Are There Systemic Ethics Issues in Dispute System Design? And What We Should [Not] Do About it: Lessons from International and Domestic Fronts
This paper reviews ethical issues that occur when systems of dispute resolution are designed for organizations, institutions and situations of iterated disputing and grievances. It explores the state of the art of the field and suggests that ethics codes can be both inductively and deductively derived. After reviewing some ethics issues in both domestic (US) and international contexts, some key ethics issues are described but it is also suggested that the field is too new and under "professionalized" for the formal development of an ethics codes at this point, though some general principles of good practices can be identified.
Toward a Jurisprudence of Law, Peace, Justice, and a Tilt Toward Non-Violent and Empathic Means of Human Problem Solving
This essay asks questions about whether there can be a jurisprudence or legal theory of peace and non-violence. Based on a talk at a symposium at Harvard, hosted by the Unbound journal, the article suggests that law should promote peace, non-violence and human flourishing, as much as it currently acts in "violent" (Robert Cover) and prohibitory ways. Suggesting some avenues for further theoretical development in "positive" rights and jurisprudence with an enabling and creative set of legal rules and processes, the essay builds on personal encounters with legal struggles that have proven inadequate to meet basic human needs and suggests we could refocus, or at least "add" to more conventional ideas about the purposes of law and legal institutions to service human needs. The difficulty of building a theory of peace, non-violence and process pluralism in a world that remains violent, focuses on past injustices, and remains state-based, is lamented, even while dilemmas continue in our responses to human cruelty to other humans. But law should be harnessed for more humanely positive, creative, and restorative goals and processes as well as the more common punitive and brittle categories and processes we have now. The essay reports (briefly) on some restorative justice and other process possibilities.
Effect of Calcium Glycerophosphate on Demineralization in an in vitro Biofilm Model
The aim was to investigate the anti-caries properties of calcium glycerophosphate (CaGP) using an in vitro bacterial flow cell model. Four flow cells, inoculated from a chemostat containing a seven-organism bacterial consortium, were pulsed with sucrose twice daily, to provide an acidic challenge and pH-cycling conditions. Blocks of enamel and dentine were mounted in each flow cell. In a study on the effect of CaGP concentration, CaGP was pulsed into three of the flow cells, at the same time as the sucrose, to give concentrations of 0.10, 0.25 and 0.50%. Water was pulsed into the fourth flow cell with the sucrose. Microradiography revealed a significant dose response of decreasing demineralization as CaGP concentration increased. Reductions at 0.25 and 0.5% were significant when compared to the control. A second study investigated the effect of timing of CaGP pulsing, relative to sucrose, on enamel and dentine demineralization. CaGP (flow cell concentration 0.2%), was pulsed 1 h before, during or 1 h after the sucrose pulse; a water control was employed. In enamel, pulsing CaGP before the sucrose reduced demineralization significantly compared to concurrent pulsing, which in turn gave a significant reduction compared to pulsing after sucrose, which did not reduce demineralization significantly compared to the water control. In dentine, CaGP reduced demineralization significantly only when pulsed before the sucrose. The findings suggest that in vivo, the anti-caries potential of CaGP may be greater if it is applied before a cariogenic challenge.