and measure the research utilisation process, yet none have been widely applied. Some frameworks are simplified to an unrealistic linear representation while others are rende...

The global environment itself knows no national boundaries. The activities of states affect the global environment whether or not those activities are regulated by international law or by domestic law or both. However, every student interested in the global environment must take into account the interface between domestic and international law. This Chapter's first essay reviews the considerati...

The environmental impact of a regional trade agreement towards liberalization is an empirical question. The paper estimates the economic and environmental impacts of alternative trade policies of liberalization between six East Asian countries using Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) framework. The finding reveals that Japan will be in a winwin situation followed by Republic of Korea after ta...

This article addresses the increasing influence of economic rationalities in global health over the past 30 years by examining the genealogy of one economic strategy - taxation - that has become central to international anti-smoking initiatives in the global South. It argues that this genealogy sits uncomfortably with the usual story about economics and global health, which reduces the economis...