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c3f5ee5a2fd4c71c13f746cdc2cba8b0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/instant-messaging | Instant messaging | Instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM), form of text-based communication in which two persons participate in a single conversation over their computers or mobile devices within an Internet-based chatroom. IM differs from “Chat,” in which the user participates in a more public real-time conversation within a chatroom where everyone on the channel sees everything being said by all other users.
In its simplest form, instant messaging (IM) seeks to accomplish two goals: monitoring presence for the purpose of sending presence-based alerts to users in the chatroom and messaging. The software relies on a central server or servers to monitor presence. When a user logs on to an IM system, the login is recognized, and other online users who have that address listed as a “buddy,” or friend, are notified of the user’s presence. The software establishes a direct connection between users so they can talk to each other synchronously, in real time. IM has a long history, but it has only been in the late 1990s that IM applications have come to the forefront, due to ongoing battles between commercial ventures engaged in its development.
One of the precursors to a formal IM was the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), which originated in 1961 at MIT’s Computation Center. CTSS was housed in a large mainframe. Users connected to the mainframe through remote dial-up terminals to send messages back and forth to one another and share files. CTSS soon grew beyond MIT, allowing several hundred users from a number of colleges to converse with one another by 1965, thereby adopting modern IM-like qualities.
IM was invented in 1971 as a chat function on a government computer network. American computer scientist Murray Turoff created IM as part of the Emergency Management Information Systems and Reference Index (EMISARI) for the Office of Emergency Preparedness. Its original purpose was to help exchange information which would aid the U.S. government during emergencies. One of EMISARI’s first uses was to facilitate communication among government officials to assist the anti-inflation wage and price control efforts of the Nixon Administration. EMISARI users accessed the system through teletypewriter terminals linked to a central computer. EMISARI continued to be used by the U.S. government for management of emergency situations until 1986. The EMISARI chat function was called the Party Line and was originally developed to replace telephone conferences. Party Line users all had to log on to the same computer over phone lines and read the text of the chats on Teletype units.
During the 1970s, the first public chat software emerged. “Talk,” designed to work within the UNIX operating system, also required that users be logged on to the same computer to use the program. This was truly the forerunner of IM systems, since users could send a message to anyone else on the system and a note would pop up on the user’s terminal. This software was often used in combination with “Finger,” a program that allowed users to determine whether one user or another was present online at the time.
The first large-scale rollout of IM came from America Online (AOL). IM had been a part of the AOL browser as early as 1988, in the form of lists of acquaintances that let AOL customers know when their friends, relatives, or other acquaintances who also used AOL were online. Such lists were called “buddy lists” after the rollout of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) in 1997. AIM flourished, and, as the popularity of the Internet grew, so did the demand for software systems that allowed real-time conversation. The late 1980s also saw the introduction of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) software for group conversations, and by the mid-1990s other IM software, such as ICQ (or “I Seek You”) for non-AOL Internet users, also became available. An Israeli company, Mirabilis, launched ICQ in 1996 as a free messaging program. AOL later bought out ICQ but kept the ICQ interface intact, even though it competed with AOL’s own IM system. By the early 2000s, several IM systems were in use on the Internet, with multiple versions for different computer platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux). Such systems included Apple’s iChat, which made its debut in 2002 during the rollout of OS X Jaguar, the third version of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system, Skype, an IM and video conferencing service that was introduced in 2003, and Google Talk (which is also known as Gchat or Google Chat), which was first linked to the company’s Gmail service in 2005. IMs became linked to social media platforms with the release of MySpaceIM by MySpace in 2006, Facebook’s Facebook Chat in 2008, and Facebook Messenger in 2011.
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2684668da941b81b1b4f9463fe38e0be | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Institute-for-Social-Research | Institute for Social Research | Institute for Social Research
…of researchers associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, who applied Marxism to a radical interdisciplinary social theory. The Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung) was founded by Carl Grünberg in 1923 as an adjunct of the University of Frankfurt; it was the first…
…who, as director of the Institute for Social Research (1930–41; 1950–58), developed an original interdisciplinary movement, known as critical theory, that combined Marxist-oriented political philosophy with social and cultural analysis informed by empirical research.
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c7747a69c5da18e397d89efc7518ab7a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Institute-of-International-Law | Institute of International Law | Institute of International Law
Institute of International Law, international organization founded in Ghent, Belgium, in 1873 to develop and implement international law as a codified science responsible for the legal morality and integrity of the civilized world. In 1904 the Institute of International Law was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
The institute’s founder, the Baron Rolin-Jacquemyns, felt that such a body was necessary for the establishment and acceptance of the concept of international law—a concept that was only beginning to form at this time and that was not universally accepted in legal circles. Rolin-Jacquemyns was elected as the group’s first secretary-general at the initial meeting in Ghent; representatives from 9 countries were present, and 24 other countries sent notice of their agreement to join.
Among the organization’s achievements were its contributions to the development of international treaties for protection of the Suez Canal and its work on the proposals of the Hague Conference. In the late 20th century the institute focused its efforts on international human rights. The institute maintains its standards as a scientific body of law, and all members are chosen from within the international legal community.
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7bf2f314378e24ea0027431b3cebe4e7 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Institutes-of-the-Christian-Religion | Institutes of the Christian Religion | Institutes of the Christian Religion
Institutes of the Christian Religion, Latin Christianae Religionis Institutio, French Institution de la Religion Chrétienne, John Calvin’s masterpiece, a summary of biblical theology that became the normative statement of the Reformed faith. It was first published in 1536 and was revised and enlarged by Calvin in several editions before the definitive edition was published in 1559.
The first edition, written in Latin and published in Basel, where Calvin was in exile, included a dedication to the French king Francis I. Calvin intended his work to be a statement of French Protestant beliefs that would refute the king, who was persecuting French Protestants and incorrectly calling them Anabaptists (radical Reformers who wished to separate the church from the state). It consisted of six chapters that discussed the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, disputed sacraments, and Christian liberty. Most of the themes of Calvin’s mature thought were contained in the first edition.
The first French edition, prepared by Calvin and published in Basel in 1541, was the first great work in argumentative French prose. It influenced French thought and literary style.
The final edition, in Latin and published in Geneva in 1559, was more than four times longer than the first edition. It was organized into four books concerning Creator, Redeemer, Spirit, and church. The dominating themes dealt with God’s sovereignty, his grace, and his redemption of undeserving sinners. This edition was published in French (1560), in English (1561), and eventually in many other languages.
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226ed7e128332b160d05979a09dc163e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Institution-of-Civil-Engineers | Institution of Civil Engineers | Institution of Civil Engineers
…professions were founded, including the Institution of Civil Engineers (1818) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (1834), both in London, and the American Institute of Architects (1857). Official government licensing of architects and engineers, a goal of these societies, was not realized until much later, beginning with the Illinois…
…in 1818 to found the Institution of Civil Engineers. The founders were keen to learn from one another and from their elders, and in 1820 they invited Thomas Telford, by then the dean of British civil engineers, to be their first president. There were similar developments elsewhere. By the mid-19th…
…the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers (founded 1818). In 2009 his Pontcysyllte aqueduct was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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77c29c5356a2117972ec5bec42b94f8f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/institutionalism | Institutionalism | Institutionalism
Institutionalism, in the social sciences, an approach that emphasizes the role of institutions.
The study of institutions has a long pedigree. It draws insights from previous work in a wide array of disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. The reappearance of interest in institutions in the early 1980s followed a familiar pattern: it was a reaction to dominant strands of thought that neglected institutions, historical context, and process in favour of general theorizing. Accordingly, institutionalism is frequently characterized by the attention it gives to history. The institutionalism that emerged in the 1980s is called new institutionalism (NI), but it is less “new” than it is a restatement of previous scholarship. The following discussion traces the development of institutionalism from the 19th century to the emergence of NI in the last decades of the 20th century.
A full overview of the institutionalist tradition would go back to Aristotle’s discussion of regime types (politeia). More recent interest in institutions emerged during the 19th century among the German historical economists (GHE), also called the institutional economists. Providing a critical response to the universal theories of the classical economists, these scholars disparaged deductive work, which they considered to be self-referential mathematical modeling. They argued that economic life is better understood through empirical work rather than through logical philosophy.
Their key insight was the need for historically and sociologically informed empirical analysis of reality. The earliest figure from this group was the German economist Wilhelm Roscher. His work insisted on the importance of context—historical, social, and institutional—for understanding the laws of political economy, economic behaviour, and the empirical diversity of social life. Early research focused on the relationship between the social and economic organization of society, stages of development, and evolutionary processes. Bitter conflicts with their Marxist contemporaries (followers of the theories of Karl Marx) notwithstanding, some scholars have come to see a close analytical affinity between the two traditions.
It is customary to divide the GHE into three generations: Early, Younger, and Last. The latter is noteworthy because it encapsulates some of the work of the German sociologist Max Weber, who was influenced by early GHE. Weber is perhaps the most influential modern institutionalist. Contemporary institutional works that posit institutions as an independent and non-epiphenomenal variable are indebted to Weber’s theorizing a political realm that is autonomous from economics and ideas. In his discussion of the state and bureaucracy, he proposes a macrosociological theory of institutions.
Institutionalist insights are also present in Weber’s theory of authority. For Weber, charismatic authority is inherently transient. As charisma exhausts itself and becomes routinized, traditional or rational-legal forms of authority take its place. With routinization, social relations and interactions become increasingly regular, predictable, and impersonal. Under modern capitalism, these take on a rational-legal form and become more extensive and elaborate. Some usages of the term institutionalization are thus a subset of Weber’s process of routinization.
Institutionalism appeared in American scholarship during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the works of the American institutional economists (AIE). The American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen was a pivotal figure who criticized the neoclassical approach for its focus on individuals. He argued that individuals are shaped by their institutional and sociocultural context. He emphasized habit, instinct, and emulation as alternatives to utility-calculation models of behaviour. Veblen theorized institutional persistence and developed several mechanisms of change, including conflict between institutions, exogenous shocks, and the interplay between routines and the variable and volatile action of agents.
Although Veblen embraced an organicist approach to social science, favouring the biological metaphor of evolution over the physical metaphor of mechanics deployed by economists, he was explicitly antifunctionalist. He raised the possibility of social breakdown and described history as an unfolding process that is cumulative but also crisis-ridden, rather than as a self-balancing smoothly changing system.
A later figure among the AIE was the American economist John R. Commons, who in the 1920s and ’30s rejected the framework of the classical economists in which providence endows individuals with freedom to enter into relations of economic exchange and economics is separate from politics. Commons argued that economics was a series of transactions that were made possible by institutional supports. He identified three types of transactions: rationing, managerial, and negotiated (associated with communism, fascism, and capitalism respectively). Institutions have to guarantee liberty and property before negotiated transactions can occur. He defined institutions as the working rules of collective action that are laid down and enforced by various organizations including the state. Institutions produce order by creating expectations toward which individuals can orient their economic behaviour. This interpretation of institutions is at the heart of rational choice institutionalism (RCI) and the new institutional economics (NIE).
An anthropological version of economic institutionalism emerged later in the work of Karl Polanyi. Influenced by the GHE, he argued that economic relations are historically contingent and cannot be understood outside of their social context. For Polanyi, economics is always embedded in society. Rather than economic relations producing social integration, Polanyi argued, the social background, and institutions in particular, integrated the economy. According to this logic, markets are not the product of spontaneous acts of exchange. Instead, personal-level acts of exchange produce prices only under a system of price-making markets—a system that cannot arise solely from random acts of exchange. Historically, the market system is a relatively recent innovation and only one of several, contingent institutional solutions to the problem of economic integration. Additional forms of integration are reciprocity (e.g., lend-lease) and redistribution (e.g., the Soviet Union).
Polanyi defined institutions broadly as uniting, stabilizing, and giving structure to the economic process. Although economic institutions such as price and money are important, Polanyi also stressed the importance of noneconomic institutions such as religion and government. Haggling over price and individual choice are understood as a product of institutions; this foreshadows later sociological institutionalists (SI) who see human behaviour as following a “logic of appropriateness” and institutions as creating identities. Like his predecessors, Polanyi rejected the idea that contemporary economic science can universally capture economic relations.
Institutionalism also appeared in political science during the mid-20th century, when American political science was dominated by the study of democratic progress in the United States. Analysis of other countries was rare. Nevertheless, theorists such as Carl J. Friedrich focused on institutions in their cross-national work on constitutionalism. For Friedrich, constitutionalism was characterized by both a concern for individual autonomy and institutional arrangements—divided government and federalism—to prevent the concentration of power, especially in the state. Institutions are the rules of politics and the instruments of their enforcement. However, Friedrich was careful to note that institutions must reflect social and political reality, and without belief in their legitimacy they are greatly weakened. Friedrich sharply contrasted modern constitutionalism from nonconstitutional systems such as totalitarianism, and his work on the latter influenced an entire generation of Sovietologists. Finally, he was also interested in questions of institutional crafting, although he was agnostic about the existence of a “universal common denominator” for institutional design. Friedrich’s insights can be seen in both HI and RCI.
Institutionalism appeared in sociology with the emergence of organizational science (OS), which was a response to the rapid growth in the size of firms starting in the 1860s. The earliest and most influential figure was Chester Irving Barnard, who in the 1930s argued that an organization is a complex system of cooperation and highlighted the need to understand the behaviour of the individuals that compose it. He identified a disconnect between an organization’s conscious system of coordination (formal aspects) and its unconscious processes (informal aspects). The latter include customs, habits, attitudes, and understandings. The role of the executive is to create open communication and inducements for individual members.
Barnard stressed the importance of nonmaterial inducements, which facilitated individuals’ carrying out orders without consciously questioning authority. From this perspective, a manager directs the values of the organization so that individuals work toward a common purpose. He also argued that organizational forms vary across organizations because the configuration of individuals is unique to each organization, as is the appropriate organizational solution.
After World War II, institutionalism lost some of its prominence in the social sciences, displaced by theories focusing on social structures or individual behaviour. In the 1980s, however, research on social structures led to a revival of interest in institutions and the emergence of new institutionalism (NI). Theorists of comparative politics suggested that the state was autonomous and called for bringing the state back in as an explanatory variable. The study of institutions was significantly advanced with research in political economy on the state-led development of the Asian NIEs, as well as institutional reforms in the developed countries. Researchers also became increasingly interested in cross-national comparison of institutions, with a view to understanding the process of democratization. Finally, the global expansion of capitalism and European Union (EU) integration led to significant research demonstrating the role of institutions as intermediaries between structures and outcomes.
Some social scientists explicitly referenced earlier institutional works in their call for bringing institutions back in. This new body of work that came to be labelled NI sought to investigate among other things the interaction of society and institutions, the sources of institutional coherence, how historical processes lead to delayed outcomes, and nonutilitarian models of behaviour.
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6ed55983e9a2a28384f684f70b1fe037 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/instrumental-case | Instrumental case | Instrumental case
accusative, ablative, instrumental, and locative. However, many of these forms overlapped so that usually only three or four different forms existed; e.g., žam ‘time’ was both nominative and accusative, žamê was ablative, and žamu was genitive, dative, instrumental, and locative. A special form of locative was very…
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82cbbb8c11627b4955513ef0533e0140 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/instrumentalist-approach | Instrumentalist approach | Instrumentalist approach
…second approach, referred to as instrumentalist, was developed, which understands ethnicity as a device used by individuals and groups to unify, organize, and mobilize populations to achieve larger goals. Those goals are mostly of a political nature and include, among others, demands for self-governance, autonomy, access to resources and power,…
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ef7604a0b74b470f3c67d8bcf83fc6a6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Insubres | Insubres | Insubres
Insubres, the most powerful Celtic people of Gallia Cisalpina (Cisalpine Gaul), in northern Italy. Despite their defeat at Clastidium (modern Casteggio) by Roman forces in 222 bc, they continued to be troublesome and aided the Carthaginian general Hannibal in the Second Punic War (218–201 bc). The Insubres were finally subdued in 196 bc and gradually lost their identity in the rise of municipal communities. They were granted Latin rights in 89 bc and full Roman citizenship 40 years later.
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51b09d8b57309f5084aa57545ea1393e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Contract-law | Contract law | Contract law
In general, an insurance contract must meet four conditions in order to be legally valid: it must be for a legal purpose; the parties must have a legal capacity to contract; there must be evidence of a meeting of minds between the insurer and the insured; and there must be a payment or consideration.
To meet the requirement of legal purpose, the insurance contract must be supported by an insurable interest (see further discussion below); it may not be issued in such a way as to encourage illegal ventures (as with marine insurance placed on a ship used to carry contraband).
The requirement of capacity to contract usually means that the individual obtaining insurance must be of a minimum age and must be legally competent; the contract will not hold if the insured is found to be insane or intoxicated or if the insured is a corporation operating outside the scope of its authority as defined in its charter, bylaws, or articles of incorporation.
The requirement of meeting of minds is met when a valid offer is made by one party and accepted by another. The offer is generally made on a written application for insurance. In the field of property and liability insurance, the agent generally has the right to accept the insured’s offer for coverage and bind the contract immediately. In the field of life insurance, the agent generally does not have this power, and the contract is not valid until the home office of the insurer has examined the application and has returned it to the insured through the agent.
The payment or consideration is generally made up of two parts—the premiums and the promise to adhere to all conditions stated in the contract. These may include, for example, a warranty that the insured will take certain loss-prevention measures in the care and preservation of the covered property.
In applying for insurance, the applicant makes certain representations or warranties. If the applicant makes a false representation, the insurer has the option of voiding the contract. Concealment of vital information may be considered misrepresentation. In general, the misrepresentation or concealment must concern a material fact—defined as a fact that would, if it were known, cause the insurer to change the terms of the contract or be unwilling to issue it in the first place. If the agent of the insurer asks the applicant a question the answer to which is a matter of opinion and if the answer turns out to be wrong, the insurer must demonstrate bad faith or fraudulent intent in order to void the contract. If, for example, in answer to an agent’s question, the applicant reports no history of serious illness, in the mistaken belief that a past illness was minor, the court may find the statement to be an honest opinion and not a misrepresented fact.
A basic principle of property liability insurance contracts is the principle of subrogation, under which the insurer may be entitled to recovery from liable third parties. In fire insurance, for example, if a neighbour carelessly sets fire to the insured’s house and the insurance company indemnifies the insured for the loss, the company may then bring a legal action in the name of the insured to recover the loss from the negligent neighbour. The principle of subrogation is complemented by another basic principle of insurance contract law, the principle of indemnity. Under the principle of indemnity a person may recover no more than the actual cash loss; one may not, for example, recover in full from two separate policies if the total amount exceeds the true value of the property insured.
Closely associated with the above legal principles is that of insurable interest. This requires that the insured be exposed to a personal loss if the peril insured against should occur. Otherwise it would be possible for a person to take out a fire insurance policy on the property of others and collect if the property burned. Any financial interest in property, or reasonable expectation of having a financial interest, is sufficient to establish insurable interest. A secured creditor such as a mortgagee has an insurable interest in the property on which money has been lent.
In the field of personal insurance one is held to have an unlimited interest in one’s own life. A corporation may take life insurance on the life of a key executive. A wife may insure the life of her husband, and a father may insure the life of a minor child, because there is a sufficient pecuniary relationship between them to establish an insurable interest.
In life insurance the insurable interest must exist at the time of the contract. Continued insurable interest, however, need not be demonstrated. A divorced woman may continue life insurance on the life of her former husband and legitimately collect the proceeds upon his death even though she is no longer his wife.
In the field of property insurance, on the other hand, the insurable interest must be demonstrated at the time of the loss. If an individual insures a home but later sells it, no recovery can be made if the house burns after the sale, because the insured has suffered no loss at the time of the fire.
In most countries, an individual may be held legally liable to another for acts or omissions and be required to pay damages. Liability insurance may be purchased to cover these contingencies.
Legal liability exists when an individual commits a legal injury that wrongly encroaches on another person’s rights. Such injuries include slander, assault, and negligent acts. A negligent act involves failure to behave in a manner expected when the results of this failure cause a financial loss to others. An act may be classed as negligent even if it is unintentional. Negligence may be imputed from one person to another. For example, a master is liable not only for his own acts but also for the negligent acts of servants or others legally representing him. It is not uncommon for a municipality to require that businesses using city property assume what would otherwise have been the city’s negligence for the use of its property. Statutes may impute liability on individuals when no liability would exist otherwise; thus a parent may be legally liable for the acts of a minor child who is driving the family automobile.
In common-law countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, three defenses may be used in a negligence action. These are assumed risk, contributory negligence, and the fellow servant doctrine. Under the assumed risk rule, the defendant may argue that the plaintiff has assumed the risk of loss in entering into a given venture and understands the risks. Employers formerly used the assumed risk doctrine in suits by injured employees, arguing that the employee understood and assumed the risks of employment in accepting the job.
The contributory negligence defense is frequently used to defeat negligence actions. If it can be shown that one party was partly to blame, then that party may not collect from any negligence of the other party. Some courts have applied a substitute doctrine known as comparative negligence. Under this, each party is held responsible for a portion of the loss corresponding to the degree of blame attached to that party; a person who is judged to be 20 percent to blame for an accident may be required to pay 20 percent of the injured person’s losses.
The fellow servant defense has been used at times by employers; an employer would argue in some cases that the injury to an employee was caused not by the employer’s negligence but by the negligence of another employee. However, workers’ compensation statutes in some countries have nullified such common law defenses in industrial injury cases.
In many countries, the courts have tended to apply increasingly strict standards in adjudicating negligence. This has been termed the trend toward strict liability, under which the plaintiff may recover for almost any accidental injury, even if it can be shown that the defendant has used “due care” and thus is not negligent in the traditional sense. In the United States, manufacturers of polio vaccine that was found to have caused polio were required to pay large damage claims although it was demonstrated that they had taken all normal precautions and safeguards in the manufacture of the vaccine.
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14dcddba70de2e4eecc348985159cf62 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Group-annuities | Group annuities | Group annuities
An annuity in the literal sense is a series of annual payments. More broadly it may be defined as a series of equal payments over equal intervals of time. A life annuity, a subclass of annuities in general, is one in which the payments are guaranteed for the lifetime of one or more individuals. A group annuity differs from an individual annuity in that the annuity payments are based upon the assumed length of lives of members of a given group. The size of the payments depends on several factors: the assumed interest rate, the life expectancy of the individual or of the individuals making up the group, the length of the period during which payments are guaranteed, the length of time elapsing before the payments begin, and the number of lives on which the payments are continued. For example, if payments to an annuitant aged 65 are to be guaranteed for 20 years, they will be substantially smaller than if they are guaranteed only for the remainder of the person’s life.
The typical group life annuity is sponsored by an employer, who may pay all or part of the cost. Under the usual arrangement, every employee receives each year a credit with the life insurance company for an annuity purchased to begin at age 65. The final pension received is made up of the sum of the individual annuities purchased throughout the worker’s life. As a rule, an irrevocable claim to these annuity rights is gained only after the person has worked with the employer for a given number of years or has reached a given age.
The basic advantage of an annuity is that it provides an income for life that is larger than the amount that the holder would receive by putting money out at simple interest. It is the reverse of life insurance, in that the insurer pays premiums to the insured; it resembles insurance in that the payment is based on life expectancy.
The problem of inflation has led to experimentation with variable annuities in order to protect annuitants against decreases in purchasing power. The major distinguishing characteristic of a variable annuity is that the payments vary according to underlying trends in the stock market. Funds paid in for the variable annuity are invested in common stock rather than in bonds, mortgages, or other fixed-interest investments as is true of regular annuities. In simplified terms, if the stock market rises 10 percent in one year, the annuitant may expect payments to go up by approximately 10 percent in the following year. Conversely, if the stock market drops 10 percent, the annuitant will suffer a 10 percent reduction in income. To the extent that the stock market reflects changes in the cost of living, the annuitant’s income is automatically adjusted for these changes each year; and, if the stock market also reflects increases in productivity in the economy, then the annuitant may expect to receive a share in such increases in the productivity as the economy may gain.
Some variable annuity plans are tied directly to a cost-of-living index. In order to finance the increased benefits, the employer invests a portion of the funds in equities such as common stock and real estate. An assumption is made that there will be a sufficient gain from this source to enable the employer to pay the increased cost of living, but the employee is not expected to suffer reductions in annuity payments.
The problem of adjusting retirement benefits to changes in the economy has been of concern in many countries. Some governments have pegged the price of government bonds to the cost-of-living index. Retired individuals purchasing government bonds may then receive automatic increases in interest payments if the cost of living rises. Their interest will not fall below a specified amount. Social security legislation in most parts of the world is geared in various ways to changes in the cost of living. In some cases benefits are directly tied to a price index. In other cases the legislature from time to time must be asked to make adjustments in social security benefits.
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2c90baa3382247606a5b718927d0a57a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Inland-marine-insurance | Inland marine insurance | Inland marine insurance
Although there are no standard forms in inland marine insurance, most contracts follow a typical pattern. They are usually written on a named-peril basis covering such perils of transportation as collision, derailment, rising water, tornado, fire, lightning, and windstorm. The policies generally exclude losses resulting from pilferage, strike, riot, civil commotion, war, delay of shipments, loss of markets, illegal trade, or leakage and breakage.
The scope of inland marine is greatly extended by means of “floater” policies. These are used to insure certain types of movable property whether or not the property is actually in transit. Business floater policies are purchased by jewelers, launderers, dry cleaners, tailors, upholsterers, and other persons who hold the property of others while performing services. Personal property floaters are used to cover, on a comprehensive basis, any item of personal property owned by a private individual. They may also cover the property of visitors, or the property of servants while on the premises of the insured. They exclude certain types of property for which other contracts have been designed, such as automobiles, aircraft, motorcycles, animals, or business and professional equipment.
Liability insurance arises mainly from the operation of the law of negligence. Individuals who, in the eyes of the law, fail to act reasonably or to exercise due care may find themselves subject to large liability claims. Court judgments have been issued for sums so large as to require a lifetime to pay.
There are at least four major types of liability insurance contracts: (1) liability arising out of the use of automobiles, (2) liability arising out of the conduct of a business, (3) liability arising from professional negligence (applicable to doctors, lawyers, etc.), and (4) personal liability, including the liability of a private individual operating a home, carrying on sporting activities, and so on.
Practically all liability contracts falling in these four categories have some common elements. One is the insuring clause, in which the insurer agrees to pay on behalf of the insured all sums that the insured shall become legally obligated to pay as damages because of bodily injury, sickness or disease, wrongful death, or injury to another person’s property. The liability policy covers only claims that an insured becomes legally obligated to pay; voluntary payments are not covered. It is often necessary to resort to legal or court action to determine the amount of these damages, although in a vast majority of cases the damages are settled out of court by negotiation between the parties.
All liability insurance contracts contain clauses that obligate the insurer to conduct a court defense and to pay any settlement, including premiums on bonds, interest on judgments pending appeal, medical and surgical expenses that are necessary at the time of the accident, and other costs. Liability insurance has sometimes been termed defense insurance because of this provision. The insurer agrees to defend a suit even though it is false or fraudulent, so long as it is a suit stemming from a peril insured against. The insured is required to cooperate with the insurer in all court actions by appearing in court, if necessary, to give testimony.
Practically all liability insurance policies contain limitations on the maximum amount of a judgment payable under the contract. Further, the cost of defense, supplementary payments, and punitive damages may or may not be paid in addition to the judgment limits. Separate limits often apply to claims for property damage and bodily injury. An annual aggregate limit may also be purchased, which puts a maximum on the amount an insurer must pay in any one policy period.
Limits may apply on a per-occurrence or a claims-made basis. In the former, which gives the most comprehensive coverage, the policy in force in year one covers a negligent act that took place in year one, no matter when a claim is made. If the policy is made on a claims-made basis, the insurance in force when a claim is presented pays the loss. Under this policy, a claim can be made for losses that occur during the policy period but have their origins in events preceding its starting date; the period of time before this date for which claims can be made is, however, restricted. For an additional premium the discovery period can be extended beyond the end of the policy period. The claims-made basis for liability insurance is considered much more restrictive than a per-occurrence policy.
Liability insurance contracts have in common the fact that the definition of “the insured” is broad. An automobile liability policy, for example, includes not only the owner but anyone else operating the car with permission. In business liability insurance, all partners, officers, directors, or proprietors are covered by the policy regardless of their direct responsibility for any act of negligence. Other parties may be included for an extra premium.
Another element common to all liability insurance policies is certain exclusions. Policies covering business activities almost invariably exclude liability arising out of the personal activities of the insured. Each kind of liability contract tends to exclude the liability for which another contract has been devised: a personal liability coverage in the homeowner’s contract, for example, excludes automobile liability because a special contract has been created for this particular type of liability.
Another common element in liability policies is subrogation: the insurer retains the right to bring an action against a liable third party for any loss this third party has caused.
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a449385cc950fcb90ba6ed4382b31a33 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Japan | Japan | Japan
Insurance in Japan is mainly in the hands of private enterprise, although government insurance agencies write crop, livestock, forest fire, fishery, export credit, accident and health, and installment sales credit insurance as well as social security. Private insurance companies are regulated under various statutes. Major classes of property insurance written include automobile and workers’ compensation (which are compulsory), fire, and marine. Rates are controlled by voluntary rating bureaus under government supervision, and Japanese law requires rates to be “reasonable and nondiscriminatory.” Policy forms generally resemble those of Western nations. Personal insurance lines are also well developed in Japan and include ordinary life, group life, and group pensions. Health insurance, however, is incorporated into Japanese social security.
Japan’s rapid industrialization after World War II was accompanied by an impressive growth in the insurance business. Toward the end of the 20th century, Japan ranked number one in the world in life insurance in force. It accounted for about 25 percent of all insurance premiums collected in the world, ranking second behind the United States. The number of domestic insurers is relatively small; foreign insurers operate in Japan but account for less than 3 percent of total premiums collected.
Because of the great expansion in world trade and the extent to which business firms make investments outside their home countries, the market for insurance on a worldwide scale expanded rapidly in the 20th century. This development required a worldwide network of offices to provide brokerage services, underwriting assistance, claims service, and so forth. The majority of the world’s insurance businesses are concentrated in Europe and North America. These companies must service a large part of the insurance needs of the rest of the world. The legal and regulatory hurdles that must be overcome in order to do so are formidable.
In 1990 the 10 leading insurance markets in the world in terms of the percentage of total premiums collected were the United States (35.6 percent); Japan (20.5 percent); the United Kingdom (7.5 percent); Germany (6.8 percent); France (5.5 percent); the Soviet Union (2.6 percent); Canada (2.3 percent); Italy (2.2 percent); South Korea (2.0 percent); and Oceania (1.8 percent).
Major world trends in insurance include a gradual movement away from nationalism of insurance, the development of worldwide insurance programs to cover the operations of multinational corporations, increasing use of reinsurance, increasing use by corporations of self-insurance programs administered by wholly owned insurance subsidiaries (captive companies), and increasing use of mergers among both insurers and brokerage firms.
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dbb44d2bd031f0ce583129238b815bd9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Rate-making | Rate making | Rate making
Closely associated with underwriting is the rate-making function. If, for example, the underwriter decides that the most important factor in discriminating between different risk characteristics is age, the rates will be differentiated according to age.
The rate is the price per unit of exposure. In fire insurance, for example, the rate may be expressed as $1 per $100 of exposed property; if an insured has $1,000 of exposed property, the premium will thus be $10. The rate reflects three major elements: the loss cost per unit of exposure, the administrative expenses, or “loading,” and the profit. In property insurance, approximately one-third of the premium covers expenses and profit, and two-thirds covers the expected cost of loss payments. These percentages vary somewhat according to the particular type of insurance.
Rates are calculated in the following way. A policy, for instance, may be written covering a class of automobiles with an expected loss frequency of 10 percent and an average collision loss of $400. The expenses of the insurer are to average 35 percent of the premium, and there must be a profit of 5 percent. The pure loss cost per unit is 10 percent of $400, or $40. The gross premium is calculated by the formula L/[1 - (E + P)], in which L equals the loss cost per unit, E equals the expense ratio, and P equals the profit ratio. In this case the gross premium would be $40/[1 - (.35 + .05)], or $66.67.
Four basic standards are used in rate making: (1) the structure of rates should allocate the burden of expenses and costs in a way that reflects as accurately as possible the differences in risk—in other words, rates should be fair; (2) a rate should produce a premium adequate to meet total losses but should not bring unreasonably large profits; (3) the rate should be revised often enough to reflect current costs; and (4) the rate structure should tend to encourage loss prevention among those who are insured.
Some examples will illustrate the nature and application of the criteria outlined above. In life insurance, the rate is generally more than adequate to meet all reasonably anticipated losses and expenses; in other words, the insured is charged an excessive premium, part of which is then returned as a dividend according to actual losses and expenses. The requirement that the rate reflect fairly the risk involved is much more difficult to achieve. In workers’ compensation insurance, the rate is expressed as a percentage of the employer’s payroll for each occupational class. This may seem fair enough, but an employer with relatively high-paid workers has fewer employees for a given amount of payroll than one whose workers are paid a lower wage. If the two employers fall into the same occupational class and have the same total payroll, they are charged the same premium even though one may have a larger number of workers than the other and hence greater exposure to loss. Fairness may be an elusive goal.
Insurance rates are revised only slowly, and, since they are based upon past experience, they tend to remain out of date. In life insurance, for example, the mortality tables used are changed only every several years, and rate adjustments are reflected in dividends. In automobile insurance, rates are revised annually or even more often, but they still tend to be out of date.
Two basic rate-making systems are in use: the manual, or class-rating, method and the individual, or merit-rating, method. Sometimes a combination of the two methods is used.
A manual rate is one that applies uniformly to each exposure unit falling in some predetermined class or group, such as people of the same age, workers of one employer, drivers meeting certain characteristics, or all residences in a given area. Presumably the members of each class are so homogeneous as to be indistinguishable so far as risk characteristics are concerned.
Merit rating is used to give recognition to individual characteristics. In commercial buildings, for example, fire insurance rates depend on such individual characteristics as the type of occupancy, the number and type of safety features, and the quality of housecleaning. In an attempt to reflect the true quality of the risk, a percentage charge or credit may be applied to the base rate for each of these features. Another example is found in employer group health insurance plans where the premium or the rate may be adjusted annually depending on the loss experience or on the amount of claims service provided.
In order to obtain broader and statistically sounder rates, insurers often pool loss and claims experience by setting up rating bureaus to calculate rates based on industrywide experience. They may have an agreement that all member companies must use the rates thus developed. The rationale for such agreements is that they help insurers meet the criteria of adequacy and fairness. Rating bureaus are used extensively in fire, marine, workers’ compensation, automobile, and crime insurance.
Profits in property and liability insurance have tended to rise and fall in fairly regular patterns lasting between five and seven years from peak to peak; this phenomenon is termed the underwriting cycle. Stages of the underwriting cycle may be described as follows: initially, when profits are relatively high, some insurers, wishing to expand sales, start to lower prices and become more lenient in underwriting. This leads to greater underwriting losses. Rising losses and falling prices cause profits to suffer. In the second stage of the cycle, insurers attempt to restore profits by increasing rates and restricting underwriting, offering coverage only to the safest risks. These restrictions may be so severe that insurance in some lines becomes unavailable in the marketplace. Insurers are able to offset a portion of their underwriting loses through earnings on investments. Eventually the increased rates and reduced underwriting losses restore profits. At this point, the underwriting cycle repeats itself.
The general effect of the underwriting cycle on the public is to cause the price of property and liability insurance to rise and fall fairly regularly and to make it more difficult to purchase insurance in some years than in others. The competition among insurers caused by the underwriting cycle tends to create cost bargains in some years. This is especially evident when interest rates are high, because greater underwriting losses will, in part, be offset by greater investment earnings.
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01879c59eb397af25f36825be8071316 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Renewability | Renewability | Renewability
An important condition of health insurance is that of renewability. Some contracts are cancelable at any time upon short notice. Others are not cancelable during the year’s term of coverage, but the insurer may refuse to renew coverage for a subsequent year or may renew only at higher rates or under restrictive conditions. Thus the insured may become ill with a chronic disease and discover that upon renewal the policy excludes all future coverage for this disease. Only policies that are both noncancelable and guaranteed renewable assure continuous coverage, but these are much more expensive.
Private health insurance contracts are in general quite restricted in coverage, to the point that many consider them to be inadequate for modern conditions. They also lend themselves to abuses such as overutilization of coverage, multiple policies, and insuring for more than 100 percent of the expected loss. Health insurance, by its very existence, helps to escalate rising medical care costs; for example, insured medical losses tend to run higher than noninsured losses because physicians often charge according to “ability to pay,” and insurance increases this ability. Through insurance it is also easier to pass on rising hospital costs to the patient. Finally, since there is a tendency for those most likely to have losses to take out health insurance, an element of adverse selection exists. Careful underwriting to screen out those who are trying to take advantage of the insurance mechanism to pay for known bills is considered essential, but this undoubtedly denies coverage to many who need protection.
Groups have always been important in the insurance field, from the burial societies of the Romans and the insurance funds of the medieval guilds to the fraternal and religious insurance plans of modern times. In the 20th century private insurance companies wrote increasingly large amounts of group insurance, particularly in life insurance, health insurance, and annuities. In 1990 more than 95 percent of the industrial labour force in the United States was covered by group life and health insurance plans established by employers. Much of the impetus for these employee benefit plans came from the labour unions, which pressed for such “fringe benefits” in bargaining with employers.
Group insurance is widely used throughout the world, both in the form of private plans and as social insurance plans. Social security plans with group coverage exist in more than 140 nations. Private group plans are generally offered wherever private life and health insurance companies operate. Group life insurance is the most commonly offered plan; group health plans are government-operated in many nations. In many countries, group pension plans are common as a supplement to social insurance pension schemes.
Group insurance has been especially popular in Japan, where many employees serve a company for life. All Japanese life insurance companies offer group life insurance. Health insurance is provided by the government. Funded group pensions became popular after a 1962 tax law made contributions tax-deductible for Japanese employers. In addition, virtually all Japanese employers provide lump-sum retirement allowances to their workers.
Under group life insurance an employer signs a master contract with the insurance company outlining the provisions of the plan. Each employee receives a certificate that gives evidence of participation in the plan. The amount of insurance depends on the employee’s salary or job classification; usually the employer pays a portion of the premium and the employee pays the rest, but sometimes the employer pays the entire cost of the plan.
A major advantage of group life insurance to an employee is that usually coverage may be obtained regardless of health. An employee who leaves the group may, without a medical examination, convert the group coverage to an individual policy. The premiums on group life insurance are considerably less than on comparable individual policies, mainly because the selling and administrative costs are minimal.
Major types of health insurance written on a group basis include insurance against the losses occasioned by hospitalization, surgical expense, and disability. Hospitalization insurance is designed to cover daily room and board and other expenses. Surgical expense insurance usually provides specified allowances for physicians’ charges for various operations. Regular medical expense coverage is generally aimed at covering part of the costs of medicines and doctor calls. Major medical insurance offers the insured a large monetary coverage, designed to meet catastrophic costs of illness or accident with few restrictions as to the type of medical expense for which reimbursement is allowed. The insured must bear a percentage of any loss, usually 20 percent. Temporary disability income offers the insured a weekly indemnity for a period of up to six months if the insured is temporarily disabled and unable to work. Long-term disability extends the income for periods longer than six months. Accidental death and dismemberment insurance offers an insured or a beneficiary a lump sum; it is used widely as a form of travel accident insurance.
Under the typical group health insurance contract, the insured person enjoys several elements of protection not obtainable in individual contracts. Cancellation of coverage is not permitted unless coverage for the entire group is canceled. The insured enjoys protection against rate increases unless the rate for all members of the class is increased. Typically the group protection may be converted to some kind of individual policy, or the insured may transfer to another group plan. The insurer tends to be liberal on claims settlement because the typical premium under a group plan is large enough for the insurer to be unwilling to jeopardize the good will of the clientele through miserly claims treatment.
Most group insurance plans require that certain conditions be met. Sometimes there must be a minimum number of persons covered, such as 10 or 25. The group must also have some reason for existence other than to obtain insurance. The most usual types of groups are employees of a common employer, members of a labour organization, debtors of a common creditor, or members of a professional or trade association.
Mention must also be made of nonprofit prepayment plans (e.g., the Blue Cross–Blue Shield plans and health maintenance organizations [HMOs] in the United States), which resemble the above plans in most respects but are not operated by insurance companies. These plans often indemnify the hospital or the physician, on the basis of services performed, rather than the patient. Health insurance plans may also be established independently by large employers, labour unions, communities, or cooperatives. Outside the United States this kind of health insurance has been taken over by government programs. In Sweden, before the enactment of the compulsory insurance program in 1955, 70 percent of the population was covered by private plans. In Great Britain, before the National Health Service was instituted in 1948, about half the population was privately covered. In the Netherlands about half the population was so covered before the government program began, and there were still many private funds run by various groups.
In spite of the success of private group health insurance in the United States, it is estimated that in 1992 approximately 37 million people were without health insurance coverage. Many attempts over the years to establish universal national health insurance in the United States have failed.
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93dc9b51646daf6d28727d8989df7a6a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurance/Suretyship | Suretyship | Suretyship
Surety contracts are designed to protect businesses against the possible dishonesty of their employees. Surety and fidelity bonds fill the gap left by theft insurance, which always excludes losses from persons in a position of trust. A bond involves three contracting parties instead of two. The three parties are the principal, who is the person bonded; the obligee, the person who is protected; and the surety, the person or corporation agreeing to reimburse the obligee for any losses stemming from failures or dishonesty of the principal. The bond covers events within the control of the person bonded, whereas insurance in the strict sense covers loss from random events generally outside the direct control of the insured. In bonding, the surety always has the right to try to collect its losses from the person bonded, whereas in insurance the insurer may not attempt to recover losses from the insured. Of course, under property and liability policies the insurer may attempt to recover from liable third parties under the right of subrogation, but subrogation rights are often not possible to enforce in practice. Bonds are not usually cancelable by the insurer, whereas most insurance contracts, except life, are cancelable by the insurer upon due notice.
Fidelity bonds are written to cover the obligee, usually an employer, against loss from dishonest acts of employees; surety bonds cover not only dishonesty but also incapacity to perform the work agreed upon. Surety bonds are normally written on principals who are acting in an independent or semi-independent capacity, such as building contractors or public officials, whereas fidelity bonds are written on employees acting under the guidance and supervision of their employer. Finally, surety bonds are often issued with the requirement of collateral, whereas fidelity bonds are not. The surety bond is an instrument through which the superior credit of the surety is substituted for the uncertain credit of the principal; hence, if the surety is asked to bond a principal of somewhat doubtful credit, the requirement of cash collateral is frequently imposed.
Fidelity bonds differ according to whether specific persons are named as principals or whether all employees or persons are covered as a group. The latter are most frequently used by employers with a large number of employees, because they offer automatic coverage on given classes of workers, including new employees, and greater ease of administration, including simpler claims procedures. Fidelity bonds are usually written on a continuous basis—that is, they are effective until canceled and have no expiration date. The penalty of the bond (the maximum amount payable for any one loss) is unchanged from year to year and is not cumulative. The bonds specify a discovery period (usually two years) limiting the time for discovering losses after a bond is discontinued. When a new bond is put into effect, it can be written to cover losses that have occurred but are undiscovered before the effective issue date of the bond. A salvage clause also is included, stating the way in which any salvage recovered by the surety from the principal is to be divided between the surety and the obligee. This clause is significant, because the obligee may have losses in excess of the penalty of the bond. Some salvage clauses require that any salvage be paid to the obligee up to the full amount of all losses, and others provide that any salvage be divided between the surety and the obligee on a pro rata basis, in the proportion that each party has suffered loss.
There are various classes of surety bonds. Contract construction bonds are written to guarantee the performance of contractors on building projects. Bonds are particularly important in this field because of the general practice of awarding commercial building contracts to the lowest bidder, who may promise more than can actually be performed. The surety who is experienced in this field is in a position to make sounder judgment about the liability of the various bidders than anyone else and backs up its judgment with a financial guarantee.
Court bonds include several different types of surety bonds. Fiduciary bonds are required for court-appointed officials entrusted with managing the property of others; executors of estates and receivers in bankruptcy are frequently required to post fiduciary bonds.
Other types of surety bonds include official bonds, lost instrument bonds, and license and permit bonds. Public official bonds guarantee that public officials will faithfully and honestly discharge their obligations to the state or to other public agencies. Lost instrument bonds guarantee that if a lost stock certificate, money order, warehouse receipt, or other financial instrument falls into unauthorized hands and causes a loss to the issuer of a substitute instrument, this loss will be reimbursed. License and permit bonds are issued on persons such as owners of small businesses to guarantee reimbursement for violations of the licenses or permits under which they operate.
Life insurance may be defined as a plan under which large groups of individuals can equalize the burden of loss from death by distributing funds to the beneficiaries of those who die. From the individual standpoint life insurance is a means by which an estate may be created immediately for one’s heirs and dependents. It has achieved its greatest acceptance in Canada, the United States, Belgium, South Korea, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Japan, countries in which the face value of life insurance policies in force generally exceeds the national income.
In the United States in 1990 nearly $9.4 trillion of life insurance was in force. The assets of the more than 2,200 U.S. life insurance companies totaled nearly $1.4 trillion, making life insurance one of the largest savings institutions in the United States. Much the same is true of other wealthy countries, in which life insurance has become a major channel of saving and investment, with important consequences for the national economy.
Life insurance is relatively little used in poor countries, although its acceptance has been increasing.
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bf3de6e339d36dcfcf7e6759144e94f2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Int-wonderjaar | In’t wonderjaar | In’t wonderjaar
In’t wonderjaar (1837; “In the Year of Miracles”), a series of historical scenes centred on the eventful year 1566, when the Calvinists of the Spanish Netherlands revolted against the Spanish Catholic rule. With De leeuw van Vlaanderen (1838; The Lion of Flanders), the passionate epic…
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a009fe193c77564514057ae94fbb4e48 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/intellectual-property-law | Intellectual-property law | Intellectual-property law
Intellectual-property law, the legal regulations governing an individual’s or an organization’s right to control the use or dissemination of ideas or information. Various systems of legal rules exist that empower persons and organizations to exercise such control. Copyright law confers upon the creators of “original forms of expression” (e.g., books, movies, musical compositions, and works of art) exclusive rights to reproduce, adapt, and publicly perform their creations. Patent law enables the inventors of new products and processes to prevent others from making, using, or selling their inventions. Trademark law empowers the sellers of goods and services to apply distinctive words or symbols to their products and to prevent their competitors from using the same or confusingly similar insignia or phrasing. Finally, trade-secret law prohibits rival companies from making use of wrongfully obtained confidential commercially valuable information (e.g., soft-drink formulas or secret marketing strategies).
Until the middle of the 20th century, copyright, patent, trademark, and trade-secret law commonly were understood to be analogous but distinct. In most countries they were governed by different statutes and administered by disparate institutions, and few controversies involved more than one of these fields. It also was believed that each field advanced different social and economic goals. During the second half of the 20th century, however, the lines between these fields became blurred. Increasingly they were considered to be closely related, and eventually they became known collectively as “intellectual-property law.” Perceptions changed partly as a result of the fields’ seemingly inexorable growth, which frequently caused them to overlap in practice. In the 1970s, for example, copyright law was extended to provide protection to computer software. Later, during the 1980s and ’90s, courts in many countries ruled that software could also be protected through patent law. The result was that the developers of software programs could rely upon either or both fields of law to prevent consumers from copying programs and rivals from selling identical or closely similar programs.
Copyright, patent, trademark, and trade-secret law also have overlapped dramatically in the area of so-called “industrial design,” which involves the creation of objects that are intended to be both useful and aesthetically pleasing. Contemporary culture is replete with examples of such objects—e.g., eyeglass frames, lamps, doorknobs, telephones, kitchen appliances, and automobile bodies. In many countries the work of the creators of these objects is protected by at least three systems of rules: copyright protection for “useful objects” (a variant of ordinary copyright law); design-patent law (a variant of ordinary patent law); and “trade-dress” doctrine (a variant of trademark law). These rules stop short of protecting “functional” features, which are understood to include the shapes of objects when those shapes are determined by the objects’ practical uses. Nevertheless, the rules combine to create strong impediments to the imitation of nonfunctional design features.
The integration of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade-secret law into an increasingly consolidated body of intellectual-property law was reinforced by the emergence in many jurisdictions of additional types of legal protection for ideas and information. One such protection is the “right of publicity,” which was invented by courts in the United States to enable celebrities to prevent others from making commercial use of their images and identities. Similarly, the European Union has extended extensive protections to the creators of electronic databases. Computer chips, the shapes of boat hulls, and folklore also have been covered by intellectual-property protections.
In the 1990s the exclusive right to use Internet domain names—unique sequences of letters (divided, by convention, into segments separated by periods) that correspond to the numerical Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that identify each of the millions of computers connected to the Internet—became a highly contested issue. Domain-name labels enable “packets” of information transmitted over the Internet to be delivered to their intended destinations. The mnemonic character of domain names (e.g., http://www.britannica.com) also assists consumers in locating Internet-based businesses. As commercial activity on the Internet grew, evocative domain names became increasingly valuable, and struggles over them multiplied, especially as a result of the activities of so-called “cybersquatters,” who registered popular domain names with the aim of selling them to businesses at huge profits. The task of allocating domain names throughout the world and of resolving disputes over them has been largely assumed by a private organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). With the assistance of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ICANN promulgated a Uniform-Domain-Name-Dispute-Resolution Policy to resolve domain-name controversies and has licensed several arbitration services to interpret and enforce it. In 1999 the United States established a similar national system, known as the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which is administered by the federal courts. Under the law, individuals can be fined up to $100,000 for registering a domain name in “bad faith.” Defenders of the law contended that it was crucial to protect the commercial value of trademarks and to shield businesses from extortion. Critics argued that the legislation was too broad and could be used by companies to suppress consumer complaints, parody, and other forms of free speech.
The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (commonly known as TRIPS) has contributed greatly to the expansion of intellectual-property law. Negotiated as part of the Uruguay Round (1986–94) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the TRIPS Agreement obligates members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to establish and enforce minimum levels of copyright, patent, and trademark protection within their jurisdictions. Countries that fail to do so are subject to various WTO-administered trade sanctions.
The leaders of some developing countries contend that the TRIPS Agreement reflects and perpetuates a form of Western imperialism. Noting that most owners of intellectual property (e.g., the copyrights on popular movies and music, the patents on pharmaceutical products, and the trademarks of multinational food and clothing companies) reside in developed countries, these officials argue that strengthening intellectual-property rights unfairly raises the prices paid by consumers in the developing world. Accordingly, developing countries generally have been slow to implement TRIPS. Some economists, however, maintain that the long-term effect of the agreement will be to benefit developing countries by stimulating local innovation and encouraging foreign investment. Despite the existence of TRIPS, global rates of piracy of software, music, movies, and electronic games remain high, in part because many countries in Africa and Latin America have not met the deadlines imposed by the agreement for revamping their intellectual-property laws. Other countries, particularly in Asia, have formally complied with the agreement by passing new laws but have not effectively enforced them.
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6d7e9102b13a6534b2347389b8794ef8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/intendente | Intendente | Intendente
Intendente, royal official appointed by the 18th-century kings of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. Modeled after the French intendants, the intendentes were to serve as instruments of royal centralization and administrative reform but were frequently resisted as conflicting with local privileges. In the Spanish colonies the system was imposed in Cuba (1765) after the brief British occupation of Havana. After the creation of the new viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, the system was applied throughout that area, which was initially divided into eight intendencies (intendencias) from Buenos Aires to Potosí (1782). The intendente system was subsequently applied in other Spanish colonies, such as Peru, Chile, and New Spain.
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83bfbfbdae62fab376a82066f8fd03ac | https://www.britannica.com/topic/intention-criminal-law | Intention | Intention
One of the most-important general principles of criminal law is that an individual normally cannot be convicted of a crime without having intended to commit the act in question. With few exceptions, the individual does not need to know that the act itself is…
…by adults who possess criminal intent. The reasoning is simple when viewed through the lens of retributive theory. If individuals do not or cannot form mens rea (i.e., they cannot freely choose how they act), they do not deserve to be punished for their actions. As in the time of…
…is ordinarily whether the defendant intended to deceive the victims or merely failed in an honest business venture. One of the most common types of fraud involves telemarketing schemes that misrepresent the value, the terms of sale, or the use of the goods or services being sold.
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f1df1a225c416d0570dd1ce24264a0e6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/intentionality-philosophy | Intentionality | Intentionality
Intentionality, in phenomenology, the characteristic of consciousness whereby it is conscious of something—i.e., its directedness toward an object.
The concept of intentionality enables the phenomenologist to deal with the immanent-transcendent problem—i.e., the relation between what is within consciousness and what extends beyond it—in a manner different from that employed by many philosophers who have claimed that an experienced, represented, and remembered object (e.g., a tree) is inside consciousness (immanent), whereas the real object itself is outside the mind (transcendent). These philosophers have made this distinction the ground of a doubt about the existence of things and of skepticism about the possibility of knowledge of things.
Phenomenologists have noted that this distinction is a question of meaning and thus pertains to the reflective, or ontological, level; it is a distinction made, however, on the level of the everyday world, that of the natural attitude. Thus, in order to reach the level of meaning, phenomenologists—contrary to these other philosophers—“bracket” existence (i.e., exclude from consideration the question of existence or nonexistence as things) by the phenomenological reduction and deal exclusively with the indubitable—with consciousness and the immediately given evidence of consciousness. On this level, the immanent is what is given adequately (e.g., one sees the front side of the tree) and the transcendent is what is aimed at, or intended (the tree). Thus, the problem of how to move from the immanent to the transcendent is solved by an analysis of how an object comes to have meaning for consciousness and of how consciousness relates to the object. This procedure is called intentional analysis, or the analysis of the constitution of meaning.
Every particular profile of an object refers to, though it does not present, the object as a whole (i.e., as it could be perceived in all of its profiles). Thus, the object as a whole (the intended, or meant, object) is what unifies all of the profiles as given in the many acts of perception. Each perception anticipates the other perceptions, and perception is thus a process of fulfillment. The whole of the factors not effectively or immediately given—i.e., the object in its other profiles—is called the internal horizon, and the background against which the object appears is called the external horizon. Thus, the constitution of the object is the unity of the acts of consciousness, the unity of all of the profiles with the internal horizon, and the external horizon.
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d0d5b2db60878da2d415b8e70f5dcd9c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inter-American-Treaty-of-Reciprocal-Assistance | Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance | Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance
…formal mutual-defense pact called the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. By 1948, with the start of the Cold War, it had become apparent that a stronger security system was needed in the Western Hemisphere to meet the perceived threat of international communism. At the urging of the United States, the…
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e2aa59c87f6cc3950411c9ef6d47a487 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interest-and-Prices | Interest and Prices | Interest and Prices
In Geldzins und Güterpreise (1898; Interest and Prices, 1936) he propounded an explanation of price-level movements by an aggregate demand–supply analysis focussed on the relations between prospective profit and interest rates. This made Wicksell a forerunner of modern monetary theory and anticipated the work of John Maynard Keynes in A…
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f7366c03334d0e49852b45e21608018f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/interest-rate | Interest rate | Interest rate
…countries, Akerlof’s analysis explained that interest rates were often excessive because moneylenders lacked adequate information on the borrower’s creditworthiness.
” One of the oldest forms of bank regulation consists of laws restricting the rates of interest bankers are allowed to charge on loans or to pay on deposits. Ancient and medieval Christians held it to be immoral for a lender to earn…
Hayek’s theory posits the natural interest rate as an intertemporal price; that is, a price that coordinates the decisions of savers and investors through time. The cycle occurs when the market rate of interest (that is, the one prevailing in the market) diverges from this natural rate of interest. This…
It is sometimes assumed that, by setting their own discount rates, central banks are able to influence, if not completely control, general market lending rates. In truth, most central banks supply relatively little base money in the form of direct loans or…
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b389f83bc2f5d7ec4c8f40915901327e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interim-Agreement-on-the-West-Bank-and-Gaza-Strip | Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip | Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip
…territory as part of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, signed in September 1995, and the Wye River Memorandum of October 1998. The transfers, executed in stages, actually occurred more slowly than originally agreed, with a number of stages delayed or postponed. In 2002 Israel also…
…after the conclusion of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (known as Oslo II). A seventh city, Hebron, was to be handed over in 1996. This agreement also split the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into three types of territory: areas under Palestinian administration…
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fb04bd34c3d005eaba79a2165a1133ea | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interiors | Interiors | Interiors
Allen’s next film, Interiors (1978), was a carefully crafted homage to the weighty psychodramas of Ingmar Bergman. Abjuring humour, this tale of a dysfunctional family (starring Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, E.G. Marshall, Mary Beth Hurt, and Keaton) received a mixed reaction from critics, some of whom saw it…
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1550ed9916a07fea5553cd266cec09cd | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Baseball-Federation | International Baseball Federation | International Baseball Federation
…worldwide are represented by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF), which was formed by American Leslie Mann in 1938. The organization, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, has hosted a Baseball World Cup since 1938.
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2171e57dcbba0991bd59d6e79cfc7833 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Campaign-to-Ban-Landmines | International Campaign to Ban Landmines | International Campaign to Ban Landmines
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), international coalition of organizations in some 100 countries that was established in 1992 to ban the use, production, trade, and stockpiling of antipersonnel land mines. In 1997 the coalition was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, which it shared with its founding coordinator, American Jody Williams.
In October 1992 Williams coordinated the launch of the ICBL with the organizations Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Medico International, Mines Advisory Group, and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. The coalition addressed the failures of the 1980 Convention on Inhumane Weapons by seeking a total ban of land mines and increased funding for mine clearance and victim assistance. Their efforts led to the negotiation of the Mine Ban Treaty (the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction), which was signed by 122 countries in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in December 1997.
Antipersonnel land mines were deployed widely in many wars of the late 20th century because of their ease of placement and the element of terror and surprise. Following the implementation of the treaty and the establishment of aggressive eradication programs, the number of people (mostly civilians) maimed or killed by antipersonnel land mines was soon reduced from about 18,000 to roughly 5,000 per year.
By 2017, the 20th anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty, 162 countries had signed the accord. Trade of land mines had virtually ceased, more than 50 million stockpiled mines had been destroyed, and the number of mine-producing states had dropped from 54 to 11 (not all of them were active producers of mines). States also were working to remove mines from large tracts of potentially productive land, to educate mine-affected communities about the dangers of antipersonnel mines, and to provide support to and protect the rights of land-mine victims.
Nevertheless, several mine-contaminated countries missed their 10-year deadlines for mine removal. Moreover, states parties to the treaty were generally reluctant to set up appropriate mechanisms—as called for in the treaty—to ensure the compliance of other states parties. Some three dozen countries remained outside the treaty, including major land-mine stockpilers, producers, or users such as Myanmar (Burma), China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States.
Support for land-mine victims remains a critical concern. Since 1997 only a tiny fraction of monies spent on mine-eradication programs has been directed toward victim assistance, which could include surgery, the provision of prosthetic limbs, physical and psychological rehabilitation, and socioeconomic reintegration. In general, the international community has been much more willing to contribute funds to mine clearance rather than survivor assistance, perhaps because the destruction of a land mine can be considered an immediate and lasting “success”; the needs of survivors, on the other hand, are complex and lifelong. Programs for survivors remained inadequate in the vast majority of countries that recorded new mine casualties.
The ICBL continues to study and publicize the dangers of land mines, notably through its land-mine and cluster munition monitor reports, which it produces through a network of researchers worldwide. Its fact sheets and annual reports are crucial tools for monitoring compliance with the Mine Ban Treaty.
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9a20895dd8ac964642ecad7b72d5ce13 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Commission-on-Stratigraphy | International Commission on Stratigraphy | International Commission on Stratigraphy
In 2005 the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) decided to recommend keeping the Tertiary and Quaternary periods as units in the geologic time scale but only as sub-eras within the Cenozoic Era. By 2009 the larger intervals (periods and epochs) of the Cenozoic had been formalized by the…
…which is maintained by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).
…Geological Sciences (IUGS) and the International Commission on Stratigraphy divided the epoch into three stages. The start of the Greenlandian stage (11,700 to 8,300 years ago), known from Greenland ice cores, coincides with the lower boundary of the Holocene. The onset of the Northgrippian stage (8,300 to 4,200 years ago),…
As ratified by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) in 1985, the type section for boundary between the Pleistocene and the earlier Pliocene occurs in a sequence of 1.8-million-year-old marine strata at Vrica in Calabria. However, no decision was made to equate the beginning of the Pleistocene Epoch to…
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9d18d45746e451b94de4366074415255 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Congresses-of-Modern-Architecture | International Congresses of Modern Architecture | International Congresses of Modern Architecture
…modernist planning promulgated through the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), based on the ideas of art and architectural historian Siegfried Giedion, Swiss architect Le Corbusier, and the International school rooted in Germany’s Bauhaus. High-rise structures separated by green spaces prevailed in the developments built during this period. Their form reflected…
…Switzerland, in 1928, of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), intended at first to defend the avant-garde architectural values defeated in Geneva. By 1930 the organization had become oriented toward city planning theory. Le Corbusier, as secretary of the French section, played an influential role in the five prewar…
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804a1286b7e790cfa2e020d56d80a73c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Council-of-Women | International Council of Women | International Council of Women
International Council of Women (ICW), organization, founded in 1888, that works with agencies around the world to promote health, peace, equality, and education.
Founded by Susan B. Anthony, May Wright Sewell, and Frances Willard, among others, the ICW held its first convention March 25–April 1, 1888, in Washington, D.C. Nine countries—England, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, India, Canada, and the United States—sent 49 delegates. Though the council’s primary goal was the advancement of women, it did not demand woman suffrage so as not to alienate the more conservative members. A constitution was drafted with international assemblies to be held every five years and national meetings occurring every three. The early international conferences were extensively covered by the press, especially the 1899 meeting in which Anthony met Queen Victoria.
In the 1920s the ICW and its standing committees worked with the League of Nations, and following World War II it became a consultant to the United Nations. With more than 70 member countries, the ICW has been headquartered in Paris since 1963. Officers are elected by delegates from national boards at triennial international congresses. The council is affiliated with numerous agencies, including, from 1981, the World Health Organization.
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843066a2f4a41c7790f029e8fade837e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Criminal-Tribunal-for-the-Former-Yugoslavia | International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia | International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
…particularly over cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which indicted several Croatian generals who, according to many Croats, had heroic wartime reputations.
…Yugoslavia and in Rwanda (the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY] and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [ICTR], respectively), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which began sittings in 2002. In 1992, in reference to the hostilities in Yugoslavia, the UN General Assembly declared ethnic cleansing to…
…Council established separate tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), both of which contributed to the clarification of the material elements of the offense of genocide as well as of the criteria establishing individual criminal responsibility for its commission.…
After the Bosnian conflict, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) concluded that the killings at Srebrenica, along with the mass expulsion of Bosniak civilians, constituted genocide. The ICTY charged Mladić with genocide and crimes against humanity, stating that he “was a member of a joint criminal enterprise…
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Plavšić in January 2001, charging that her actions in 1992, as a member of collective presidencies of both Bosnia and the breakaway Serbian Republic of Bosnia, constituted crimes against humanity and that Plavšić actively supported the ethnic…
…in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda both included rape, making these tribunals among the first international bodies to prosecute sexual violence as a war crime. In a landmark case in 1998, the Rwandan tribunal ruled that “rape and sexual violence constitute genocide.” The International Criminal Court, established…
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia—established before the massacre to scrutinize ongoing military conduct—concluded that the killings at Srebrenica, compounded by the mass expulsion of Bosniak civilians, amounted to genocide. It pinned principal responsibility on senior officers in the Bosnian Serb army. But the…
…Nations Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, commonly known as the ICTY. In November 1994 the UN responded to charges of genocide in Rwanda by creating…
…with the United Nations’ (UN) International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, which had been established after the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s. Together with Zoran Djindjić, the prime minister of Serbia, Živković played a major role in handing indicted war criminals, such as Milošević,…
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36a5a2c9ab0ac26ae1588acea26d33c5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Energy-Agency | International Energy Agency | International Energy Agency
In 2010 the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) annual World Energy Outlook speculated that the global peak of conventional crude-oil production may have taken place in 2006, when 70 million barrels were produced per day. By contrast, the influential Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) estimated in 2005 that current…
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d2c6282d64831766de007846ef4fa887 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-exchange | International exchange | International exchange
exchange, international exchange also called foreign exchange, respectively, any payment made by one country to another and the market in which national currencies are bought and sold by those who require them for such payments. Countries may make payments in settlement of a trade debt,…
…operation involving the purchase of foreign exchange, gold, financial securities, or commodities in one market and their almost simultaneous sale in another market, in order to profit from price differentials existing between the markets. Opportunities for arbitrage may keep recurring because of the working of market forces. Arbitrage generally tends…
…thus far discussed: shortage of foreign exchange (see international payment and exchange). Under the international monetary system established after World War II and in effect until the 1970s, most governments tried to maintain fixed exchange rates between their own currencies and those of other countries. Even if not absolutely fixed,…
Black-market activity in foreign exchange is prevalent in countries in which convertible foreign exchange is scarce and strict control of foreign exchange exists. The black market often sets a price for foreign exchange that is several times the official one. Examples of goods traded in the black market…
Central banks buy and sell foreign exchange to stabilize the international value of their own currency. The central banks of major industrial nations engage in so-called “currency swaps,” in which they lend one another their own currencies in order to facilitate their activities in stabilizing their exchange rates. Prior to…
In the 1950s most developing countries were primary commodity exporters, relying on crops and minerals for the bulk of their foreign-exchange earnings through exports, and importing a large number of manufactured goods. The experience of colonialism, and the distrust of the international economy…
…savings; of manpower; and of foreign exchange. The notion of balance is a valuable one in planning, since no plan can be successful if it outruns the available resources. The method has its difficulties, however, because of the numerous interactions among different sectors of the economy, with the consequence that…
…intermediaries, usually banks or specialized foreign exchange brokers and dealers. Trading in currencies is extensive both for immediate use (“spot”) and for future (“forward”) delivery. Quotations vary according to changes in supply and demand, over the range between the upper and lower buying and selling prices set by official parity.…
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b13533ccae7097e22fb7bdf3713b2e1e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Federation-of-Sports-Medicine | International Federation of Sports Medicine | International Federation of Sports Medicine
International Federation of Sports Medicine (FIMS), (French: Fédération Internationale de Médecine du Sport) confederation primarily comprising national sports medicine associations from across the globe. The organization also includes continental associations, regional associations, and various individual members. It is the oldest and largest such confederation in the world.
The organization was founded on February 14, 1928, during the Olympic Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as the Association Internationale Médico-Sportive (AIMS). The first International AIMS Congress took place later that year, during the Olympic Summer Games in Amsterdam. The name of the organization changed periodically through the years; the name Fédération Internationale de Médecine Sport (FIMS) was decided in 1998 at the 26th World Congress in Orlando, Florida.
FIMS has several objectives. The group’s goals include advancing the worldwide study and development of sports medicine, researching the various effects of physical training and sports participation, spreading education and awareness of sports medicine by organizing or supporting scientific meetings, classes, and congresses related to the topic, and encouraging physical training and sports participation. In addition, FIMS publishes scientific information on sports medicine, including the International SportMed Journal. FIMS also cooperates with national and international organizations in sports medicine and related fields. To that end, FIMS works closely with two affiliated organizations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and SportAccord (an international sports federation union). FIMS is also affiliated with the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
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5817d079d801f9ffd3a4c0fbbe3e5e30 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Gamma-Ray-Astrophysics-Laboratory | International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory | International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral), European Space Agency–Russian–U.S. satellite observatory designed to study gamma rays emitted from astronomical objects. Integral was launched by Russia from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 17, 2002. It carried a gamma-ray imager and spectrometer to study the most-energetic events in the universe; an onboard X-ray monitor and an optical camera were used to provide precise locations of the sources discovered by the gamma-ray instruments. It mapped the sky in the 511-kiloelectron-volt emission line that arises from electron-positron annihilation and found that the emission is concentrated toward the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy. Integral also found a population of faint gamma-ray bursts that are concentrated toward nearby superclusters. Integral’s mission is scheduled to last until 2020.
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8bacad8241d359e7d269db58e8cda9a6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Klein-Blue | International Klein Blue | International Klein Blue
…and in 1960 he patented International Klein Blue, called IKB. In 1958, as part of a live performance, Klein choreographed female models who applied his paint to their bodies and then pressed their painted bodies on canvas or paper spread on the wall and on the floor. These “living brush”…
…in a colour he named International Klein Blue, a variant of ultramarine blue that he patented as his own. Klein claimed that his Monochromes were imbued with a spiritual essence. When in 1957 he sold some of these identical canvases at varying prices (determined by him) at an exhibition in…
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86614a0c9d31f89d20c97718151d5bac | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-law | International law | International law
International law, also called public international law or law of nations, the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors. The term was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832).
According to Bentham’s classic definition, international law is a collection of rules governing relations between states. It is a mark of how far international law has evolved that this original definition omits individuals and international organizations—two of the most dynamic and vital elements of modern international law. Furthermore, it is no longer accurate to view international law as simply a collection of rules; rather, it is a rapidly developing complex of rules and influential—though not directly binding—principles, practices, and assertions coupled with increasingly sophisticated structures and processes. In its broadest sense, international law provides normative guidelines as well as methods, mechanisms, and a common conceptual language to international actors—i.e., primarily sovereign states but also increasingly international organizations and some individuals. The range of subjects and actors directly concerned with international law has widened considerably, moving beyond the classical questions of war, peace, and diplomacy to include human rights, economic and trade issues, space law, and international organizations. Although international law is a legal order and not an ethical one, it has been influenced significantly by ethical principles and concerns, particularly in the sphere of human rights.
International law is distinct from international comity, which comprises legally nonbinding practices adopted by states for reasons of courtesy (e.g., the saluting of the flags of foreign warships at sea). In addition, the study of international law, or public international law, is distinguished from the field of conflict of laws, or private international law, which is concerned with the rules of municipal law—as international lawyers term the domestic law of states—of different countries where foreign elements are involved.
International law is an independent system of law existing outside the legal orders of particular states. It differs from domestic legal systems in a number of respects. For example, although the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, which consists of representatives of some 190 countries, has the outward appearances of a legislature, it has no power to issue binding laws. Rather, its resolutions serve only as recommendations—except in specific cases and for certain purposes within the UN system, such as determining the UN budget, admitting new members of the UN, and, with the involvement of the Security Council, electing new judges to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Also, there is no system of courts with comprehensive jurisdiction in international law. The ICJ’s jurisdiction in contentious cases is founded upon the consent of the particular states involved. There is no international police force or comprehensive system of law enforcement, and there also is no supreme executive authority. The UN Security Council may authorize the use of force to compel states to comply with its decisions, but only in specific and limited circumstances; essentially, there must be a prior act of aggression or the threat of such an act. Moreover, any such enforcement action can be vetoed by any of the council’s five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Because there is no standing UN military, the forces involved must be assembled from member states on an ad hoc basis.
International law is a distinctive part of the general structure of international relations. In contemplating responses to a particular international situation, states usually consider relevant international laws. Although considerable attention is invariably focused on violations of international law, states generally are careful to ensure that their actions conform to the rules and principles of international law, because acting otherwise would be regarded negatively by the international community. The rules of international law are rarely enforced by military means or even by the use of economic sanctions. Instead, the system is sustained by reciprocity or a sense of enlightened self-interest. States that breach international rules suffer a decline in credibility that may prejudice them in future relations with other states. Thus, a violation of a treaty by one state to its advantage may induce other states to breach other treaties and thereby cause harm to the original violator. Furthermore, it is generally realized that consistent rule violations would jeopardize the value that the system brings to the community of states, international organizations, and other actors. This value consists in the certainty, predictability, and sense of common purpose in international affairs that derives from the existence of a set of rules accepted by all international actors. International law also provides a framework and a set of procedures for international interaction, as well as a common set of concepts for understanding it.
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b0309da4e557930f79fa8db9b636b352 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-payment/Incomes-policy | Incomes policy | Incomes policy
Prices may rise even when aggregate demand is not in excess of the supply potential. This may be due to wage increases and other factors. Some hold that this can be dealt with through efforts to discourage excessive wage increases by a direct approach, which may consist of a propaganda campaign on the evil effects of wage-price inflation, together with guidelines governing rates of wage increases. This direct attempt to deal with the problem is generally known as “incomes policy.”
Exchange-rate movements work by making the products of a deficit country more price competitive or those of a surplus country less price competitive. Any program that seeks to rectify an imbalance by changing the level of prices will be effective only if demand is “price elastic.” In other words, if the offer of an article at a lower price does not cause an increase in demand for it more than in proportion to the fall in price, the proceeds from its export will fall rather than increase. Economists believe that price elasticities are sufficiently great for most goods so that price reductions will increase revenues in the long run. The outcome is not quite so certain in the short run.
A fast means of changing relative price levels is devaluation, which is likely to have a quick effect on the prices of imported goods. This will raise the cost of living and may thereby accelerate demands for higher wages. If granted, these will probably cause rises in the prices of domestically produced goods. A “wage–price spiral” may follow. If this spiral moves too quickly it may frustrate the intended effect of the devaluation, namely that of enabling the country to offer its goods at lower prices in terms of foreign currency. This means that if the beneficial effects of a devaluation are not gathered in quickly, there may be no beneficial effect at all.
The authorities of a country that has just devalued must therefore be especially active in preventing or moderating domestic price increases. They will need to use the other policy measures discussed above. Devaluation (or the downward movement of a flexible rate) is thus not a remedy that makes other forms of official policy unnecessary. Some have argued that, if exchange rates were allowed to float, nothing further would have to be done officially to bring the external balance into equilibrium, but this is a minority view.
One further point must be made regarding exchange-rate movements. It has been found in practice that governments resist upward valuation more than they do devaluation. Under the IMF system prior to 1973, devaluations in fact were larger and more frequent than upward valuations. This had an unfortunate consequence. It meant that the aggregate amount of price inflation in deficit countries resorting to devaluation as a remedy was not offset by equivalent price decreases in the surplus countries. Therefore this system had a bias toward worldwide inflation.
Since World War II the major industrial countries have attempted to reduce interferences with international trade. This policy, by extending the international division of labour, should increase world economic welfare. An exception has had to be allowed in favour of the less-developed countries. In the early stages of the development of a country, the effectiveness and feasibility of the three types of adjustment mechanism discussed above, particularly monetary and fiscal policies, may be much less than in the more advanced countries. The less-developed countries may therefore be driven to protection or the control of imports, for lack of any other weapon, if they are to stay solvent. It has already been noted that, even in the case of a more advanced country, the effectiveness and appropriateness of the above-mentioned adjustment mechanisms are not always certain. Thus, there is no certainty that some limitation on foreign trade and on the international division of labour may not be a lesser evil than the consequences that might follow from a vigorous use of the other adjustment mechanisms, such as unemployment.
Interference with capital movements is generally considered a lesser evil than interference with the free flow of trade. The theory of the optimum international movement of capital has not yet been thoroughly developed, but there may be a presumption in favour of absolutely free movement. The matter is not quite certain; for instance, it might be desirable from the point of view of the world optimum to channel the outflow of capital from a high-saving country into the less-developed countries, although the level of profit obtainable in other high-saving countries might be greater. Or it might be expedient to restrain wealthy individuals in less-developed countries, where domestic saving was in notably short supply, from sending their funds to high-saving countries.
While there may be good reasons for interfering with the free international flow of capital in certain cases, it is not obvious that the outflow of capital from, or inflow of capital into, a country should be tailored to surpluses or deficits in current external accounts. It may be that in some cases the sound remedy for a deficit (or surplus) is to adopt adjustment measures such as those discussed above, bearing upon current items, rather than taking the easier way of adjusting capital movements to the de facto balance on current account.
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9a3c6f134946034d6c84e15988dfc75d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-payment/The-IMF-system-of-parity-pegged-exchange-rates | The IMF system of parity (pegged) exchange rates | The IMF system of parity (pegged) exchange rates
When the IMF was established toward the end of World War II, it was based on a modified form of the gold standard. The system resembled the gold standard in that each country established a legal gold valuation for its currency. This valuation was registered with the International Monetary Fund. The gold valuations served to determine parities of exchange between the different currencies. As stated above, such fixed currencies are said to be pegged to one another. It was also possible, as under the old gold standard, for the actual exchange quotation to deviate somewhat on either side of the official parity. There was agreement with the International Monetary Fund about the range, on either side of parity, within which a currency was allowed to fluctuate.
But there was a difference in the technical mode of operation. The service of the arbitrageurs in remitting physical gold from country to country as needed was dispensed with. Instead the authorities were placed under an obligation to ensure that the actual exchange rates quoted within their own territories did not go outside the limits agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund. This they did by intervening in the foreign exchange market. If, for instance, the dollar was in short supply in London, the British authorities were bound to supply dollars to the market to whatever extent was needed to keep the sterling price of the dollar from rising above the agreed-upon limit. The same was true with the other currencies of the members of the International Monetary Fund. Thus, the obligation of the monetary authorities to supply the currency of any Fund member at a rate of exchange that was not above the agreed-upon limit took the place of the obligation under the old gold standard to give actual gold in exchange for currency.
It would be inconvenient for the monetary authorities of a country to be continually watching the exchange rates in its market of all the different currencies. Most authorities confined themselves to watching the rate of their own currency against the dollar and supplying from time to time whatever quantity of dollars might be required. At this point the arbitrageurs came into service again. They could be relied upon to operate in such a way that the exchange rates between the various currencies in the various foreign exchange markets could be kept mutually consistent. This use of the dollar by many monetary authorities caused it to be called a currency of “intervention.”
The official fixing of exchange rates as limits on either side of parity, outside of which exchange-rate quotations were not allowed to fluctuate, bears a family resemblance to the gold points of the old gold standard system. The question naturally arose why, in devising a somewhat different system, it was considered desirable to keep this range of fluctuation. In the old system it arose necessarily out of the cost of remitting gold. Since there was no corresponding cost in the new system, why did the authorities decide not to have a fixed parity of exchange from which no deviation would be allowed? The answer was that there was convenience in having a range within which fluctuation was allowed. Supply and demand between each pair of currencies would not be precisely equal every day. There would always be fluctuations, and if there were one rigidly fixed rate of exchange the authorities would have to supply from their reserves various currencies to meet them. In addition to being inconvenient, this would require each country to maintain much larger reserves than would otherwise be necessary.
Under a system of pegged exchange rates, short-term capital movements are likely to be equilibrating if people are confident that parities will be maintained. That is, short-term capital flows are likely to reduce the size of overall balance-of-payments deficits or surpluses. On the other hand, if people expect a parity to be changed, short-term capital flows are likely to be disequilibrating, adding to underlying balance-of-payments deficits or surpluses.
Commercial banks and other corporations involved in dealings across currency frontiers are usually able to see some (but not necessarily all) of their needs in advance. Their foreign exchange experts will watch the course of the exchanges closely and, if a currency is weak (i.e., below parity), advise their firms to take the opportunity of buying it, even if somewhat in advance of need. Conversely, if the currency is above parity but not expected to remain so indefinitely, they may recommend postponing purchases until a more favourable opportunity arises. These adjustments under the influence of common sense and self-interest have an equilibrating influence in foreign exchange markets. If a currency is temporarily weak, it is presumably because of seasonal, cyclical, or other temporary factors. If on such an occasion private enterprise takes the opportunity to buy the currency while it is cheap, that tends to bring demand up to equality with supply and relieves the authorities from the need to intervene in order to prevent their currency from falling below the lower point whenever there is a temporary deficit in the balance of payments. As previously noted, when confidence in the fixed parity exchange rate drops and market participants expect a change in parity, short-term capital movements may be disequilibrating. (See below Disequilibrating capital movements.)
Another equilibrating influence arises from the movements of short-term interest rates. When the authorities have to supply foreign currencies in exchange for the domestic currency, this causes a decline in the money supply in domestic circulation—unless the authorities deliberately take offsetting action. This decline in the money supply, which is similar to that occurring under the gold standard, tends to raise short-term interest rates in the domestic money market. This will bring an inflow of money from abroad to take advantage of the higher rates or, what amounts to the same thing, will discourage foreigners from borrowing in that country’s money market since borrowing will have become more expensive. Thus, the interest-rate differential will cause a net movement of short-term funds in the direction required to offset the temporary deficit or, in the opposite case, to reduce a temporary surplus that is embarrassing to others. It must be stressed again that this equilibrating interest-rate mechanism implies confidence that the parity will not be altered in the near future.
The helpful movement of interest rates may be reinforced by action of the monetary authorities, who by appropriate open-market operations may cause short-term interest rates to rise above the level that they would have attained under market forces and thus increase the equilibrating movement of short-term funds. The Bank of England provided the most notable example of the smooth and successful operation of this policy under the old gold standard during many decades before World War I.
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8a00930b4c79a3ae0e77efdb6510f9b1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Polar-Commission | International Polar Commission | International Polar Commission
…recognized in 1879 by the International Polar Commission meeting in Hamburg, Germany, and thus the 11 participating nations organized the First International Polar Year (1882–83). Most work was planned for the better-known Arctic, and, of the four geomagnetic and weather stations scheduled for Antarctic regions, only the German station on…
…the establishment of the first International Polar Year, 1882–83, during which stations throughout the Arctic took observations and pooled the results. The countries participating were Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Russia, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the United States, and Great Britain. The 11 stations, reading eastward from Svalbard, were Isfjord (Ice…
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b53b34b63141cdafb26d361a5ecd9a87 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-relations/Scholarship-and-policy | Scholarship and policy | Scholarship and policy
The study of international relations has always been heavily influenced by normative considerations. In the The Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr wrote that the “teleological aspect of the science of international politics has been conspicuous from the outset. It took its rise from a great and disastrous war; and the overwhelming purpose which dominated and inspired the pioneers of the new science was to obviate a recurrence of this disease of the international body politic.” Indeed, in its early stages international relations theory was, according to Carr, “markedly and frankly utopian.” As the field of international relations evolved during the tumultuous 20th century, the need to find nonviolent means of settling international disputes was a recurrent theme. This theme has been manifest in “world order thinking,” which is usually traced to the approach to international relations espoused by President Wilson and set forth in his Fourteen Points for the post-World War I era. Proponents of world order thinking place major, if not primary, emphasis on building international organizations, strengthening international law, and fostering greater trust between countries. World order thinking, which gives primacy to international interest over national interest, addresses issues such as the possibility of just war; the distinction between wars of self-defense and wars of aggression; the elements of international justice, including equality of countries; the protection of human rights, including the legal and political justifications for international intervention in response to cases of internal ethnic cleansing and genocide; as well as issues related to global environmental problems resulting from population growth, urbanization, resource depletion, and pollution.
The normative agenda of international relations emerges from the context of the times, the focus changing depending on an era’s most pressing problems. The result is the identification of new topics that both shape international relations research and analysis and lead to a quest for innovative policies. At the beginning of the 21st century, research focused on issues such as terrorism, religious and ethnic conflict, the breakup of states, the emergence of substate and nonstate entities, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and efforts to counter nuclear proliferation, and the development of international institutions.
The differences between the interests of scholars and those of practitioners of international affairs often have appeared to be more important than the similarities. Scholars, who often are committed to a world order fundamentally different from the existing one, usually have sought to avoid both the fact and the reputation of serving as apologists for official foreign policies. The principle of scientific detachment in social-science research also has contributed to the scholarly effort to evaluate international events and developments from a global perspective rather than from that of any one country’s foreign policy.
By contrast, practitioners have been more inclined to indifference than to hostility in their attitudes toward academics in international relations. They frequently have professed that they have found little in the field that is of value in their day-to-day work. There are few signs of direct influence in either direction, though there have been indirect and subtle exchanges that have been important in the conduct of foreign relations.
New international programs or new directions in foreign policy undertaken by governments in open societies often have attracted much interest in universities, prompting the establishment of new research programs and even the development of new subfields of international studies. These subfields include “national development,” which was stimulated by foreign-assistance programs to aid less-developed countries; area studies, which emerged after World War II from efforts by Western governments to acquire a deeper understanding of the Soviet Union and other countries; and national security studies, which resulted from the heavy influence on foreign policy of military factors, especially the threat of nuclear war in the Cold War period, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ethnic and religious conflict, and international terrorism.
The indirect influence of international relations studies on governmental thinking and policy making has been apparent in a number of noteworthy areas since the mid-20th century. The realist formulation of power politics, for example, has filtered into the foreign-policy thinking of the United States government to such an extent that foreign-policy decisions sometimes have been defended by arguments based on national interest and calculations of power, and opposing views have been dismissed as reflecting insufficient “hard-nosed” realism. In addition, U.S. foreign-policy decision making in times of crisis has been influenced by scholarly studies such as Graham Allison’s Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971). During the Cold War, deterrence theories developed in the civilian sector, often by academic specialists, became the essential basis for strategic nuclear planning. The theoretical and operational aspects of deterrence received renewed attention from both scholars and policy makers as new actors and new weapons of mass destruction arose at the end of the 20th century.
In the final decade of the 20th century, the U.S. government developed a national security strategy based on the assumption that the spread of free-market democracies would contribute to a more peaceful world. This strategy reflected interaction between the public-policy and academic communities, one aspect of which is (at least in Western democracies) the movement of scholars and practitioners between academia and government. The influence of academic democratic peace theory, for example, was reflected in the emphasis in U.S. foreign policy on democratization as a means of maintaining peace and world order.
Whether the relationships between scholars and practitioners of international relations will be strengthened remains to be seen. Theories of international relations were notably deficient in their ability to predict the end of the Cold War. Moreover, the dramatic and accelerating changes that have transformed the world since the end of the 20th century have enhanced the problems inherent in developing accurate appraisals of the world in its international aspect. Nonetheless, there is a consensus that more sophisticated uses of quantitative, computer-assisted studies in universities, research organizations, and governments will aid researchers in their quest to better understand and explain the current state of the world and to produce more frequent and precise reports. The academic community, however, has generally lacked adequate resources and trained personnel to satisfy the growing demand for information.
If the data on the conditions and relationships of the world’s social systems—now made more manageable and more available for immediate use through computer systems and the Internet—are fully utilized, the academic field of international relations will have much more in common with governmental analysis and planning agencies than ever before. The end result could be the development of more innovative approaches to the formulation and conduct of foreign policy as well as to the broader study of international relations.
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902ec807fbd9f9a4eee3163c96832ff6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-relations/The-postwar-ascendancy-of-realism | The postwar ascendancy of realism | The postwar ascendancy of realism
Hans J. Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations (1948) helped to meet the need for a general theoretical framework. Not only did it become one of the most extensively used textbooks in the United States and Britain—it continued to be republished over the next half century—it also was an essential exposition of the realist theory of international relations. Numerous other contributors to realist theory emerged in the decade or so after World War II, including Arnold Wolfers, George F. Kennan, Robert Strausz-Hupé, Kissinger, and the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
Although there are many variations of realism, all of them make use of the core concepts of national interest and the struggle for power. According to realism, states exist within an anarchic international system in which they are ultimately dependent on their own capabilities, or power, to further their national interests. The most important national interest is the survival of the state, including its people, political system, and territorial integrity. Other major interests for realists include preservation of the culture and the economy. Realists contend that, as long as the world is divided into nation-states in an anarchic setting, national interest will remain the essence of international politics. The struggle for power is part of human nature and takes essentially two forms: collaboration and competition. Collaboration occurs when parties find that their interests coincide (e.g., when they form alliances or coalitions designed to maximize their collective power, usually against an adversary). Rivalry, competition, and conflict result from the clash of national interests that is characteristic of the anarchic system. Accommodation between states is possible through skillful political leadership, which includes the prioritizing of national goals in order to limit conflicts with other states.
In an international system composed of sovereign states, the survival of both the states and the system depends on the intelligent pursuit of national interests and the accurate calculation of national power. Realists caution that messianic religious and ideological crusades can obscure core national interests and threaten the survival of individual states and the international system itself. Such crusades included, for Morgenthau, the pursuit of global communism or global democracy, each of which would inevitably clash with the other or with other competing ideologies. The attempt to reform countries toward the ideal of universal trust and cooperation, according to realists, runs counter to human nature, which is inclined toward competition, conflict, and war.
Realist theory emerged in the decade after World War II as a response to idealism, which generally held that policy makers should refrain from immoral or illegal actions in world affairs. As no impressive new formulation of political idealism appeared on the international scene to reply to realist theory, the debate between realism and idealism gradually faded, only to be revived in a somewhat different form in the final decades of the 20th century in the disagreement between neoliberal institutionalists and neorealist structuralists.
Many international relations scholars neither rejected nor embraced realism but instead were engrossed in other aspects of the broadening agenda of international relations studies. Beginning in the 1950s, as the United States became more fully engaged in world affairs, the U.S. government made large sums of money available for the development of area studies, especially studies of regions that were important in the intensifying Cold War with the Soviet Union. In order to understand the major forces and trends shaping countries such as the Soviet Union and China or the regions extending from Africa to Northeast Asia, the United States needed to recruit greater numbers of specialists in the histories, politics, cultures, economies, languages, and literature of such areas; the Soviet Union did likewise. Theoretical concerns generally played a marginal role in the growth of area specialization in the West. Although many scholars agreed with Morgenthau’s statement that theory and research should have a “concern with human nature as it actually is, and with the historic processes as they actually take place,” they did not uniformly believe that realism was capable of providing an adequate explanation of international behaviour.
In the 1950s an important development in the social sciences, including the study of international relations, was the arrival of new concepts and methodologies that were loosely identified in ensemble as behavioral theory. This general approach, which emphasized narrowly focused quantitative studies designed to obtain precise results, created a wide-ranging controversy between theorists who believed that the social sciences should emulate as much as possible the methodologies of the physical sciences and those who held that such an approach is fundamentally unsound. In addition, the great number of new topics investigated at the time—including cognition, conflict resolution, decision making, deterrence, development, the environment, game theory, economic and political integration, and systems analysis—provoked some anxiety that the discipline would collapse into complete conceptual and methodological chaos. Accordingly, much of the intellectual effort of the mid-1950s to mid-1960s—the so-called “behavioral decade”—went into the task of comparing, interpreting, and integrating various concepts from new areas of study, and the scholarly goal of the period was to link theories, or to connect so-called “islands of theory,” into a greater, more comprehensive theory of international relations.
This task proved to be a difficult one. Indeed, some scholars began to question the necessity—or even the possibility—of arriving at a single theory that would explain all the varied, diverse, and complex facets of international relations. Instead, these researchers suggested that a number of separate theories would be needed.
At the same time, theories that trace the forces of international relations to a single source were increasingly viewed as unsatisfactory. The struggle for power, for example, was accepted as a fact in past and current international politics, but attempts to make all other factors subordinate to or dependent upon power were thought to exclude too much of what is important and interesting in international relations. Similar assessments were made of the theory that asserts that the character of a nation—and hence the character of its participation in international relations—is determined by its child-rearing practices, as well as of the Marxist theory that international relations are solely the historical expression of class struggle.
The general attitude of the behavioral decade was that the facts of international relations are multidimensional and therefore have multiple causes. This conclusion supported, and in turn was supported by, the related view that an adequate account of these facts could not be provided in a single integrated theory and that multiple separate theories were required instead. By the 1960s, for example, studies of international conflict had come to encompass a number of different perspectives, including the realist theory of the struggle for power between states and the Marxist notion of global class conflict, as well as other explanations. At the same time, conflict theory coexisted with economic and political integration theory and game theory, each of which approached the phenomena of international conflict from a distinct perspective.
In keeping with the multiple-theory approach, by the end of the behavioral decade there was a growing consensus that the study of international relations should encompass both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Whereas quantitative methodologies were recognized as useful for measuring and comparing international phenomena and identifying common features and patterns of behaviour, qualitative analyses, by focusing on one case or a comparison of cases involving specific research questions, hypotheses, or categories, were thought to provide a deeper understanding of what is unique about political leaders, nations, and important international events such as World War II and the Cold War.
The use of quantitative analysis in international relations studies increased significantly in the decades after the 1960s. This was a direct result of advances in computer technology, both in the collection and retrieval of information and in the analysis of data. When computers were introduced in international relations studies, it was not readily apparent how best to exploit the new technology, partly because most earlier studies of international relations were set forth in narrative or literary form and partly because many of the phenomena examined were not easily quantifiable. Nevertheless, exploratory quantitative studies were undertaken in a number of directions. A growing body of studies, for example, developed correlations between phenomena such as alliances and the outbreak or deterrence of war, between levels of political integration and levels of trade, communication, and mobility of populations, between levels of economic development and internal political stability, and between levels of internal violence and participation in international conflicts.
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57012eea8e525cb844b0510d9a8c18cb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Softball-Federation | International Softball Federation | International Softball Federation
…Fédération Internationale de Softball (International Softball Federation), which was formed in 1952, acts as liaison between more than 40 softball organizations of several countries. Headquarters are in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The federation coordinates international competition and regular regional and world championship tournaments for men and women. In 1996 a…
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3f86c7b437976590b426b4b734b20e2e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Space-Station | International Space Station | International Space Station
International Space Station (ISS), space station assembled in low Earth orbit largely by the United States and Russia, with assistance and components from a multinational consortium.
The project, which began as an American effort, was long delayed by funding and technical problems. Originally called Freedom in the 1980s by U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan, who authorized the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to build it within 10 years, it was redesigned in the 1990s to reduce costs and expand international involvement, at which time it was renamed. In 1993 the United States and Russia agreed to merge their separate space station plans into a single facility integrating their respective modules and incorporating contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan.
Assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) began with the launches of the Russian control module Zarya on November 20, 1998, and the U.S.-built Unity connecting node the following month, which were linked in orbit by U.S. space shuttle astronauts. In mid-2000 the Russian-built module Zvezda, a habitat and control centre, was added, and on November 2 of that year the ISS received its first resident crew, comprising Russian cosmonauts Sergey Krikalyov and Yuri Gidzenko and American astronaut William Shepherd, who flew up in a Soyuz spacecraft. The ISS has been continuously occupied since then. A NASA microgravity laboratory called Destiny and other elements were subsequently joined to the station, with the overall plan calling for the assembly, over a period of several years, of a complex of laboratories and habitats crossed by a long truss supporting four units that held large solar-power arrays and thermal radiators. Aside from the United States and Russia, station construction involved Canada, Japan, Brazil, and 11 ESA members. Russian modules were carried into space by Russian expendable launch vehicles, after which they automatically rendezvoused with and docked to the ISS. Other elements were ferried up by space shuttle and assembled in orbit during space walks. Both shuttles and Russian Soyuz spacecraft transported people to and from the station, and a Soyuz remained docked to the ISS at all times as a “lifeboat.”
Much of the early research work by ISS astronauts was to focus on long-term life-sciences and material-sciences investigations in the weightless environment. After the breakup of the space shuttle orbiter Columbia in February 2003, the shuttle fleet was grounded, which effectively halted expansion of the station. Meanwhile, the crew was reduced from three to two, and their role was restricted mainly to caretaker status, limiting the amount of science that could be done. Crews flew up to and returned from the ISS in Soyuz spacecraft, and the station was serviced by automated Progress ferries.
After the shuttle resumed regular flights in 2006, the ISS crew size was increased to three. Construction resumed in September of that year, with the addition of a pair of solar wings and a thermal radiator. The European-built American node, Harmony, was placed on the end of Destiny in October 2007. Harmony has a docking port for the space shuttle and connecting ports for a European laboratory, Columbus, and a Japanese laboratory, Kibo. In February 2008 Columbus was mounted on Harmony’s starboard side. Columbus was Europe’s first long-duration crewed space laboratory and contained experiments in such fields as biology and fluid dynamics. In the following month an improved variant of the Ariane V rocket launched Europe’s heaviest spacecraft, the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), which carried 7,700 kg (17,000 pounds) of supplies to the ISS. Also in March 2008 shuttle astronauts brought the Canadian robot, Dextre, which was so sophisticated that it would be able to perform tasks that previously would have required astronauts to make space walks, and the first part of Kibo. In June 2008 the main part of Kibo was installed.
The ISS became fully operational in May 2009 when it began hosting a six-person crew; this required two Soyuz lifeboats to be docked with the ISS at all times. The six-person crew has typically consisted of three Russians, two Americans, and one astronaut from either Japan, Canada, or the ESA. An external platform was attached to the far end of Kibo in July 2009, and a Russian docking port and airlock, Poisk, was attached to the Zvezda module in November 2009. A third node, Tranquility, was installed in 2010, and mounted on this was a cupola, whose robotic workstation and many windows enabled astronauts to supervise external operations.
After completion of the ISS, the shuttle was retired from service in 2011. Thereafter the ISS was serviced by Russia’s Progress, Europe’s ATV, Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle, and two commercial cargo vehicles, SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus. Two new American crew capsules, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and the Boeing Company’s CST-100 Starliner, are scheduled to have their first crewed test flights in 2019. Until then, astronauts use Soyuz spacecraft to reach the ISS.
More than 200 astronauts from 18 different countries have visited the ISS. Astronauts typically stay on the ISS for about six months. About every three months, a Soyuz returns to Earth with three astronauts and a Soyuz launches with three astronauts to replace them. The return of a Soyuz to Earth marks the end of an ISS Expedition, and the command of the ISS is transferred to another astronaut.
However, a few astronauts have spent much longer times on the ISS. On a special mission called “A Year in Space,” Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko and American astronaut Scott Kelly spent 340 days in orbit from March 2015 to March 2016. Kelly’s flight was the longest by an American. (Since Kelly’s brother, Mark, was his identical twin, as well as a former astronaut himself, scientists were able to use Mark as a baseline for how the long spaceflight had changed Scott.) In 2017 Russia temporarily cut the number of its ISS crew from three to two, and American astronaut Peggy Whitson extended her mission so the station would have a full crew of six. Her spaceflight of 289 days was the longest by a woman. (Whitson had been to the ISS on two previous flights and in total spent nearly 666 days in space, a record for an American and a woman.)
The space agencies that are partners in the ISS have not definitively decided when the program will end, but in 2014 the Barack Obama administration indicated that the program would receive U.S. support until “at least 2024.” Russia has expressed interest in reusing its ISS modules in a new space station.
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a87c85da44dcc1af419e486302180631 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Standard-Serial-Number | International Standard Serial Number | International Standard Serial Number
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), in bibliography, eight-digit number that provides a concise and unambiguous identification code for serial publications. Unlike the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), this number’s only significance is its unique identification of a particular publication; it does not record such characteristics as subject, language, or publisher. The ISSN is used by librarians, authors, publishers, and subscription services for such various purposes as administration, copyright, ordering, and inventory control.
The ISSN was developed by a technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization. It stipulated that a “key title” should be agreed upon for assignment of a standard citation control element; serial numbers, including new assignments for a changed title, are provided through guidelines established by the International Serials Data System (ISDS). ISSN registrations are made available routinely by the U.S. Library of Congress, which includes the number on serial catalog cards and, when possible, in its publication New Serial Titles. The ISDS in Paris also makes comprehensive ISSN information available on microfiche.
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ce9bd9a59684afb0fd2a5d12cafde63a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Tennis-Federation | International Tennis Federation | International Tennis Federation
…to rules sanctioned by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the world governing body of the sport.
After an ITF committee had made studies of the so-called “double-strung,” or “spaghetti,” racket, introduced in 1977, which had two layers of strings that imparted topspin on the ball, it was banned by the following rule:
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49a3fd79d5a31f252b5fb4d0f3f07117 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Thermonuclear-Experimental-Reactor | International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor | International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
…a planned new experiment, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to be constructed at Cadarache, France. This is a very large experiment that will investigate both the physics of an ignited plasma and reactor technology. The large cost of the device has encouraged international collaboration in its design and funding,…
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project is a cooperation between the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea to build in southern France a prototype fusion reactor with the world’s largest tokamak. The multibillion
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454fb2a53e6c8f7c917c016a8d0b2aab | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-trade | International trade | International trade
International trade, economic transactions that are made between countries. Among the items commonly traded are consumer goods, such as television sets and clothing; capital goods, such as machinery; and raw materials and food. Other transactions involve services, such as travel services and payments for foreign patents (see service industry). International trade transactions are facilitated by international financial payments, in which the private banking system and the central banks of the trading nations play important roles.
International trade and the accompanying financial transactions are generally conducted for the purpose of providing a nation with commodities it lacks in exchange for those that it produces in abundance; such transactions, functioning with other economic policies, tend to improve a nation’s standard of living. Much of the modern history of international relations concerns efforts to promote freer trade between nations. This article provides a historical overview of the structure of international trade and of the leading institutions that were developed to promote such trade.
The barter of goods or services among different peoples is an age-old practice, probably as old as human history. International trade, however, refers specifically to an exchange between members of different nations, and accounts and explanations of such trade begin (despite fragmentary earlier discussion) only with the rise of the modern nation-state at the close of the European Middle Ages. As political thinkers and philosophers began to examine the nature and function of the nation, trade with other countries became a particular topic of their inquiry. It is, accordingly, no surprise to find one of the earliest attempts to describe the function of international trade within that highly nationalistic body of thought now known as mercantilism.
Mercantilist analysis, which reached the peak of its influence upon European thought in the 16th and 17th centuries, focused directly upon the welfare of the nation. It insisted that the acquisition of wealth, particularly wealth in the form of gold, was of paramount importance for national policy. Mercantilists took the virtues of gold almost as an article of faith; consequently, they never sought to explain adequately why the pursuit of gold deserved such a high priority in their economic plans.
Mercantilism was based on the conviction that national interests are inevitably in conflict—that one nation can increase its trade only at the expense of other nations. Thus, governments were led to impose price and wage controls, foster national industries, promote exports of finished goods and imports of raw materials, while at the same time limiting the exports of raw materials and the imports of finished goods. The state endeavoured to provide its citizens with a monopoly of the resources and trade outlets of its colonies.
The trade policy dictated by mercantilist philosophy was accordingly simple: encourage exports, discourage imports, and take the proceeds of the resulting export surplus in gold. Mercantilists’ ideas often were intellectually shallow, and indeed their trade policy may have been little more than a rationalization of the interests of a rising merchant class that wanted wider markets—hence the emphasis on expanding exports—coupled with protection against competition in the form of imported goods.
A typical illustration of the mercantilist spirit is the English Navigation Act of 1651, which reserved for the home country the right to trade with its colonies and prohibited the import of goods of non-European origin unless transported in ships flying the English flag. This law lingered until 1849. A similar policy was followed in France.
A strong reaction against mercantilist attitudes began to take shape toward the middle of the 18th century. In France, the economists known as Physiocrats demanded liberty of production and trade. In England, economist Adam Smith demonstrated in his book The Wealth of Nations (1776) the advantages of removing trade restrictions. Economists and businessmen voiced their opposition to excessively high and often prohibitive customs duties and urged the negotiation of trade agreements with foreign powers. This change in attitudes led to the signing of a number of agreements embodying the new liberal ideas about trade, among them the Anglo-French Treaty of 1786, which ended what had been an economic war between the two countries.
After Adam Smith, the basic tenets of mercantilism were no longer considered defensible. This did not, however, mean that nations abandoned all mercantilist policies. Restrictive economic policies were now justified by the claim that, up to a certain point, the government should keep foreign merchandise off the domestic market in order to shelter national production from outside competition. To this end, customs levies were introduced in increasing number, replacing outright bans on imports, which became less and less frequent.
In the middle of the 19th century, a protective customs policy effectively sheltered many national economies from outside competition. The French tariff of 1860, for example, charged extremely high rates on British products: 60 percent on pig iron; 40 to 50 percent on machinery; and 600 to 800 percent on woolen blankets. Transport costs between the two countries provided further protection.
A triumph for liberal ideas was the Anglo-French trade agreement of 1860, which provided that French protective duties were to be reduced to a maximum of 25 percent within five years, with free entry of all French products except wines into Britain. This agreement was followed by other European trade pacts.
A reaction in favour of protection spread throughout the Western world in the latter part of the 19th century. Germany adopted a systematically protectionist policy and was soon followed by most other nations. Shortly after 1860, during the Civil War, the United States raised its duties sharply; the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 was ultraprotectionist. The United Kingdom was the only country to remain faithful to the principles of free trade.
But the protectionism of the last quarter of the 19th century was mild by comparison with the mercantilist policies that had been common in the 17th century and were to be revived between the two world wars. Extensive economic liberty prevailed by 1913. Quantitative restrictions were unheard of, and customs duties were low and stable. Currencies were freely convertible into gold, which in effect was a common international money. Balance-of-payments problems were few. People who wished to settle and work in a country could go where they wished with few restrictions; they could open businesses, enter trade, or export capital freely. Equal opportunity to compete was the general rule, the sole exception being the existence of limited customs preferences between certain countries, most usually between a home country and its colonies. Trade was freer throughout the Western world in 1913 than it was in Europe in 1970.
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ac45236c8315c70f8b5eee1b1772d3da | https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-trade/The-European-Free-Trade-Association | The European Free Trade Association | The European Free Trade Association
The efforts that led to the creation of the EU were paralleled by another attempt to foster trade in the region. At the same time that the EEC was being organized in the 1950s, Great Britain sought to organize a free-trade area that would include 17 member countries of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. Had it succeeded, this would have given Britain access to the benefits of the industrial common market on the Continent while avoiding possible infringements of British sovereignty. The effort failed, however, mainly because of French opposition. Britain then undertook the formation of a free-trade area in association with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. Together they made up the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
The convention setting up EFTA was signed in Stockholm on January 4, 1960. The preamble stated that one of the main purposes of the organization was to “facilitate the future establishment of a wider multilateral association for abolition of customs barriers.” More specifically, EFTA was meant to liberalize trade with the six Common Market countries without subscribing to the commitments of political character embodied in the Treaty of Rome. In the meantime, EFTA gave its seven members a stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis the other six, as well as the means of creating a large market of their own.
The EFTA treaty, like that of the EEC, provided for a transitional period, set forth rules governing competition, and called for the abolition of all indirect protection and trade discrimination. The Association chose to be governed by the EFTA Council, composed of one member from each participating state. Over time the council set up a joint consultative committee comprising representatives of industry, business, and labour; a set of six permanent technical committees (on customs, trade, economic development, agriculture, economics, and budget); and working parties dealing with special topics.
EFTA had one special problem arising from its nature as a free-trade area. Since the duties charged on imports from outside countries were likely to differ from one member to another, traders could take advantage of the differences by channeling imports through the country levying the lowest rates and delivering them to customers in another member country. Rules were established to prevent this by classifying merchandise according to whether it was produced or fabricated in one of the member countries. In the case of goods made from imported raw materials, the rules required that the import content not exceed 50 percent of the export price of the finished product.
Although a 10-year transitional period was originally envisaged, internal customs barriers on industrial goods were eliminated on January 1, 1967, three years ahead of schedule. Bilateral trade agreements were also negotiated to increase trade in agricultural products.
EFTA passed through two grave crises in the 1960s. The first was in 1961 when Britain, acting unilaterally, informed its partners that it had applied for membership in the EEC. The upshot was a joint declaration in which EFTA members committed themselves to “coordinate their action and remain united throughout the negotiations.” The second crisis occurred in October 1964, when, to shore up the pound sterling, Britain suddenly introduced a surcharge of 15 percent on all its industrial imports—an act that was in violation of the treaty.
Finland became an associate member of EFTA in July 1961, and Iceland was admitted to full membership in March 1970. In 1973 Britain and Denmark left the association when they were accepted as members in the EEC—Britain, after two previous unsuccessful tries. At the beginning of the 21st century, the remaining EFTA member countries were Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. The group continued to advance global trade; for example, in 2003 EFTA signed separate free-trade agreements with Singapore and Chile.
Since the Russian Revolution of 1917, Soviet policy had clearly been influenced by the desire for self-sufficiency, further reinforced by Soviet suspicions of the capitalist world and by a strong desire for centrally directed planning. In response to the Marshall Plan, a Soviet-sponsored effort to integrate the economies of eastern Europe began as early as January 25, 1949. (It was disbanded on June 28, 1991.) Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union were the founding members of the resultant organization, Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance). Albania joined in 1949, and the German Democratic Republic in 1950, though Albania ceased to participate after 1961. In its early years the activities of Comecon were limited mainly to the registration of bilateral trade and credit agreements among the member countries. After Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953, it made efforts to promote industrial specialization and to reduce “parallelism” in the economies of its members. In 1956 and 1957, when most of its standing commissions began to operate, attempts were made to harmonize the long-term plans of the members. The establishment of the EEC in 1958, together with pressures from the eastern European countries for a greater degree of independence, induced the Soviet leadership to rethink the organization. A new charter was signed by the members in Sofia, Bulgaria, on December 14, 1959.
Comecon sought to coordinate the development of technology and industrialization, growth of labour productivity, and industrial specialization in member countries. Its objectives, however, were hindered by certain political and economic constraints. One of the most serious was the absence of flexible and realistic price systems in the member countries. This made it impossible to base trade on relative prices; instead it was conducted mainly on a barter basis through bilateral agreements between governments. In negotiating such agreements, the parties were led to use “world prices”—i.e., prices prevailing in the trade of countries outside Comecon. Another hindrance to economic integration was the highly centralized economic planning in the member countries, which had only limited success in coordinating their plans. There were also serious nationalistic tensions within the council. The Romanian government, for example, announced its intention to pursue all-around industrialization, including the development of its heavy industries, in opposition to the policy of specialization in raw materials and agricultural products that was said to have been Comecon’s plan for Romania.
Among the practical achievements of Comecon, however, were the organization of railroad coordination (1956); construction of a high-voltage electricity grid (1962); creation of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (1963); the pooling of 93,000 railway freight cars (1964); and construction of the “Friendship” oil pipeline from Russia’s Volga region to the eastern European countries. Comecon initially was composed of the Soviet Union’s eastern European satellites, but in 1962 the Mongolian People’s Republic became a member, followed by Cuba in 1972 and Vietnam in 1978.
Comecon was often called the eastern European counterpart of western Europe’s EEC. Although their general aims were indeed the same, the two organizations differed radically in their approach to the problems involved. While Comecon sought to achieve cooperation among nations with centrally planned economies, the EEC aimed to achieve decentralized integration by means of an economic market in which goods, services, capital, and persons could have full freedom of movement—a market regulated by uniform economic legislation.
The collapse of communist governments across eastern Europe in 1989–90 was followed by a shift to private enterprise and market-type systems of pricing, all of which undermined Comecon’s system of trade and by 1991 left the organization defunct. Under agreements made early in 1991, Comecon was replaced by the Organization for International Economic Cooperation, a group intended to assist with the move from centralized to market economies. Each nation was deemed free to seek its own trade outlets, and the obligation of membership was reduced to a weak pledge to “coordinate” policies on quotas, tariffs, international payments, and relations with other international bodies. Over time, the former Comecon countries moved away from the Soviet-era trade restrictions and developed trade relationships with other nations—particularly those of the EU.
Progress toward economic integration in Europe encouraged the Latin American republics to make similar attempts. By the late 20th century several organizations had been established to work toward such integration; they included the Central American Common Market; the Latin American Free Trade Association; the Andean Community of Nations; and the Caribbean Community and Common Market.
On June 10, 1958, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica signed a multilateral treaty aiming at free trade and economic integration. The Central American Common Market (CACM) provided for the establishment of a free-trade area within 10 years. The participating countries also agreed to the industrial integration of the region. These arrangements were completed by the signing on December 13, 1960, of the Treaty of Managua. Its aims were similar to those of the EEC, namely, the establishment of a common market within five years and the organization of integrated industrial development. Most barriers on the region’s internal trade were then removed or reduced.
Economic integration in Central America has been hampered by disagreements and military conflicts in the area. Following a dispute with El Salvador in 1970, Honduras in effect withdrew from common market membership by implementing tariffs on imports from other member countries. In 1980, however, Honduras signed a treaty with El Salvador, settling their dispute and restoring Honduran participation in the common market trade agreements in 1981. During the 1980s, tensions between the revolutionary government of Nicaragua and its neighbours, as well as other disorders, disrupted trade between the nations of Central America. In an effort to promote freer trade in the larger region, the group began working on trade agreements with the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom, see below) in 1991, and CACM negotiated an agreement with the Dominican Republic in 1998. Throughout this time, CACM also took steps to protect its interests against Mexico’s increasing economic dominance in the region, especially after Mexico, Canada, and the United States signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.
On February 18, 1960, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay signed a treaty setting up the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA), predecessor to the Latin American Integration Association. By 1970 the seven signatories had been joined by Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia. The treaty provided for a 12-year transition period during which all obstacles to trade were to be eliminated. It was based on the principle of reciprocity and most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment. Member states also committed themselves to progressive coordination of their industrialization policies. Special treatment was provided for agriculture and for the relatively least-developed member countries.
Liberalization of trade between the member countries was carried out initially through negotiation of product-by-product concessions. In 1967, however, the negotiations failed; they were postponed to 1968, when agreement was reached on a system of across-the-board automatic tariff reductions similar to those of the EEC. The eventual aim was that LAFTA be the first step in a process that would lead to a common Latin American market, but during the 1970s it became apparent that the geographic diversity and varying levels of economic development exhibited by the member countries were handicapping the formation of a true common market within the association’s existing framework.
In the late 1970s negotiations were begun to establish a new framework for economic integration, and in 1980, 20 years after the creation of LAFTA, the Latin American Integration Association (LAIA; Asociación Latino-Americana de Integración) was formed. Unlike its predecessor, LAIA adopted an alternative to the concept of a free-trade area in that it opted for the establishment of bilateral preference agreements that would take into account the varying stages of economic development of the member countries. Cuba was admitted to LAIA in 1986 with observer status and became a member in 1999. In order to best negotiate bilateral preference agreements the member nations were divided into three categories. Although some countries were shifted to different categories over time, by the beginning of the 21st century the three tiers were: most-developed countries (Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico); intermediate-developed countries (Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela); and least-developed countries (Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Paraguay). Panama became a member of LAIA in 2012.
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c416c216d7a1f74b1271bc12dec213eb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Triathlon-Union | International Triathlon Union | International Triathlon Union
In 1989 the International Triathlon Union (ITU), the sport’s official governing body, was founded in Avignon, France, with the mission to promote the sport’s global appeal. The ITU hosts an annual World Championship.
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94a09f4382bd5a296c872464625775e0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Union-of-Pure-and-Applied-Chemistry | International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry | International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
…at a meeting of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in Paris in 1957. Using the IUPAC system, the name for an alcohol uses the -ol suffix with the name of the parent alkane, together with a number to give the location of the hydroxyl group. The…
…of different atomic weights, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) began publishing atomic weights with uncertainties. The first element to receive an uncertainty in its atomic weight was sulfur in 1951. By 2007, 18 elements had associated uncertainties, and in 2009, IUPAC began publishing ranges for the…
…a regular basis by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The IUPAC rules govern all classes of organic compounds but are ultimately based on alkane names. Compounds in other families are viewed as derived from alkanes by appending functional groups to, or otherwise modifying, the carbon skeleton.
…moscovium was recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). The discoverers named it moscovium after the Moscow oblast where the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research is located. The name moscovium was approved by IUPAC in November…
…by rules recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Among the more important of these are the following:
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1879134f80bc11d147c95fafb9a2448e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/internationalized-domain-name | Internationalized domain name | Internationalized domain name
These internationalized domain names (IDNs) initially included Chinese, Arabic, and Cyrillic characters in addition to the long-serving Latin letters A to Z, Arabic numerals 0 to 9, and punctuation symbols such as hyphens. Eventually, IDNs will recognize almost 100,000 characters in many different languages. The first…
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857a80d48f17d812ccdd6cb29740cdbf | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Internet-Society | Internet Society | Internet Society
…as founding president of the Internet Society from 1992 to 1995. In 1994 Cerf returned to MCI as a senior vice president, and from 2000 to 2007 he served as chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the group that oversees the Internet’s growth and expansion.…
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23bff7b849a7da195e1b5b71f616df6f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interpol | Interpol | Interpol
Interpol, byname of International Criminal Police Organization, intergovernmental organization that facilitates cooperation between the criminal police forces of more than 180 countries. Interpol aims to promote the widest-possible mutual assistance between criminal police forces and to establish and develop institutions likely to contribute to the prevention and suppression of international crime. Headquartered in Lyon, France, it is the only police organization that spans the entire globe.
Interpol concentrates on three broad categories of international criminal activity: terrorism and crimes against people and property, including crimes against children, trafficking in human beings, illegal immigration, automobile theft, and art theft; economic, financial, and computer crimes, including banking fraud, money laundering, corruption, and counterfeiting; and illegal drugs and criminal organizations, including organized crime. Interpol’s day-to-day operation is managed by a General Secretariat under the direction of a secretary general, who is appointed for a five-year term by the General Assembly. The General Assembly, consisting of one delegate from each member country, is Interpol’s supreme decision-making body. An Executive Committee of 13 members, each representing a different region of the world, is appointed by the General Assembly at its annual meeting. The Executive Committee oversees the implementation of decisions made by the General Assembly and supervises the work of the secretary general.
Each member country has a domestic clearinghouse—called the National Central Bureau, or NCB—through which its individual police forces may communicate with the General Secretariat or with the police forces of other member countries. Interpol relies on an extensive telecommunications system and a unique database of international police intelligence. Each year, Interpol’s telecommunications staff handles millions of messages in the organization’s four official languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. An automatic search facility, introduced in 1992, allows specially equipped NCBs to search a large database of information; search results are automatically sent in the language of the query. A system known as I-24/7, introduced in 2003, provides NCBs with quick access to a wide variety of data, including fingerprints, DNA records, watch lists of criminal suspects and persons wanted for questioning, and lists of stolen identification documents.
In contrast to the image occasionally conveyed on television and in the movies, Interpol agents do not make arrests, a practice that would unacceptably infringe on the national sovereignty of member countries. Instead, the organization, at the request of NCBs, sends out “red notices,” based on warrants issued by member countries, calling for the arrest and extradition of specific individuals. Interpol also issues other “coloured” notices: yellow to help locate missing persons, blue to collect information on illegal activities or on an individual’s identity, black to request information needed to identify a body, green to warn agencies about criminals from one country who may commit additional offenses in other countries, and orange to warn law-enforcement agencies of dangers from bombs and other weapons.
Interpol traces its history to 1914, when a congress of international criminal police, attended by delegates from 14 countries, was held in Monaco. In 1923, following a significant increase in international crime that particularly affected Austria, representatives of the criminal police forces of 20 countries met in Vienna and formed the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) that year. The ICPC’s headquarters were established in Vienna, and the head of the Vienna police, Johann Schober, became the organization’s first president. The ICPC flourished until 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria; the ICPC’s records were subsequently relocated to Berlin. The outbreak of World War II effectively ended the ICPC’s activities.
After the war the ICPC accepted an offer from the French government of a headquarters in Paris together with a staff for the General Secretariat consisting of French police officials. The ICPC was thus revived, though the loss or destruction of all its prewar records required that it be completely reorganized. In 1949 the ICPC was granted consultative status by the United Nations. From 1946 to 1955 its membership grew from 19 countries to 55. In 1956 the ICPC ratified a new constitution, under which it was renamed the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). The organization moved to its present headquarters in Lyon in 1989.
Interpol was at first mainly a European organization, drawing only limited support from the United States and other non-European countries (the United States did not join the ICPC until 1938). Under the leadership of French Secretary General Jean Népote (1963–78), Interpol became increasingly effective. By the mid-1980s the number of member countries had risen to more than 125, representing all of the world’s inhabited continents; by the early 21st century membership had surpassed 180.
In the 1970s the organization’s ability to combat terrorism was impeded by Article 3 of its constitution—which forbids “intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character”—and by a 1951 resolution of the General Assembly that defined a “political” crime as that whose circumstances and underlying motives are political, even if the act itself is illegal under criminal law. One source of these obstacles was removed in 1984, when the General Assembly revised the interpretation of Article 3 to permit Interpol to undertake antiterrorist activities in certain well-defined circumstances.
Interpol was reorganized in 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States. The new post of executive director for police services was created to oversee several directorates, including those for regional and national police services, specialized crimes, and operational police support.
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f5f0c6bd69a5de66f3c177f44c410b78 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interstate-Commerce-Commission | Interstate Commerce Commission | Interstate Commerce Commission
Interstate Commerce Commission, (1887–1996), the first regulatory agency established in the United States, and a prototype for independent government regulatory bodies. See regulatory agency.
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1a326519b549d6492363622d72b1ef2b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interstellar | Interstellar | Interstellar
…pilot in the big-screen drama Interstellar. Burstyn continued to act in movies through the rest of the decade, but most of her projects, including Lucy in the Sky (2019), received mixed reviews.
…cast of Nolan’s space drama Interstellar (2014) as a NASA scientist leading a team in search of a habitable planet in the wake of catastrophic war and famine on Earth. He turned to lighter fare with an appearance as a spymaster in the comic thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014).…
…space explorer in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014).
Nolan then helmed Interstellar (2014), which he had written with Jonathan. The sci-fi drama depicted the efforts of a group of scientists to relocate humanity from an Earth vitiated by war and famine to another planet by way of a wormhole. His next film, Dunkirk (2017), which he…
…cast of Nolan’s space drama Interstellar (2014), playing a scientist attempting to locate a habitable planet after Earth is rendered unlivable by war and famine. She returned to comedy with The Intern (2015), in which she was featured as a fashion entrepreneur who hires a retiree (Robert De Niro).
…director Christopher Nolan’s atmospheric drama Interstellar (2014) and as a preacher in Tommy Lee Jones’s bleak western The Homesman (2014).
He later starred in Interstellar (2014) as the pilot of a spaceship seeking another habitable planet, in Free State of Jones (2016) as a Confederate soldier who incites a rebellion in favour of Unionist principles, and in Gold (2016) as a brackish prospector who strikes it rich in the…
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c345816ca36c381bb6c0afccea0f8b53 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/intervention | Intervention | Intervention
…Kosovo in 1999 or India’s intervention in East Pakistan [now Bangladesh] in 1971). Nonetheless, humanitarian interventions are deeply controversial, because they contradict the principle of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of other states.
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d6de634835b6ca336b6782da2288d5aa | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Interview-with-the-Vampire-film-by-Jordan | Interview with the Vampire | Interview with the Vampire
…Jordan the opportunity to direct Interview with the Vampire (1994), a big-budget adaptation of Anne Rice’s popular novel. He subsequently wrote and directed Michael Collins (1996), a biopic of the Irish independence leader (played by Liam Neeson); The Butcher Boy (1998), a dark comedy about a troubled young boy; and…
…House of the Spirits (1993); Interview with the Vampire (1994), an adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel that also featured Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt; Miami Rhapsody (1995); Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado (1995), in which Banderas played El Mariachi, a gun-toting musician; and Assassins (1995). In 1996 he costarred with
…A River Runs Through It, Interview with the Vampire, and Legends of the Fall (1994). Pitt then starred as a police detective in the gritty thriller Se7en (1995) and as a demented malcontent in the fantasy Twelve Monkeys (1995), for which he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated…
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87628b2f60e02a5cf64a11fb6a2930f8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/intestate-succession | Intestate succession | Intestate succession
Intestate succession, in the law of inheritance, succession to property that has not been disposed of by a valid last will or testament. Although laws governing intestate succession vary widely in different jurisdictions, they share the common principle that the estate should devolve upon persons standing in some kinship relation with the decedent. Modern laws of intestacy have tended not to emphasize the traditional concern that property be kept within the bloodline through which it came to the decedent. Modern practice also tends to favour the rights of the surviving spouse, whether or not he or she is regarded as kin, and (in most jurisdictions) to ease restrictions on inheritance by illegitimate children.
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c00cafc4ef494b715ca61d9aab8862f6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inti-Inca-Sun-god | Inti | Inti
Inti, also called Apu-punchau, in Inca religion, the sun god; he was believed to be the ancestor of the Incas. Inti was at the head of the state cult, and his worship was imposed throughout the Inca empire. He was usually represented in human form, his face portrayed as a gold disk from which rays and flames extended. Inti’s sister and consort was the moon, Mama-Kilya (or Mama-Quilla), who was portrayed as a silver disk with human features. Among the 20th-century Quechua people, Inti is occasionally confused with Christ or God.
Inti-raymi was one of a cycle of raymi, or “festivals.” Held in June (after the Spanish conquest, in May or June to coincide with the feast of Corpus Christi), Inti-raymi honoured the sun god and was celebrated with animal sacrifices and ritual dances.
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0a7bfec152377117f07e3114813de87b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Into-the-Abyss-A-Tale-of-Death-a-Tale-of-Life | Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life | Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life
…the Chauvet cave in France; Into the Abyss (2011), a sombre examination of a Texas murder case; and Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016), about the Internet. In Meeting Gorbachev (2018; codirected with Andre Singer), he chronicled the life of the former president of the Soviet Union.…
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558cedabbffe928fe1ff93f4a7c62d25 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Intolerable-Cruelty | Intolerable Cruelty | Intolerable Cruelty
…appeared in several comedies, including Intolerable Cruelty (2003), in which she played a cunning gold digger opposite George Clooney, and The Terminal (2004), a film directed by Spielberg and featuring Tom Hanks. In 2004 she starred with Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon in Ocean’s Twelve, a sequel to the…
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9dca0fdefaf24013a63a886a9344efda | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Introduction-to-the-Analysis-of-Infinities | Introduction to the Analysis of Infinities | Introduction to the Analysis of Infinities
…1748 in his great work Introductio in analysin infinitorum—although Roger Cotes already knew the formula in its inverse form øi = log (cos ø + i sin ø) in 1714. Substituting into this formula the value ø = π, one obtains eiπ = cos π + i sin π =…
In 1748, in his Introductio in analysin infinitorum, he developed the concept of function in mathematical analysis, through which variables are related to each other and in which he advanced the use of infinitesimals and infinite quantities. He did for modern analytic geometry and trigonometry what the Elements of…
…Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum (1748; Introduction to the Analysis of the Infinite), he made the notion of function the central organizing concept of analysis:
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53be17c40064dba107b5eae551d10571 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-film-by-Kaufman | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
…ventured into science fiction with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, an audacious and largely successful remake of Don Siegel’s 1956 classic. Kaufman expertly created an atmosphere of mounting dread, and the cast—which included Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum—was notable. However, 35 minutes longer than the original,…
It was remade several times, most notably by Philip Kaufman in 1978.
…cast in a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Star Trek, in the meantime, maintained its hold on the public imagination. Nimoy reprised the role of Spock in the big-screen Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and appeared in a string of sequels, including Star Trek II: The Wrath…
…in the chilling remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and added a noteworthy gravitas to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992). Other movie credits included the Canadian film Threshold (1981), for which he won a Genie Award, and the adventure thriller Space Cowboys (2000). He portrayed the president of…
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86617af9c124af7b9437db6770210f8b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers-film-by-Siegel | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, American science-fiction film, released in 1956, that was directed by Don Siegel and has been hailed as one of the most intelligent films of the genre.
In the small California town of Santa Mira, several patients of Dr. Miles Bennell (played by Kevin McCarthy) claim that their loved ones have been replaced by impostors. Bennell initially diagnoses those patients as suffering from a mass delusion. Soon, however, he discovers that Santa Mira is really being quietly invaded by aliens who grow in seedpods and take over people’s bodies while they sleep. The extraterrestrial intruders look and sound just like their victims except that they are devoid of any human emotion or feeling.
McCarthy won praise for his role as the everyman hero who tries to alert the disbelieving populace even as his few allies inevitably succumb to sleep and alien transformation. The film, which was made at the height of the Cold War, has been theorized as an indictment of or an allegory for many things, from Cold War paranoia and the fear of McCarthyism to the alienation felt in mass society to the tyrannical egalitarianism and loss of personal autonomy common in communist societies. However, Siegel dismissed such speculation and said there was nothing political in his intentions. The film was based on the novel by American writer Jack Finney and endures as one of the most popular science-fiction films ever made. It was remade several times, most notably by Philip Kaufman in 1978.
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c744f3d25c5f67ac3ba774705fdbf79c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/inventory-business | Inventory | Inventory
Inventory, in business, any item of property held in stock by a firm, including finished goods ready for sale, goods in the process of production, raw materials, and goods that will be consumed in the process of producing goods to be sold. Inventories appear on a company’s balance sheet as an asset. Inventory turnover, which indicates the rate at which goods are converted into cash, is a key factor in appraising a firm’s financial condition. Fluctuation in the ratio of inventory to sales is known as inventory investment or disinvestment.
The monetary value of the inventory also appears on the income statement in determining the cost of the goods sold. The cost of goods sold is determined by adding the inventory on hand at the beginning of the period to the cost of purchasing and producing goods during the period and subtracting from this total the inventory on hand at the end of the period. For financial statements inventories are usually priced at cost or at market value, whichever is lower. The purchase costs of the merchandise and materials usually fluctuate during the year, however, which makes it necessary to determine which cost-flow assumption is to be used for inventory purposes. Three methods are in general use: average cost; first-in, first-out (FIFO), which assigns the cost of the last units purchased to the inventory and the cost of the first units purchased to the goods that were sold; and last-in, first-out (LIFO), in which the reverse pattern is followed. (See accounting.)
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6d578978c61abebb958f69e5ad9e57f9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/inventory-profit | Inventory profit | Inventory profit
…is usually called the “inventory profit.” The implication is that this is a component of net income that is less “real” than other components because it results from the holding of inventories rather than from trading with customers.
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3ed92c26fccf90a6395ac9683cecf830 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Investigation-of-the-Origin-of-the-Old-Norse-or-Icelandic-Language | Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language | Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language
…eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse (1818; Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language). It was primarily an examination and comparison of the Scandinavian languages with Latin and Greek. Rask was the first to indicate that the Celtic languages, which include Breton, Welsh, and Irish, belong to the…
…years later there appeared the Undersøgelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse (Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language), by the Danish philologist Rasmus Rask, completed in 1814. This work demonstrated methodically the relation of Germanic to Latin, Greek, Slavic, and Baltic. (Rask included…
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ad06f520984fa4bd8b4f82b923010bb3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Invictus-film-by-Eastwood | Invictus | Invictus
…in the Clint Eastwood movie Invictus (2009).
Shot in Capetown, South Africa, Invictus (2009) took as its subject Pres. Nelson Mandela (Freeman) and his plan to unite his racially divided country by using the 1995 Rugby World Cup, in which South Africa’s almost all-white Springboks team, typically reviled by the majority black populace, faced heavily favoured New…
In Clint Eastwood’s Invictus (2009), Damon starred as the captain of the South African rugby team urged by Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) to win the 1995 World Cup in order to unite the racially divided country; for his performance, Damon earned an Academy Award nomination for…
…he reteamed with Eastwood on Invictus, a drama in which he played Nelson Mandela, who sought to unite divided South Africa by supporting the national rugby team’s quest to win the 1995 World Cup. Freeman later appeared as a former CIA agent in the action comedy Red (2010); as a…
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08dbdb40ff526f322beedc53afe6663d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/invisible-hand | Invisible hand | Invisible hand
Invisible hand, metaphor, introduced by the 18th-century Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith, that characterizes the mechanisms through which beneficial social and economic outcomes may arise from the accumulated self-interested actions of individuals, none of whom intends to bring about such outcomes. The notion of the invisible hand has been employed in economics and other social sciences to explain the division of labour, the emergence of a medium of exchange, the growth of wealth, the patterns (such as price levels) manifest in market competition, and the institutions and rules of society. More controversially, it has been used to argue that free markets, made up of economic agents who act in their own self-interest, deliver the best possible social and economic outcomes.
Smith invokes the phrase on two occasions to illustrate how a public benefit may arise from the interactions of individuals who did not intend to bring about such a good. In Part IV, chapter 1, of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), he explains that, as wealthy individuals pursue their own interests, employing others to labour for them, they “are led by an invisible hand” to distribute the necessities that all would have received had there been an equal division of the earth. In Book IV, chapter 2, of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), arguing against import restrictions and explaining how individuals prefer domestic over foreign investments, Smith uses the phrase to summarize how self-interested actions are so coordinated that they advance the public interest. In those two instances, a complex and beneficial structure is explained by invoking basic principles of human nature and economic interaction.
However, on other occasions Smith employs the idea of the invisible hand without using the phrase itself. In the opening paragraph of chapter 2 of Book I of The Wealth of Nations, for example, he describes how the division of labour is not the result of far-seeing wisdom but a gradual outcome of a natural “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” Later in the same treatise, he delineates how individuals are so guided by prices that the supply of goods tends to meet demand. More generally, Smith explains how the patterns of commerce, including the overall creation of wealth, arise out of individuals responding to and endeavouring to succeed in their own local circumstances.
Although Smith often refers to economic agents as self-interested, he does not mean to suggest that their motivations are selfish. Rather, the agents are motivated by beliefs and intentions that manifest their local knowledge and particular concerns (including those relating to their families) rather than some broader conception of a public good.
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12ed89e6e842d1e91683605878117312 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/invisible-trade | Invisible trade | Invisible trade
Invisible trade, in economics, the exchange of physically intangible items between countries. Invisible trade can be distinguished from visible trade, which involves the export, import, and reexport of physically tangible goods. Basic categories of invisible trade include services (receipts and payments arising from activities such as customer service or shipping); income from foreign investment in the form of interest, profits, and dividends; private or government transfers of monies from one country to another; and intellectual property and patents. (See also intellectual-property law.)
Services account for the vast majority of invisible trade. Such services include freight and passenger transport; banking, other financial services, and insurance; scientific-technical exchange; and international tourism. Income gained by foreign investment is the second largest contributor to invisible trade, and private and government transfer is the smallest.
In many developing countries, receipts for invisibles are exceeded by payments for them. This deficit is closely tied to the foreign debt and interest payments often made by developing countries to the developed countries. The growing external debt of some developing countries—and their inability to repay the loans and interest—not only threatens the economies of those developing countries but also threatens the foreign-investment sector of invisible-trade earnings for many developed countries. Conditions such as these have brought calls for creditor countries to offer debt relief to debtor countries.
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f081ba1ab0890b6c498e428b6f34f4c3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iocaste | Iocaste | Iocaste
…about the Greek legendary figure Jocasta, the whole dance-drama takes place in the instant when Jocasta learns that she has mated with Oedipus, her own son, and has borne him children. The work treats Jocasta rather than Oedipus as the tragic victim, and shows her reliving the events of her…
…of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. After her father blinded himself upon discovering that Jocasta was his mother and that, also unwittingly, he had slain his father, Antigone and her sister Ismene served as Oedipus’ guides, following him from Thebes into exile until his death near Athens. Returning to Thebes,…
…when his wife, Jocasta (Iocaste; in Homer, Epicaste), bore a son, he had the baby exposed (a form of infanticide) on Cithaeron. (Tradition has it that his name, which means “Swollen-Foot,” was a result of his feet having been pinned together, but modern scholars are skeptical of that etymology.)…
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81212eb48dc2bf3fbcbe9479d22cea0d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iola-Leroy-or-Shadows-Uplifted | Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted | Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted
Harper’s Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted (1892) attempted to counter specious notions of slavery popularized by white writers who idealized plantation life, while offering models of socially committed middle-class African Americans who exemplify the ideals of uplift that motivated much of Harper’s writing. Griggs, a Baptist…
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b34f39802a13cda30b906e509d1b336b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iolanthe-or-The-Peer-and-the-Peri | Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri | Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri
These were Iolanthe (1882), Princess Ida (1884), The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu (1885), Ruddigore (1887), The Yeomen of the Guard (1888), and The Gondoliers (1889). The collective works of Gilbert and Sullivan became known as the “Savoy Operas.”
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c217dbb3504a890cea4ea2424f2a88d2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ionian | Ionian | Ionian
Ionian, any member of an important eastern division of the ancient Greek people, who gave their name to a district on the western coast of Anatolia (now Turkey). The Ionian dialect of Greek was closely related to Attic and was spoken in Ionia and on many of the Aegean islands.
The Ionians are said to have migrated to western Anatolia from Attica and other central Greek territories following the Dorian immigration (c. 1000 bce) that upset the Achaean kingdoms on the mainland. This is confirmed by the fact that the same four “tribes” (phylai) found among the Athenians reappear in the inhabitants of Miletus and other Ionian cities. Homer in his epics gives the Ionians but a passing mention, but in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, roughly corresponding in time to the first certain written reference to the Ionians by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (reigned 704–681 bce), they are noted as the great and wealthy people who frequent the festival of Apollo at Delos.
By the time of Herodotus (c. 450 bce), Greek thinkers had worked out a detailed ethnological theory, identifying the Ionians with the aboriginal element in Greece (Pelasgoi) and the Dorians with the immigrant northern Hellenes proper. This hypothesis introduced an element of racialism into Greek interstate polemics. The Ionians of Asia, because of their exposed position, had been subjected by Persia and came to be despised as “soft” in comparison to the military, disciplined cadres of the Peloponnesian Dorians.
From about 700 bce, expansion and accompanying colonization brought the Ionians of Euboea to eastern Sicily and Cumae near Naples, and Samians to Nagidus and Celenderis in Pamphylia. Among the Ionian cities, Miletus, which was said to have founded 90 colonies, was instrumental in opening up the Black Sea, while Phocaea was active in the Mediterranean, establishing a colony at Massilia (Marseille). “Ionians” (Homeric: Iawones; Persian: Yauna; Hebrew: Yewanim; Turkish and Arabic: Yunani) became and remained the Oriental term for all Greeks.
The contribution of Ionians to Greek culture was of major importance, including the Homeric epics and the earliest elegiac and iambic poetry. In the 6th century, Ionic rational thought dominated intellectual life, fostering the study of geography and nature and research into matter and the universe. Ionians at home and overseas also laid the foundation of Greek philosophy and historiography. In the age after Alexander the Great, Attic Ionic, the literary language, became the basis of Koine, or “common speech,” the language of practically all later Greek writing, including the New Testament, down to the present day. Ionians were also substantial artists in the areas of architecture, sculpture, and cast-bronze statuary. (See also Ionia.)
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9a5f7ce45348a01a6419cb7ebe7ddf28 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ionic-alphabet | Ionic alphabet | Ionic alphabet
Ionic alphabet, most important variety of the eastern form of the ancient Greek alphabet, developed late in the 5th century bc. In 403 the Ionic alphabet used in the Anatolian city of Miletus was adopted for use in Athens, and by the middle of the 4th century the Ionic had become the common, 24-letter, classical Greek alphabet.
The table shows the Classical Greek alphabet.
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5c5dc7959ede87306a17c6099db62151 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ionic-Attic | Ionic-Attic | Ionic-Attic
…the Aegean Islands and of Ionia on the coast of Asia Minor. Archilochus of Paros, of the 7th century bc, was the earliest Greek poet to employ the forms of elegy (in which the epic verse line alternated with a shorter line) and of personal lyric poetry. His work was…
…city: to what extent was Attic prose a norm that writers and especially orators were bound to follow? Many had shunned it in favour of a more ornamental Asiatic style. But at the end of the 1st century ad there was a revival of the Attic dialect. Speeches and essays…
This linguistic circumstance in the first half of the 1st millennium bce caused literature to develop on a dialect basis. The Homeric epic displays an artificial…
The Ionian dialect of Greek was closely related to Attic and was spoken in Ionia and on many of the Aegean islands.
Attic and Ionic dialects together form a dialect group.
…poems themselves are in predominantly Ionic dialect. Although Smyrna and Chios early began competing for the honour (the poet Pindar, early in the 5th century bce, associated Homer with both), and others joined in, no authenticated local memory survived anywhere of someone who, oral poet or not, must have been…
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bc019af55115332bddeb047b8377c363 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iowa-people | Iowa | Iowa
Iowa, also called Ioway, North American Indian people of Siouan linguistic stock who migrated southwestward from north of the Great Lakes to the general area of what is now the state of Iowa, U.S., before European settlement of the so-called New World. The Iowa are related to the Oto and the Missouri.
Living at the transition point between the territories of the Northeast Indians and the Plains Indians, the Iowa had a traditional tribal economy that combined hunting with agriculture. The people were semisedentary, living in villages, raising corn (maize) and other crops, and later trading pelts for European manufactured goods. Iowa houses were domed structures, and the people used tepees when hunting or engaging in other mobile activities. Like the Osage and the Kansa, Iowa warriors wore their hair in a scalp lock decorated with deer hair. They recognized three grades of battle exploits: participating in a victorious skirmish, killing an enemy, and decapitating an enemy.
In the mid-18th century the Iowa people were estimated to number 1,100. In 1836 they ceded their lands to the United States and moved to a reservation on what is now the Kansas-Nebraska border. Some were later moved to a reservation in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
Early 21st-century population estimates indicated more than 2,000 individuals of Iowa descent.
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d0e063cd59c3e24fda139fcf967bf12b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iphigenie-en-Aulide | Iphigénie en Aulide | Iphigénie en Aulide
…stage Gluck’s newly completed opera, Iphigénie en Aulide (the text, after Racine’s tragedy, was by François-Louis Leblanc, bailli Du Roullet); and, as Gluck had undertaken to transform the genial Italian style to the more serious opera cultivated by French composers as well as to provide six more similar operas, he…
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ca97f065fbd9da9fe0f0ef3b855dd8e5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/iqta | Iqṭāʿ | Iqṭāʿ
Iqṭāʿ, in the Islāmic empire of the Caliphate, land granted to army officials for limited periods in lieu of a regular wage. It has sometimes been erroneously compared to the fief of medieval Europe. The iqṭāʿ system was established in the 9th century ad to relieve the state treasury when insufficient tax revenue and little booty from campaigns made it difficult for the government to pay army salaries.
Land subject to the iqṭāʿ was originally owned by non-Muslims and thus was subject to a special property tax, the kharāj. While the land remained legally the property of its owner, the iqṭāʿ was a grant of appropriation to a Muslim officer entitling him to collect the kharāj from the owner. Out of this the officer was expected to pay the smaller ʿushr, or tithe, on income, but was allowed to keep the balance as his salary. However, it proved difficult for the government to extract any payments from the officers, and the Būyids, an Iranian dynasty (reigned 932–1062), made the iqṭāʿ a grant of usufruct by which the muqṭaʿ (recipient officer) collected taxes from the land—calculated to approximate his usual pay. As the officer usually lived in a city remote from his iqṭāʿ, he had little interest in the land or its cultivators. The grant was merely a wage, and as soon as the land or its people were depleted, it was exchanged for a more productive area. By the time that the Seljuq regime (1038–1194) ended, the iqṭāʿ had been introduced into the provinces and the number and size of iqṭʿat had proliferated drastically, accounting for as much as half the land of the state, while the term of ownership also had grown, occasionally leading to hereditary succession. With this new permanence muqṭaʿs began to show an interest in the land and its maintenance, buying up neighbouring territory and binding the peasants to the soil by refusing to let them leave without having paid their taxes. The system survived the Mongol invasion of the 13th century but during subsequent Ottoman rule was replaced by an essentially similar arrangement that was called the timar.
The iqṭāʿ reappeared under the Il-Khans in Iran (reigned 1256–1353), where it was granted either as a hereditary allotment or for a specified period.
In Ayyūbid (1169–1250) Egypt, the iqṭāʿ approximated the muqāṭaʿah system, common in the caliphal domains, under which certain districts or peoples, such as Bedouins, Kurds, or Turkmen, paid a fixed tax directly to the state treasury, bypassing any intermediary tax collector. Thus, the Egyptian iqṭāʿ, primarily agricultural land, was leased for a limited time for a contracted sum of money. The power of the muqṭaʿ was strictly limited by extensive state controls and a deliberate distribution of land so as to avoid monopoly by any one muqṭaʿ.
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75bc00d230988583e0a98b2c2429ba62 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iranian-languages/Historical-survey-of-the-Iranian-languages | Historical survey of the Iranian languages | Historical survey of the Iranian languages
By the time Iranian begins to be attested in the 6th century bce, the language is already found differentiated into several distinct languages. Scholars have reconstructed the sound system and some of the grammatical features of Common Old Iranian, the protolanguage that preceded these dialects.
The phonological system that underlay Common Old Iranian was by and large maintained everywhere throughout the Iranian-speaking world. It consisted of the following distinctive consonant sounds:
Unfamiliar symbols are taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet, or are conventional transcriptions (e.g., š for the sh sound in ship, ž for the zh sound in azure, č for ch in church, and ǰ for j in jam). The voiced fricatives (i.e., the first three consonants represented in the fourth column—ɣ, β, and ð), which are produced with vibrating vocal cords and local friction, may be regarded as variants of the voiced stops (e.g., g, b, d); but they are characteristic of Iranian languages generally and especially of the eastern Iranian languages. In addition to these sounds Old Persian had another sibilant sound, often transcribed as ç or ss, which developed from the cluster θr (pronounced as the thr in three). In Middle Persian it fell together with the s sound. The most noticeable alteration of the old sound system is the introduction in some languages of additional series of consonants under the influence of neighbouring languages. Thus, Ossetic has a series of ejective sounds (uttered with a simultaneous glottal stop) on the pattern of the unrelated Caucasian languages; and a number of Iranian languages have a retroflex series (produced with the tongue tip curled up toward the roof of the mouth) as a result of contact with Indo-Aryan languages.
Some of the differences between Iranian languages arose as a result of different developments of the earlier sounds. Thus, the Indo-European sounds ḱ, ǵ, and ǵh resulted in Indo-Iranian ś, ź, and źh, which in turn became s, z, and z, respectively, in Avestan but θ, d, and d in Old Persian. Hence, Indo-European *ḱṃtó- “hundred” became Indo-Iranian *śatá-, attested by Old Indo-Aryan śatá-, and then Avestan sata-, but Old Persian θata-. Nevertheless, θ and d as well as s and z belong to the basic pattern, the difference being merely distributional.
The main source of differentiation is in the variation of consonant cluster development and that of groups of consonants and semivowels. There again it is mainly a question of distributional differences. Thus, the Indo-European group *ḱuˆ became Indo-Iranian *śuˆ, retained in Old Indo-Aryan in the spelling śv of the standard transcription. Indo-Iranian *śuˆ developed variously in Iranian: s in Old Persian, sp in Avestan and Median, ś (written śś) in Khotanese, and š in Wakhī. These developments can be seen in the following forms of the Indo-European word *eḱuˆo- “horse”: Old Indo-Aryan áśva-, Avestan and Median aspa-, Old Persian asa-, Khotanese aśśa-, and Wakhī yaš. Yet another development can be seen in Ossetic, in which the word for “mare,” Avestan aspā-, appears as Digor äfsä and Iron yäfs.
The vowel system of Common Old Iranian consisted of short and long varieties of a, i, and u, and a neutral vowel ə (similar to the a in sofa). That analysis assumes that the Indo-Iranian vocalic r (r̥) had already developed to ər in Proto-Iranian, just as its long counterpart became ar. An early and general monophthongization of the diphthongs ai and au to ē and ō, respectively, also must be considered characteristic, although it should not be ascribed to Common Old Iranian as is sometimes done. This basic system was almost everywhere maintained, sometimes with the addition of one or two distinctive vowel sounds (phonemes).
Old Persian was the language of the Achaemenid court. It is first attested in the inscriptions of Darius I (ruled 522–486 bce), of which the longest, earliest, and most important is that of Bīsitūn. At Bīsitūn are also inscribed versions of the same text in Elamite and Babylonian, and fragments of an Aramaic version on papyrus documents from Elephantine (modern Jazīrat Aswān) also exist. Old Persian words and names also are to be found in large numbers as loanwords in contemporary Elamite sources and in 5th-century-bce Aramaic documents.
As early as the time of Darius the Great’s successor, Xerxes I (ruled 486–465 bce), the inscriptions show linguistic tendencies characteristic of the development from Old to Middle Persian. After Xerxes the production of original Old Persian inscriptions declined, probably as a result of the wider adoption of Aramaic and Elamite as the usual means of writing. With Artaxerxes III (ruled 359/358–338 bce), Old Persian inscriptions came to an end. The break is marked by Alexander’s destruction of Persepolis in 330 bce.
By far the largest part of attested Old Iranian is written in the language now usually called Avestan, after the Avesta, the name given to the collection of works forming the scripture of the Zoroastrians. The name itself is Middle Persian. In former times this language was called Zend, another Middle Persian word, which refers to the Middle Persian (Pahlavi) commentary on the Avesta. Because the homeland of the Avestan language was long thought to be in Bactria, it was often in the past called Bactrian. Bactrian is now used to designate a different Iranian language belonging to the Middle Iranian period.
Since the beginning of the 20th century it has been generally accepted that the homeland of the Avesta was Khwārezm, which in ancient times included both Merv and Herāt. Merv is now in Turkmenistan, Herāt in northwestern Afghanistan.
The oldest part of the Avesta is known as the Gāthās, the poems composed by Zoroaster (Zarathustra), the founder of the Zoroastrian religion. His date is uncertain but is traditionally ascribed to the 7th to 6th century bce. The so-called Khurda Avesta (“Little Avesta”) is a miscellany of texts of later date, the oldest parts of which may have been composed about 400 bce. The language of the Khurda Avesta is different in many details from that of the more archaic language of the Gāthās, and it may even represent a different dialect. Many uncertainties surround the detailed interpretation of the Avesta as a result of the method of transmission. The Avesta was not recorded until after the language had ceased to be used, except by Zoroastrian priests. The present manuscripts date from the 13th century and later, although they reflect the recording of the priestly tradition in the special Avestan script during the 6th century ce.
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6966f653d4857f59b29defb6ea53a056 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iranian-languages/The-Middle-Iranian-stage | The Middle Iranian stage | The Middle Iranian stage
Middle Persian, the major form of which is called Pahlavi, was the official language of the Sāsānians (224–651 ce). The most important of the Middle Persian inscriptions is that of Shāpūr I (d. 272 ce), which has parallel versions in Parthian and Greek. Middle Persian was also the language of the Manichaean and Zoroastrian books written during the 3rd to the 10th century ce.
The extant literature of the Zoroastrian books is much more extensive than that of the Manichaean texts, but the latter have the advantage of having been recorded in a clear and unambiguous script. Moreover, the Middle Persian of the Zoroastrian books does not simply represent the spoken language of the writers of the 9th-century Zoroastrian texts. It is probable that they spoke early Modern Persian and that their speech often impinged upon their writing but that they strove to write the Middle Persian of several centuries earlier as it was attested in the inscriptions of the early Sāsānian dynasty when Middle Persian was the koine. By contrast, in the case of Manichaean Middle Persian, some texts survive unchanged from the 3rd century ce, the time of the Persian teacher Mani himself (216–274 ce).
Very little Parthian survives from the pre-Sāsānian period. A large number of Parthian ostraca (inscribed pottery fragments) from the 1st century bce were discovered at Nisa near modern Ashkhabad, but they are inscribed in ideographic Aramaic (i.e., Aramaic writing that uses Aramaic words as symbols to represent Parthian words). Dating before the 3rd century are a document from Hawrāman, some coin legends, and a dated grave stela.
The most copious and important material in Parthian is the work of the Sāsānian kings of the 3rd century, who added a Parthian version to their inscriptions—Ḥājjīābād, Naqsh-e Rustam (Ka’be yi Zardusht), and Paiküla. A few decades later Parthian disappeared as a result of the rise of the Sāsānians and the predominance of their native tongue, Middle Persian. Manichaean Parthian of the 3rd century was preserved as a church language in Central Asia.
The oldest surviving Sogdian documents are the so-called Ancient Letters found in a watchtower on the Great Wall of China, west of Dunhuang, and dated at the beginning of the 4th century ce. Most of the religious literature written in Sogdian dates from the 9th and 10th centuries. The Manichaean, Buddhist, and Christian Sogdian texts come mainly from small communities of Sogdians in the Tulufan (Turfan) oasis and in Dunhuang. From Sogdiana itself there is only a small collection of documents from Mount Mugh in the Zarafshān region, mainly the business correspondence of a minor Sogdian king, Dewashtich, from the time of the Arab conquest about 700.
The relationship of the various forms of Sogdian to one another has not yet been sufficiently investigated, so that it is not clear whether different dialects are represented by the extant material or whether the differences can be accounted for by reference to other relevant factors, such as differences of script, period, subject, style, or social milieu. The importance of social milieu can be seen by comparing the elegant Manichaean literature directed to the court with the more vulgar language of the Christian literature directed to the lower classes.
Of the Saka dialect known as Tumshuq very little has survived, and despite its evidently close relationship to the much better known Khotanese dialect, full interpretation has proved difficult. Knowledge of Khotanese is more firmly based on a substantial corpus of material, including extensive bilingual texts. Although the chronological range of the extant Khotanese material is limited to only a few centuries, probably the 7th to the 10th, a rapid development of the language is apparent. At the phonological level, most noticeable is the loss of syllables between the older and later stages of the language. Thus, hvatana- “Khotanese” at the oldest stage is successively weakened to hvatäna-, hvaṃna-, hvana-, hvaṃ. At the morphological level, most striking is the tendency to simplify the case endings and even to replace them by analytical expressions, constructions of two or more words. Thus, Late Khotanese has rakṣaysā hīya rāde “kings of the rākṣasas,” whereas Old Khotanese would have rakṣaysänu rrunde. The Old Khotanese -änu ending is unmistakably genitive plural, but the Late Khotanese -ā is merely a general oblique plural ending and has been reinforced by hīya “own,” used to mean “of.”
Hotan was a great centre of Buddhism during the 1st millennium ce, and all the surviving literature in Khotanese is either Buddhist or coloured by Buddhism. Even in business documents and official letters the Buddhist background is usually not difficult to discern. It can scarcely be coincidental that the Buddhist literature of Hotan, flourishing so vigorously during the 10th century, ended abruptly with the Muslim conquest at the beginning of the 11th.
Little survives of Bactrian and Scytho-Sarmatian. Knowledge of Bactrian is based almost entirely on a single inscription of 25 lines from Āteshkadeh-ye Sorkh Kowtal in northern Afghanistan. Even less is known of Scytho-Sarmatian.
Little is also known of Old Khwārezmian; that is, Khwārezmian written in the indigenous Khwārezmian script. Apart from a few coin legends and inscriptions on silver vessels, the material that survives consists of inscriptions of the 2nd century ce from Topraq-qalʿah (Toprakkala) and of the 7th from Toqqalʿah, archaeological sites in Uzbekistan. Much more is known of Late Khwārezmian, written in the Arabic script. That material is found mainly in two Arabic works, the 13th-century fiqh work of Mukhtār al-Zāhidī, called the Qunyat almunyah, and the Arabic dictionary Muqaddimat al-Adab of Abu al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī (1075–1144), of which a manuscript glossed in Khwārezmian was found.
Of the modern Iranian languages, by far the most widely spoken is Persian, which, as already indicated, developed from Middle Persian and Parthian (with elements from other Iranian languages such as Sogdian) as early as the 9th century ce. Since then, it has changed little except for acquiring an increasing proportion of loanwords, mainly from Arabic. Persian has been a literary language since the 9th century, and there is an increasing awareness of the continuity of its literary tradition with the earlier periods.
As the national language of Iran in succession to Middle Persian, it has for centuries strongly influenced the other Iranian languages, especially on Iranian territory. In fact, it seems likely that, with the increase of modern methods of communication, Persian will eventually supplant entirely most of the other languages and dialects. Against this trend stand only Kurdish and Balochi, the speakers of which tend to regard their languages as an expression of their particular identities. Nevertheless, even Kurdish and Balochi have been and continue to be strongly influenced by Persian.
Outside Iran the situation is rather different. In Afghanistan the first national language is Pashto, even though Persian is the official second language. Pashto became the official language by royal decree in 1936, and literary activity has been encouraged by the Pashto Ṭolana (Pashto Society) of Kabul. During the Soviet period both Ossetic and Tajik received official encouragement; nevertheless, both languages were displaced by the Russian language as the language of administration.
Other languages also compete with Ossetic and Tajik. Though it has a large body of folk epics, Ossetic became a literary language only in the second half of the 19th century. By contrast, the neighbouring Georgian has a still flourishing ancient literary tradition dating back to the 5th century ce and has many more speakers. Tajik, on the other hand, has a lifeline through its close connection with Persian, but it too has been retreating before Uzbek, an unrelated language of the Turkic group.
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c2459f1db9e7547a030b4978580d0235 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iranian-languages/Writing-systems | Writing systems | Writing systems
Iranian languages have been written in many different scripts during their long history, although various forms of Aramaic script have been predominant. Modern Persian is written in Arabic script, which is of Aramaic origin. For writing the Persian sounds p, č, ž, and g, four letters have been added by means of diacritical marks. By the addition of further letters, the Perso-Arabic script has been adapted to write not only the other main modern Iranian languages, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi, but also those minor ones that are occasionally recorded. An advantage of the use of that consonantal script is that by not defining vowel qualities it is possible to include local dialect variations to a considerable extent.
During and after the Soviet era, two modern Iranian languages—Tajik and Ossetic—were written in a modified Cyrillic script. Scholars tended to use modified Latin alphabets to record the minor languages that have no literary tradition (such as some of the languages spoken in the Pamirs). Ossetic has also been written in the Georgian script.
Old Persian was written with a cuneiform syllabary, the origin of which is still hotly disputed. Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, and Old Khwārezmian were recorded in various forms of Aramaic script. Two forms of this script as they developed for writing Sogdian were adopted by the Uighurs. In its cursive form this script spread even farther, to the Mongols and Manchus. Three other scripts are important for the remaining Middle Iranian languages: Greek script for Bactrian, Arabic script for Late Khwārezmian, and varieties of Central Asian Brāhmī script of Indian origin for Khotanese and Tumshuq.
The Aramaic script was not systematically adapted to the writing of Middle Iranian; and, despite the introduction of a variety of diacritical marks to differentiate letters, considerable ambiguity remained. Moreover, several letters tended to coalesce in form. In that respect, the Pahlavi script, used for writing the Middle Persian of the Zoroastrian books, developed furthest. In it, the original 22 letters of the Aramaic alphabet have been reduced to 14, which are further confused by the use of numerous ligatures (linked letters). It was the realization that this script was inadequate to record precisely the traditional pronunciation of the sacred text of the Avesta that led Zoroastrian priests to devise the elaborate Avestan script, which, with its 48 distinct letters formed by differentiation of the 14 used for Pahlavi, was well suited to the task.
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267e3428f8b051c1c8ced88c320994f1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iraq-Petroleum-Company | Iraq Petroleum Company | Iraq Petroleum Company
(later Iraq Petroleum Co.) and became the first to exploit Iraqi oil; his 5% share made him one of the world’s richest men. From 1948 he negotiated Saudi Arabian oil concessions to U.S. firms. He amassed an outstanding art collection of some 6,000 works, now in…
…the Iraqi government and the IPC had heretofore yielded relatively modest royalties, owing to certain technical limitations (such as the need for pipelines) and to war conditions. It was not until 1952 that construction of pipelines to Bāniyās was completed.
Also in 1972 the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) was nationalized (with compensation), and a national company, the Iraqi Company for Oil Operations, was established to operate the fields. In 1973, when the Yom Kippur War broke out, Iraq nationalized American and Dutch companies, and in 1975 it nationalized the…
…Company, which was renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in 1929. Finds at Mosul and Basra followed, and several new fields were discovered and put into production in the 1940s and ’50s. New fields have continued to be discovered and developed.
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4c63f4039752ecb9226bdada739e0e73 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iridium-33 | Iridium 33 | Iridium 33
…on February 10, 2009, when Iridium 33, a communications satellite owned by the American company Motorola, collided with Cosmos 2251, an inactive Russian military communications satellite, about 760 km (470 miles) above northern Siberia, shattering both satellites.
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5ba1adf3b4ace7c2446bdc43fcc7f20a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iris-film-by-Eyre | Iris | Iris
…(1999; adapted as the film Iris [2001]). A selection of her voluminous correspondence was published as Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch, 1934–1995 (2016).
…Murdoch’s husband, John Bayley, in Iris (2001), a film that chronicled the two authors’ early lives together, their marriage, and Murdoch’s struggle with Alzheimer disease. For his part in Iris, Broadbent won the Academy Award for best supporting actor.
…British writer Iris Murdoch in Iris (2001), an eccentric theatre owner in Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), and the lonely teacher Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal (2006).
…into writer Iris Murdoch in Iris (2001) won her further accolades, including Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
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a5c0e63db28f560e00e40e487697b628 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Irish-Land-Acts | Irish Land Acts | Irish Land Acts
…in 1870 introduced the first Irish Land Act, which conceded the principles of secure tenure and compensation for improvements made to property.
…the House of Lords; the Irish Land Act of 1870, providing some safeguards to Irish tenant farmers; William Edward Forster’s Education Act of the same year, the first national act dealing with primary education; the Trade-Union Act of 1871, legalizing unions and giving them the protection of the courts; and…
Gladstone’s response was the Irish Land Act, based on guaranteeing “three fs”—fair rents, fixity of tenure, and free sale—and a tightening up of the rules of closure in parliamentary debate. The Land Act did not go far enough to satisfy Parnell, who continued to make speeches couched in violent…
The Irish Land Act of 1881, largely Gladstone’s own work, in the long run promoted the prosperity of the Irish peasant; but violent crime continued. No alternatives to strong police powers were left, and measures to restrict the freedom of Irish members to obstruct the work…
…in 1881 of William Gladstone’s Land Act, which conceded the principle that fair rents could be judicially determined, presented Parnell with a serious test of statesmanship. Its passage was unquestionably a great achievement for the Land League, but the most active Land Leaguers were not content, and a split in…
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17f85d5d4ce2b51be8ec0bf0f56a5efb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Irish-Times | The Irish Times | The Irish Times
…notably as a critic for The Irish Times. After publishing early, unpolished poetry in the pamphlet 23 Poems (1962), she wrote New Territory (1967), a full-length book of 22 poems about Irish mythology, the creativity of artists, and her self-identity.
…was a contributor to the Irish Times and published a prose collection under the title Journalism in 1996.
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df4689e30332fec8d115ed65d6605e54 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Crown-of-Lombardy | Iron Crown of Lombardy | Iron Crown of Lombardy
Iron Crown of Lombardy, originally an armlet or perhaps a votive crown, as suggested by its small size, that was presented to the Cathedral of Monza, where it is preserved as a holy relic. No firm record exists of its use for coronations before that of Henry VII as Holy Roman emperor in 1312.
The Iron Crown of Lombardy is composed of a broad circle of six plates of gold joined to each other by hinges and kept rigid by an interior ring of iron not quite 0.5 inch (1.25 cm) broad. It is decorated with jewels and translucent enamel and is apparently of Byzantine workmanship. The iron ring does not appear in early descriptions, and possibly it was added in the 12th century; only about 1585 or later was it described as being made from a nail used at the Crucifixion of Christ. After much argument the Congregation of Relics at Rome in 1717, though giving no definite ruling on the point, authorized the exposure of the crown for veneration.
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ed7a0d27c06321d8701af9a65aaffac9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Guard | Iron Guard | Iron Guard
Iron Guard, Romanian Garda de Fier, Romanian fascist organization that constituted a major social and political force between 1930 and 1941. In 1927 Corneliu Zelea Codreanu founded the Legion of the Archangel Michael, which later became known as the Legion or Legionary Movement; it was committed to the “Christian and racial” renovation of Romania and fed on anti-Semitism and mystical nationalism. Codreanu established the Iron Guard, a military wing of the Legion, in 1930, and its name became the one commonly applied by outsiders to the movement as a whole. The Legion was dissolved by government fiat in December 1933, but it reappeared as Totul Pentru Ţară (All for the Fatherland) and flourished, with some support from King Carol II. Suppressed again after King Carol proclaimed a personal dictatorship (1938), it was revived when the king abdicated (1940). Guardists served in Gen. Ion Antonescu’s cabinets (1940–41), but the group was discredited by its failures to provide an efficient administration and to mobilize mass support for Antonescu’s dictatorship. In January 1941 Antonescu used the army to crush the Guard, thereby ending its significant role in Romanian political life.
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ff7495a81f680a66da9b6e646ff2de53 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Law-of-Wages | Iron Law of Wages | Iron Law of Wages
… doctrines were typified in his Iron Law of Wages, which stated that all attempts to improve the real income of workers were futile and that wages perforce remained near the subsistence level.
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e49c27d7933d42d1ee229ebe2c176d91 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Man-2 | Iron Man 2 | Iron Man 2
…Downey returned for the sequel Iron Man 2 (2010). Downey became a mainstay of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reprising his role for The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers:
…of Tony Stark in the Iron Man sequels (2010 and 2013), The Avengers (2012) and its sequels (2015, 2018, and 2019), Captain America: Civil War (2016), and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). In 2020 Downey starred in the family comedy Dolittle,
…a nine-movie deal that included Iron Man 2 (2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
…appeared in the action film Iron Man 2 as Natasha Romanoff, a secret agent otherwise known as the Black Widow, a role she went on to reprise in the superhero blockbusters The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016),…
…blockbuster Iron Man series (2008, 2010, and 2013), a role that she reprised for The Avengers (2012), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). She also appeared in the comic caper Mortdecai (2015), as the wife of a flamboyant art
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d26ed1818e679a2f9526818fea4ece70 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iron-Man-film-by-Favreau | Iron Man | Iron Man
…and Paramount released the live-action Iron Man in 2008. The film, an enormous commercial and critical success, was directed by Jon Favreau and starred Robert Downey, Jr., who proved adept at capturing Tony Stark’s personality, brilliance, and charisma. Favreau and Downey returned for the sequel Iron Man 2 (2010). Downey…
In Iron Man he portrayed Tony Stark, a billionaire inventor with a superhero alter ego, and in the satiric comedy Tropic Thunder he starred as a self-important movie star who dons blackface to land the role of an African American soldier in the Vietnam War. For…
, as Iron Man’s companion Pepper Potts in the blockbuster Iron Man series (2008, 2010, and 2013), a role that she reprised for The Avengers (2012), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). She also
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4e1ab2907800a419c3a106f04166a527 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iroquois-people | Iroquois | Iroquois
Iroquois, any member of the North American Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family—notably the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. The peoples who spoke Iroquoian languages occupied a continuous territory around Lakes Ontario, Huron, and Erie in present-day New York state and Pennsylvania (U.S.) and southern Ontario and Quebec (Canada). That larger group should be differentiated from the Five Nations (later Six Nations) better known as the Iroquois Confederacy (self name Haudenosaunee Confederacy).
As was typical of Northeast Indians before colonization, the Iroquois were semisedentary agriculturists who palisaded their villages in time of need. Each village typically comprised several hundred persons. Iroquois people dwelt in large longhouses made of saplings and sheathed with elm bark, each housing many families. The longhouse family was the basic unit of traditional Iroquois society, which used a nested form of social organization: households (each representing a lineage) were divisions of clans, several clans constituted each moiety, and the two moieties combined to create a tribe.
Groups of men built houses and palisades, fished, hunted, and engaged in military activities. Groups of women produced crops of corn (maize), beans, and squash, gathered wild foods, and prepared all clothing and most other residential goods. After the autumn harvest, family deer-hunting parties ranged far into the forests, returning to their villages at midwinter. Spring runs of fish drew families to nearby streams and lake inlets.
Kinship and locality were the bases for traditional Iroquois political life. Iroquois speakers were fond of meetings, spending considerable time in council. Council attendance was determined by locality, sex, age, and the specific question at hand; each council had its own protocol and devices for gaining consensus, which was the primary mode of decision-making.
The elaborate religious cosmology of the Iroquois was based on an origin tradition in which a woman fell from the sky; other parts of the religious tradition featured deluge and earth-diver motifs, supernatural aggression and cruelty, sorcery, torture, cannibalism, star myths, and journeys to the otherworld. The formal ceremonial cycle consisted of six agricultural festivals featuring long prayers of thanks. There were also rites for sanctioning political activity, such as treaty making.
Warfare was important in Iroquois society, and, for men, self-respect depended upon achieving personal glory in war endeavours. War captives were often enslaved or adopted to replace dead family members. Losses to battle and disease increased the need for captives, who had become a significant population within Iroquois settlements by the late 17th century.
Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 90,000 individuals of Iroquois-proper descent ; when including the many Iroquois-speaking tribes, those estimates indicated more than 900,000 individuals.
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6a3f2eacf6fddb331e5bf0a57e5e8e2a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Irrational-Man | Irrational Man | Irrational Man
Irrational Man (2015), an existentially comic thriller set in a New England university town, featured Joaquin Phoenix as a disillusioned and dissipated philosophy professor who decides to kill a family court judge after overhearing that he is likely to award parental custody rights to an…
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ba04da235b216801340969112953427a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/irrationalism | Irrationalism | Irrationalism
Irrationalism, 19th- and early 20th-century philosophical movement that claimed to enrich the apprehension of human life by expanding it beyond the rational to its fuller dimensions. Rooted either in metaphysics or in an awareness of the uniqueness of human experience, irrationalism stressed the dimensions of instinct, feeling, and will as over and against reason.
There were irrationalists before the 19th century. In ancient Greek culture—which is usually assessed as rationalistic—a Dionysian (i.e., instinctive) strain can be discerned in the works of the poet Pindar, in the dramatists, and even in such philosophers as Pythagoras and Empedocles and in Plato. In early modern philosophy—even during the ascendancy of Cartesian rationalism—Blaise Pascal turned from reason to an Augustinian faith, convinced that “the heart has its reasons” unknown to reason as such.
The main tide of irrationalism, like that of literary romanticism—itself a form of irrationalism—followed the Age of Reason and was a reaction to it. Irrationalism found much in the life of the spirit and in human history that could not be dealt with by the rational methods of science. Under the influence of Charles Darwin and later Sigmund Freud, irrationalism began to explore the biological and subconscious roots of experience. Pragmatism, existentialism, and vitalism (or “life philosophy”) all arose as expressions of this expanded view of human life and thought.
For Arthur Schopenhauer, a typical 19th-century irrationalist, voluntarism expressed the essence of reality—a blind, purposeless will permeating all existence. If mind, then, is an emergent from mute biological process, it is natural to conclude, as the pragmatists did, that it evolved as an instrument for practical adjustment—not as an organ for the rational plumbing of metaphysics. Charles Sanders Peirce and William James thus argued that ideas are to be assessed not in terms of logic but in terms of their practical results when put to the test of action.
Irrationalism is also expressed in the historicism and relativism of Wilhelm Dilthey, who saw all knowledge as conditioned by one’s private historical perspective and who thus urged the importance of the Geisteswissenschaften (the humanities). Johann Georg Hamann, spurning speculation, sought truth in feeling, faith, and experience, making personal convictions its ultimate criterion. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi exalted the certitude and clarity of faith to the detriment of intellectual knowledge and sensation.
Friedrich Schelling and Henri Bergson, who were preoccupied with the uniqueness of human experience, turned to intuitionism, which “sees things invisible to science.” Reason itself was not repudiated; it had simply lost its commanding role inasmuch as personal insights are impervious to testing. In its aspect as a vitalism, Bergson’s philosophy—as well as that of Friedrich Nietzsche—was irrationalistic in holding that instinctive, or Dionysian, drive lies at the heart of existence. Nietzsche viewed moral codes as myths, lies, and frauds created to mask forces operating beneath the surface to influence thought and behaviour. For him, God is dead and humans are free to formulate new values. Ludwig Klages extended life philosophy in Germany by urging that the irrational springs of human life are “natural” and should be followed in a deliberate effort to root out the adventitious reason; and Oswald Spengler extended it to history, which he viewed intuitively as an irrational process of organic growth and decay.
In existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus all despaired of making sense out of an incoherent world; and each chose his own alternative to reason—the leap of faith, radical freedom, and heroic revolt, respectively.
In general, irrationalism implies either (in ontology) that the world is devoid of rational structure, meaning, and purpose; or (in epistemology) that reason is inherently defective and incapable of knowing the universe without distortion; or (in ethics) that recourse to objective standards is futile; or (in anthropology) that in human nature itself the dominant dimensions are irrational.
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d9bfce394a2ce0d9167916b8794f25e2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Irving-Independent-School-District-v-Tatro | Irving Independent School District v. Tatro | Irving Independent School District v. Tatro
Irving Independent School District v. Tatro, case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on July 5, 1984, ruled (9–0) that, under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (EAHCA; now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), a school board in Texas had to provide catheterization services during class hours to a student with spina bifida. The case stands out as the court’s first attempt to define the distinction between “school health services” and “medical services.”
The case involved Amber Tatro, who was born with spina bifida. The disease caused Tatro various health issues, including a bladder condition that required her to be catheterized every several hours. The procedure, known as clean intermittent catheterization (CIC), was relatively simple and could be taught to a layperson in under an hour. In 1979, when Amber was age three, the Irving Independent School District in Texas created a special education program for her, though it did not include the administration of CIC. Her parents requested that the school provide the service, and it refused. The Tatros subsequently filed suit, claiming a violation of the EAHCA, which requires schools that receive federal funding to provide “related services,” which include school health services, so that a handicapped child can “benefit from special education”; most medical services, however, are not covered. The Tatros also cited the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which bars a handicapped individual from being excluded from or denied the benefits of a program that received federal funds.
A federal district court ultimately ruled in favour of the Tatros, finding that CIC was not a medical service, since a physician did not have to perform the procedure, and was instead a related service. The court further held that the school had violated the Rehabilitation Act, which enabled it to award attorney fees to the Tatros.
The case was argued before the Supreme Court on April 16, 1984. It relied on the U.S. Department of Education to define the disputed terms. Pursuant to the department’s regulations, school health services are those that can be provided by school nurses or qualified laypersons, whereas medical services are those that must be performed by licensed physicians. However, medical services that are for the sole purpose of diagnosis and evaluation are considered related services. The court held that under those definitions, CIC was a school health service. Further, it noted that without CIC, Tatro would be unable to attend school and thus would not “benefit from special education.” The court noted that the category of related services includes such supportive measures as transportation and equipment that makes schools accessible to handicapped students. According to the court, CIC is “no less related to the effort to educate than are services that enable the child to reach, enter, or exit the school.” Thus, the court held that CIC qualified as a related service.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Tatro included general guidelines outlining the scope of a school’s responsibility for providing EAHCA-related services to students. First, the court reiterated that eligible children must be identified as having disabilities in order to receive special education services. Second, the court acknowledged that school officials are required to supply only those services that are necessary to enable children to benefit from special education, regardless of how easily school nurses or laypersons could provide the needed services. Third, the court noted that school nursing services do not have to be provided if they must be performed by a physician.
The Supreme Court thus upheld the lower court’s decision that the school had to provide CIC to Tatro. However, it also found that the school was not liable under the Rehabilitation Act and thereby reversed the ruling that the Tatros could recover attorney fees.
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a8d62c227b73923d6703ea6b261081af | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Is-That-All-There-Is | Is That All There Is? | Is That All There Is?
…1969, was the world-weary “Is That All There Is?” (by Peggy Lee). In 1987 the pair was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
…hit in many years, “Is That All There Is?”(1969), with which she became the first female artist to score Top Ten hits in three different decades.
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bf4147e6a265b41b66f26acd92f108d3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ishtar-film-by-May | Ishtar | Ishtar
…of Hollywood’s most expensive failures, Ishtar (1987) and Town & Country (2001). After a 15-year absence, he returned to the big screen with Rules Don’t Apply (2016), about the relationship between an aspiring actress and her driver, both of whom work for Howard Hughes. In addition to starring as the…
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