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The discipline of political science has developed an active research program on the development, operation, spread, and impact of international legal norms, agreements, and institutions. Meanwhile, a growing number of public international lawyers have developed an interest in political science research and methods. For more than two decades, scholars have been calling for international lawyers and political scientists to collaborate, and have suggested possible frameworks for doing so. Some prominent collaborations are under way—sharing research methods and insights.

Western countries responded to the full-scale Russian attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022 by imposing strong sanctions to isolate Russia. Norway has adhered to this policy, with exceptions for cooperation on border control, search and rescue, and fisheries research and management in the Barents Sea. Bilateral cooperation within polar science is on ice but has not broken off completely as some scientist-to-scientist contact has been maintained. This Perspective article outlines how these sanctions have greatly reduced cooperation between Norwegian research entities (especially the Institute of Marine Research and the Norwegian Polar Institute) and Russian institutes and scientists in various fields of marine and polar science. Some scientist-to-scientist contact remains, but the nature of these communications has become scantier during the course of the last three years. Maintaining some form of contact is vital for the sustainable management of the living marine resources that Russia and Norway share.

The question of the legal permissibility of heritable gene editing techniques is unsettled. The international consensus opposes clinical research and applications involving germline modifications. Building on previous work, this paper examines how international human rights law, particularly human right to science standards, can inform the regulation of this controversial advancement. We present the normative content of the human right to science, apply it to the governance of heritable gene editing, and identify action points that States must take, as a matter of national law and international cooperation, to align the governance of heritable gene editing with human rights standards.

Background and history: Italy was the main asbestos producer and one of the greatest consumers in 20th century Europe until the asbestos ban was introduced in 1992. Asbestos exposure affected the population in a wide range of working environments, namely mining and marketing of asbestos, asbestos cement production, shipyards and textile industries. This also determined a widespread environmental asbestos exposure affecting the surrounding communities. Methods: To investigate the drivers and difficulties of the process leading to the asbestos ban and its subsequent implementation, we focused on stakeholder involvement, environmental health policies, capacity building and communication. Results: In the past three decades, stakeholder involvement has been instrumental in advancing the industrial asbestos replacement process, prevention and remediation interventions. Furthermore, involvement also contributed to the integration of environmental and health policies at national, regional and local levels, including capacity building and communication. In a global public health perspective, international scientific cooperation has been established with countries using and producing asbestos. Discussion and Conclusions: Key factors and lessons learnt in Italy from both successful and ineffective asbestos policies are described to support the relevant stakeholders in countries still using asbestos contributing to the termination of its use.

The paper provides information about the history of the Department of Mechanics, the scientific directions, and some research results of the institutes of the Department. Brief information about the heads of the Department since its foundation, founders and current heads of the institutes of the Department is presented. Information on the cooperation of the institutes of the Department with leading industrial enterprises and universities in Ukraine and abroad is provided.

The rise of social network analyses in the social sciences has allowed empirical work to better account for interdependencies among actors and among their actions. However, this work has been, to a large extent, descriptive: it has treated these actions as exogenous and immutable. In many cases these networks describe actions like alliance formation or trade — phenomena that are the outcome variables for programs of social scientific research. In this article, I attempt to account for both interdependencies and the endogenous nature of networks by incorporating formal theory, helping answer the question of how these networks arise by looking at the incentives of actors to form links with each other. I discuss the appropriate solution concept for a network formation game, and present an algorithm for finding the equilibrium of these networks computationally as well as ways to compare the theoretical networks to observed networks in order to evaluate the fit of the theory. I apply these methods to the study of international cooperation — a subject where both the interdependencies and purposive nature of actors must be accounted for. The theoretical network is able to reproduce a number of important observed characteristics. Still, there are more factors that must be accounted for if we want to understand how the network of international cooperation is formed.

The paper considers the notion of Science Policy from a postcolonial perspective. It examines the theoretical implications of the recent trend to include emerging and developing countries in international Science Policies by way of the case study of Switzerland. This country's new international science policy instruments and measures have challenged the classical distinction between international scientific cooperation and development cooperation, with consequences on standards and evaluation criteria. The analysis reveals that the underlying assumptions of the concept of Science Policy perpetuate traditional asymmetries in the global political economy of science. The paper suggests that the present legacy of Science Policy institutions and practices needs to be transformed to reflect an increasingly diverse spectrum of scientific purposes and traditions. It offers a revised set of foundational assumptions on Science Policy and, more broadly, proposes a fresh point of entry for the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) to contribute to the Science Policy discourse. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

Strategies are being sought that will promote international cooperation and reduce the risks of discord in the Arctic Ocean.

Science diplomacy supposedly builds international cooperation through scientific and technical exchange. In practice, however, there are important but often overlooked instances where it might create conflict instead - as with accusations of espionage surrounding the US Naval Medical Research Unit 2 (NAMRU-2) in Indonesia. Did American science diplomacy backfire in Indonesia and, if so, why? Most literature fails to anticipate this possibility, let alone explain it, since science diplomacy is rarely subject to critical analysis. Rather than shun politics or, similarly, simply blame the demise of NAMRU-2 on the military or avian influenza, I consider both the successes and failures of this research unit in the context of Indonesia's transition to democracy and America's legacy from the Cold War. Based on this history, I propose that the effects of science diplomacy depend on strategic communication and exchange, as well as elite influence and material incentives. Therefore, by challenging the conventional wisdom about science diplomacy, NAMRU-2 can help advance the theory and practice of this potentially useful tool of statecraft.

Experience from climate policy suggests that full cooperation among all countries is not a likely outcome. In this paper we therefore consider the case where only members of a subgroup of countries cooperate by reciprocally matching their public good contributions. In a two-stage game, matching rates are set at stage 1 then national contributions are chosen at stage 2. In the case of small coalitions, negative matching may result in the subgame-perfect equilibrium that decreases global public good provision and outsiders' welfare. Moreover, a growing number of countries may paradoxically entail a reduction of equilibrium public good supply.