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This chapter describes the final element of the convergence of European public law around the legitimating structures and normative principles of the postwar constitutional settlement: national parliamentary scrutiny of European policy making. The chapter begins by describing the pivotal change in European public law—the vast expansion of supranational regulatory power with the Single European Act (SEA) of 1986—as well as the failure of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to police that expansion through the subsidiarity principle in the 1990s. This policing function thus fell to the Member States themselves, and it is in that regard that national parliamentary scrutiny took on greater importance. European scrutiny mechanisms had existed in certain countries (notably Denmark and the United Kingdom) as early as the 1970s. Nevertheless, it was not until after the vast expansion of supranational regulatory power in 1986, continuing through the effort to reform the democratic foundations of integration into the 2000s, that national parliamentary scrutiny became a significant element of integration law and politics. In the 2000s, moreover, attention to the national parliamentary role translated into significant changes in supranational law. The so-called ‘subsidiarity early-warning mechanism’ of the now-defunct Constitutional Treaty, carried over to the Treaty of Lisbon, built directly on the national developments of the prior two decades. The chapter concludes that national parliamentary scrutiny reflects both the importance of mediated legitimacy in European governance as well as its ‘polycentric’ constitutional character.

Presents a critical overview of the literature on early warning systems and leading indicators of crisis. Examines the signalling method, the discrete choice approach, and structural models. Concludes with a critical evaluation of the econometric methodology used in this literature and an assessment of the empirical literature on contagion.

The Transatlantic Partnership began the valuable development of an ‘Early Warning System’ in 1999. The results so far have been mixed, but this seems the inevitable consequence of a tool that needs to be developed according to the particular needs and possibilities on both sides. Early Warning will not be able to prevent all conflicts since there are reasons in some cases to have resort to the dispute-settlement mechanism provided by the WTO. The steel safeguards dispute that broke out between the EU and US in March 2002 provide a typical example of a ‘secondary conflict’. Its development so far, however, also provides an example that a cooling-off period of negotiations before the entry into force of disputed legal acts is always helpful to minimize damage to international trade relations. Where possible, the Early Warning System may provide for such a period in many cases of primary conflicts.

Chapter 4 addresses governance and the financial crisis. Successful firms had strong CEOs who invited constructive dialogue, from the board of directors, their management team, and their risk officers. Good communications were essential for success. The chapter quotes a gentleman at a successful company who said proudly, “the CEO often asks my opinion on major issues,” and then added, “but he asks 200 other people their opinions too.” Unsuccessful firms often had dominant CEOs, weak boards, and risk managers that they disregarded. Unsuccessful firms were unequipped to deal with early warning signs that the mortgage market was weakening. Their leaders did not seem to have access to feedback so that they would ask and reflect on simple questions that could have raised warning flags. Problems were compounded by compensation systems that emphasized short-term rather than long-term financial performance.

In this chapter, we discuss early warning signs, which are signs and symptoms that often occur before an episode of psychosis. These signs and symptoms, though mild, may occur before the first episode of psychosis and also before later episodes. That is, some mild signs and symptoms may occur during the prodromal phase of the illness, before psychotic symptoms first develop. These same signs and symptoms often serve as warning signs before another episode of illness, or a relapse of psychosis, occurs. So, it is important to be familiar with early warning signs and what to do if they begin to develop. Many people who have had a first episode of psychosis will go on to have one or more relapses of their illness. A relapse happens when symptoms appear again. Some relapses may happen with little or no warning over a short period of time, such as a few days. However, most relapses develop slowly over longer periods, like a few weeks. A relapse may or may not require hospitalization, but it definitely calls for immediate attention, evaluation, and treatment. After a stay in the hospital or after outpatient stabilization, some people feel better quickly. Others take weeks, or even months, to function as well as they had before the relapse. One way of avoiding a relapse is to stay in treatment and attend all follow-up appointments (see Chapter 8 on Follow-up and Sticking with Treatment). Also, it is very important to become aware of one’s specific early warning signs, which are changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that happen a few days or weeks before an episode (reappearance of symptoms). By carefully watching for these signs, patients, their families, and their mental health professionals can work together to help lessen the severity of any episode that may occur. Relapse prevention is the goal of preventing a relapse altogether, by sticking to treatment and watching for early warning signs. The first step in determining one’s specific early warning signs is to think back to the changes that occurred in the prodromal period of the illness, or the time just before the first episode of psychosis. While there are common early warning signs, they will show up slightly differently in each person. Early warning signs in one person may be clear and easy to detect, while in another person they may be trickier to figure out. Early warning signs are signals that symptoms are beginning again and that another episode of psychosis may happen.

The validity and feasibility of the concept of collective security has for a long time been subjected to a debate and challenges on various grounds. The principal objections related to the alleged incompatibility of collective security with selfish national interests of states, and to the lack of its feasibility in an international society that has no central government. After examining and evaluating these objections, Chapter 1 locates collective security as a superstructure to the existing international legal and political system, not as an alternative thereto. After this, the relationship of the concept of collective security with related notions such as conflict prevention, crisis management, early warning, and conflict resolution is examined. Last but not least, this chapter focuses on the relationship between legal and political factors as to how the notion of ‘international peace and security’ under the UN Charter should be understood.

This chapter examines the Arctic Cold War and its inclusion in Allan Ginsberg's Kaddish and Nicholas Nabokov's Lolita. The first half of the chapter is devoted to Ginsberg, who first wrote the Kaddish in honour of his mother. It looks at how Ginsberg was able to identify semblances between the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line site and the Soviet capital. The second half of the chapter is focused on Nabokov, who sexualized nuclear technology and considered Lolita as Humbert Humbert's uranium (or precious metal) and his source of radiation. It notes that victim and uranium come together in Humbert's controlled fantasies, and features the use of nuclear culture's psychoanalytic structures and dirtiest secrets.

This chapter submits the defensibility of the British Isles to a detailed analysis, showing how throughout the period under review, early warning radar cover was inadequate to secure US bases against surprise attack. US commanders continuously urged greater investment in these defences, which had been accepted as a British responsibility. So too was fighter interceptor provision, but the RAF aircraft were outmoded and would be ineffective against the likely Soviet assault. American aircraft were provided to augment British defences but this provided little incentive to the British to invest. In the early post-war years, a greater emphasis was placed on trade with the Soviet Union than defence, leading to the provision of the latest jet engine technology to power Soviet fighter and light bomber aircraft, to the despair of US authorities. In the later period, the assumption of indefensibility led to a major policy shift from active defence to nuclear deterrence, a shift strongly disapproved by the US.

Ecological systems are prone to dramatic shifts between alternative stable states. In reality, these shifts are often caused by slow forces external to the system that eventually push it over a tipping point. Theory predicts that when ecological systems are brought close to a tipping point, the dynamical feedback intrinsic to the system interact with intrinsic noise and extrinsic perturbations in characteristic ways. The resulting phenomena thus serve as “early warning signals” for shifts such as population collapse. In this chapter, we review the basic (qualitative) theory of such systems. We then illustrate the main ideas with a series of models that both represent fundamental ecological ideas (e.g. density-dependence) and are amenable to mathematical analysis. These analyses provide theoretical predictions about the nature of measurable fluctuations in the vicinity of a tipping point. We conclude with a review of empirical evidence from laboratory microcosms, field manipulations, and observational studies.

The chapter offers a compelling case study on the operationalization of CERD’s early warning and urgent action procedure in the case of the Subanon community located at the foot of Mt Canatuan in the Phillippines, and provides a close-up of the relevance of the treaty on the ground.

This chapter examines Israel’s perception of Egypt from the beginning of the 1960s through to the eve of the June 1967 war, with a particular focus on the assessments made by Israeli intelligence and defence officials of Egyptian strategy under the charismatic leadership of its president, Gamal Abd al-Nasser. The chapter begins with a focus on the deep impact that the so-called ‘Rotem Affair’ of February–March 1960 had upon Israel’s conception of early warning. ‘Rotem’ was the Israeli codename for a surprise move by Nasser in which most of the Egyptian army suddenly deployed along Israel’s southern border in Sinai, ready to invade the Negev if Israel would attack Syria, at that time a part of the United Arab Republic (UAR), the union between Egypt and Syria.

This chapter lays the foundation for investigating system regimes and potential regime shifts (fundamental changes of ecosystem structure and feedbacks, with long-lasting effects on native biodiversity and ecosystem services) caused by biological invasions. System regime and bifurcation in dynamical systems, then early warning signals for detecting and predicting catastrophic regime shifts, especially the metrics associated with critical slowing down, are discussed. The concepts of bistability in both ecological and evolutionary systems and the regime shift related to jumping across basins of attraction are introduced. The chapter takes a fresh look at the concept of invasibility and considers the factors that can generate positive feedbacks, potentially leading to regime shifts through ecosystem engineering in invaded ecosystems.

This chapter explores military-related challenges and opportunities in space. To date, most military space activities consist of support functions—that is, technologies that allow military forces on the ground, at sea, and in the air to operate more effectively. These include weather forecasting, communications, precision timing and navigation, reconnaissance, and early warning. Space assets make military systems work better and thereby enhance the tools that can be used in other environments, including improving weapons accuracy to reduce casualties and collateral damage. Currently, a number of nations are trying to develop space weapons capabilities, ranging from electronic jammers that interrupt signals to kinetic weapons that destroy enemy spacecraft. China's anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2007 is a clear example of this. The main goals of such developments are to deny an enemy's “eyes and ears” in space, which could be extremely useful in conflict.

Rangelands in Africa (i.e., grasslands, savannas, and woodlands, which contain both grasses and woody plants) cover approximately 2.1 × 109 ha. Africa’s livestock population of about 184 million cattle, 3.72 million small ruminants (sheep and goats), and 17 million camels extract about 80% of their nutrition from these vast rangelands (IPCC, 1996). Rangelands have a long history of human use and are noted for great variability in climate and frequent drought events. The combination of climatic variability, low ecological resilience, and human land use make rangeland ecosystems more susceptible to rapid degeneration of ecosystems. From a land-use perspective, there are differences between West Africa and East Africa in rangelands use. In arid and semiarid areas of West Africa (rainfall 5–600 mm), millet (or another crop) is planted over a unimodal (one peak in rainfall per year) rainy season (three to four months); then fields remain fallow during the dry season, ranging from eight to nine months. Livestock eat crop residues. Land use is dominated by cultivation, with livestock playing a subsidiary role in the village economy. In East Africa, by contrast, areas with higher rainfall (up to 600 mm) are inhabited by pastoralists rather than farmers. In dry parts, cultivation occurs mainly where irrigation is possible or where water can otherwise be sequestered and stored for cropping. Rainfall is bimodal (two peaks in rainfall per year) in most rangelands, resulting in two growing seasons. As much as 85% of the population live and depend on rangelands in a number of countries in Africa. With emerging problems associated with the increasing population, the changes in key production areas, and the prevalence of episodic droughts and insecurity due to climatic change and ecological degradation and expansion of grazing territories, the traditional coping strategies of farmers, ranchers, and pastoralists have become inappropriate. More uncertainties require new innovations in characterizing, monitoring, analyzing, and communicating the emergence of drought to allow pastoral communities to cope with a rapidly changing environment. To this end, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the Texas A&M University System an assessment grant to develop a Livestock Early Warning System (LEWS) as part of the Global Livestock Collaborative Research Support Program.

This chapter reviews what we know about famines. It outlines changes in famine theory over time, why famines occur, and how they are defined and measured. It also outlines how approaches to preventing, mitigating and responding to famines have changed over time. Critically, it reviews the recurrent “early warning/late response” conundrum, in which the state and the international community have ample warning of an impending famine or serious food security crisis, but fail to take action to prevent or mitigate the problem until it becomes a full-blown humanitarian emergency.

There is a growing gap between the complexity of major socioecological systems and the assumptions embedded in mainstream models of the dynamics of biophysical and socioeconomic systems. Whereas the models typically assume that changes will be linear and gradual, real-world systems often feature changes that are nonlinear and abrupt. A particularly striking feature of socioecological systems is that they are reflexive. As the case of self-fulfilling prophecies makes clear, however, reflexivity can turn out to be a problem in efforts to govern complex systems. Achieving sustainability in such settings calls for efforts to harness reflexivity, enhance adaptability, and cope with increased uncertainty. Dealing with reflexivity requires the creation of negative feedback mechanisms that kick in when systems move toward a tipping point or point of no return. Enhancing adaptation involves the development of effective monitoring and early warning procedures that can provide a basis for instituting adaptive changes. Coping with uncertainty encompasses creative uses of scientific assessments, simulations, and scenarios. None of these methods allows policymakers to benefit from accurate predictions regarding the benefits and costs of available options. But they do provide decision support tools that allow policymakers to think systematically about the relative merits of the options available to them.

This chapter gives an overview of existing methods to measure systemic risk. The objective of this chapter is to provide guidance on how one should measure systemic risk in practice, including in environments with data limitations such as emerging markets and the non-regulated financial system. The chapter discusses methods to develop real time early warning signals to measure excessive credit and other aggregate financial imbalances. It also provides measures based on balance sheet data and on market data, both to analyze contagion risks and macro imbalances, including network analysis. Finally, the chapter summarizes how different measures of financial imbalances that are commonly used in policy and academic circles have performed in many financial crises over the twentieth century.