The book concludes with a reflection on the challenge of grey zones as being one of first principles, which represents a risk to the integrity and long-term future of the organisation. It emphasises that the populations in areas of conflict and contestation are the most vulnerable rights holders in Europe, yet the most isolated. The Council of Europe must address this systematic problem as a matter of urgency and with the decisive attention of Member States and both statutory and non-statutory actors.

Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) has been one of the cornerstones of geriatric medicine since its introduction by Marjory Warren in 1936. This kind of assessment is defined as a multidimensional and multidisciplinary process related to identifying medical, social, and functional needs and developing an integrated care plan designed to meet the patien’st needs.The practice and applications of CGA have been used to various degrees in mainstream care for older people in the UK and internationally.

Some limitations still exist around the wider implementation of CGA, as its practice relies on members of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and on an effective communication between them, the patients, and their families. This kind of assessment has been criticised for not adequately acknowledging frailty and for not using patient-reported outcome measures to test its efficacy.

Randomised controlled studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses provided considerable evidence for the clinical and financial effectiveness of CGA in various hospital specialties. However, there are still concerns about the generalisability of CGA in community settings. Further research to identify target populations for CGA-led interventions and a consensus on outcome measures are required to realise CGA benefits.

In this chapter we describe required skills and practical tips to deliver CGA across a variety of settings.

This chapter draws upon the normative resources of political community to construct an account of the 'antecedents' of statehood: the factual prerequisites that nascent entities characteristically must demonstrate in order to mount a plausible statehood claim. These antecedents, which will be familiar to doctrinal lawyers from sources such as the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, are: a permanent population, a relatively determinate territory, an 'effective' government, and some degree of governmental independence. In addition to grounding each antecedent within both historical and contemporary practice, this chapter demonstrates their coherence with the ethical value of politics, thereby reconstructing these elements of international law into a normatively coherent whole. Several aspects of this reconstruction will strike readers familiar with state creation as controversial. In particular, I advance a novel conception of governmental 'effectiveness' that turns upon the capacity of nascent states to facilitate ethically valuable political action.

This chapter considers the impact of the sanctions in the short-term: both the economic impact on the Russian state and the Russian people, as well as sanctions’ failure to prevent further military action by Russia in Ukraine. Unintended knock-on or ripple effects of the sanctions are also discussed, as are the effects of the sanctions on world trading patterns and the economic health of other nations. The chapter also considers the potential long-term effects of sanctions on the Russian economy.

Effective health-care makes a large and increasing contribution to preventing disease and prolonging life by reducing the population burden of disease. However, only the right kind of health-care delivered in the right way, at the right time, to the right person can improve health. Health-care interventions that are powerful enough to improve population health are also powerful enough to cause harm if incorrectly used. How can public health specialists know whether their interventions are having the desired effect? Clinicians can monitor the impact of their treatments on an individual patient basis, but how do we examine the impact of a new service? This chapter looks at what we mean by quality of health-care and considers some frameworks for its evaluation.

How much of what health and other professionals do is based soundly in science? Answers to the question, ‘Is our practice evidence based?’ depend on what we mean by practice and evidence.

The expansion of evidence-based medicne (EBM) has been a major influence on medical practice over the past 25 years. In this chapter, we examine the nature of what is nowadays more broadly referred to as evidence-based health-care (EBHC) and discuss its limitations. It is worth noting that in the UK this field continues to expand, particularly into the arena of social care, which often goes hand in hand with the provision of health-care. Increasingly, the term ‘evidence-based practice’ (EBP) is used as a catch-all. While this chapter focuses on health-care, the principles of EBP we describe apply equally to other disciplines, including public health and policy.

The past decade has seen outside states, coalitions or regional organisations lead military operations at the (real or alleged) ‘invitation’ of one of the parties embroiled in military strife – notably, in Mali, Syria, Yemen, and The Gambia. This chapter addresses key legal questions, starting with the validity of a government’s ‘consent’. Others include the legal nature and the effects of such consent, and how a government might lose its capacity to consent to military action in its own territory. The chapter includes analysis of the legal doctrines that might limit the lawfulness of the intervention despite such consent, including the invalidity of consent, the ‘negative equality’ doctrine or complete abstention, unlawful purposes, and other grounds of illegality, such as the inviting state’s complicity in international crimes. In the cases examined in the volume, the intervening states typically invoked multiple legal grounds, of which invitation is only one, and the UN Security Council has been intensely involved: the chapter appraises the legal significance of these novel features. It concludes with a summary of the trialogue method and an overview of the subsequent chapters.

Engaging directly with agonistic thought, Chapter 6 asks whether contestation about corporate human rights abuses, over the long-term, shapes democratic institutions more broadly. What is clear in agonistic scholarship is that confrontation must be incorporated or integrated into democratic institutions. This chapter empirically tests this relationship. It finds that contestation improves measures of respect for human rights and civic empowerment. That is, without any formal or informal response, simply speaking out and making abuses known improves respect for human rights, generally. The data also illustrate that, regardless of the outcome, there is a positive cumulative effect of trials over time, demonstrating the importance of reflexive innovation. In contrast, simply engaging in non-judicial remedy alone does not improve respect for human rights. The analysis shows that there is a positive, cumulative relationship between respect for human rights and those non-judicial remedy efforts led by the state. If corporations lead the non-judicial remedy effort, however, they do nothing to improve respect for human rights or more robust civic engagement over the long-term.

Many of our oceans and seas are under threat. Strengthening the environmental rule of law for better protection and sustainable use of the oceans is therefore urgent. This Chapter introduces the concept of the environmental rule of law for oceans and the diverse perspectives and topics that will be addressed throughout the book.

The chapter assesses the effectiveness of the ICJ. The authors set out an evaluative framework for assessing the Court’s effectiveness, adopting a goals-based analysis. They identify the ICJ’s goals, and then consider the structural features of the Court that assist and hinder it from achieving those goals. By reference to specific examples, the authors then consider whether the ICJ has achieved its goals in practice, concluding that its record of achievement produces mixed results, but highlighting the Court’s success in preserving confidence in international adjudication.