In the Introduction, the need for an interdisciplinary approach to human well-being is presented, focusing on law and the social sciences, to elevate the interests of humanity amid rapid scientific and technological change.

In Chapter 10, the book concludes with a review of the numerous means available in the law to support the well-being of humans in an age of rapid scientific and technological development, emphasizing the need to revisit what it is to be human.

Historical sociology (HS) is not a typical approach to International Relations (IR). Rather, it is a fascinating scholarly tradition that offers rewarding conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools to the student of IR. HS explores how past events, formations, and developments shape contemporary political units, actors, and ideas. It examines how and why actors – such as regimes, political movements, or individuals – interact within constraining contexts to generate intended and occasionally unintentional consequences. HS frees the analysis from seemingly timeless concepts such as ‘state’ or ‘anarchy’. This chapter explores HS in two main sections. Section 2.1 explores the sociological origins and main tenets of HS by engaging key founding theorists in this tradition. Section 2.2, the case study, examines the social origins of the 1952 revolution in Egypt and its impact on its foreign policy. The section illustrates how social factors, which originated in the eighteenth century, and colonialism coupled with changes in the international balance of power in the post-World War II period contributed to the revolution and, subsequently, a revision of Egyptian foreign policy in the period 1952–1970.

This chapter explores the intersection of political science and human rights, highlighting the discipline’s critical role in shaping human rights education, policy, and enforcement. Political scientists have significantly contributed to the conceptualization of human rights, analyzing whether they are universal or culturally relative and examining their philosophical and empirical foundations. Additionally, the chapter discusses how political scientists examine the role of political institutions, including international courts, foreign policy frameworks, and human rights enforcement mechanisms, in shaping global human rights norms. The chapter also explores how political science methodologies – ranging from qualitative analyses to large-scale data collection – have influenced human rights measurement and advocacy. The chapter further addresses contemporary challenges, such as the impact of populism on human rights protections and the role of interdisciplinary approaches in advancing the field. Ultimately, this work underscores how political science scholarship continues to evolve, shaping human rights discourse and policy implementation in an increasingly complex global landscape.

The introductory chapter discusses the rationale for this book: a groundbreaking exploration of the intricate relationship between disciplines and human rights scholarship and education in higher education. It begins by defining the key concepts of human rights and disciplines as established branches of knowledge, acknowledging the critique offered by decoloniality. The chapter then examines the core premise of the book: how these traditional disciplines are increasingly intersecting with human rights, moving the conversation beyond conventional legal boundaries and into a multidisciplinary format.

This dynamic interplay forms the backbone of the book, and the introduction outlines how each subsequent chapter will explore this relationship across different disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and professional studies. The chapters also briefly address how each discipline intersects with emerging and pronounced human rights challenges, like internally displaced persons, further highlighting the book’s central thesis: every discipline encompasses aspects of human rights, and disciplinary research, writing, thinking, and theory-building can make significant contributions to human rights teaching, research, and understanding, thereby enhancing the international human rights movement.

Chapter 7 revolves around external stakeholder management. Healthcare delivery is a continuum that involves the participation of both internal stakeholders and external stakeholders. While internal stakeholders, such as healthcare workers and leadership, took priority in the earlier chapters, it is crucial to understand the role external stakeholders play in the delivery of polyvagal-informed practices. As such, this final chapter highlights how healthcare facilities can inform payors, providers, media outlets, and learning institutions of the benefits of implementing polyvagal-informed strategies and interventions in the healthcare setting. What’s more, this chapter describes the most efficient practices for marketing a polyvagal-centered program and presenting the evidence-based findings of these interventions.

Developing and sustaining ICU follow-up clinics to address PICS in survivors of critical illness and their loved ones pose significant challenges, and clinics need to be tailored to the physical, personnel, and financial resources available at a given institution. Although no standard recipe guarantees a successful ICU aftercare program, emerging clinics need to address a common set of hurdles, including securing an adequate space; assembling an invested, multidisciplinary staff; and procuring the necessary equipment, technological, and financial support to be successful. Although certain risk factors for the development of PICS are defined, there remains no consensus on screening tools to determine which patients would derive most benefit, and recruitment strategies for clinic participants remain institution-dependent. Although there is expert consensus on some screening tools to detect PICS, significant additional investigation is needed to refine these recommendations. Benefits derived by patients and their families, feedback mechanisms to improve in-ICU care at the organizational and clinician level, and the general lack of awareness of PICS among the critical care, medical, and lay communities demand that motivated clinicians with a commitment to interprofessional teamwork, defined operational processes, and creative problem-solving skills continue their efforts to further refine the promise of ICU follow-up clinics.

Cumulative environmental impacts are a central problem that contemporary environment-related laws must face, from laws that allocate natural resources such as forests and water, to rights-based approaches to nature and human health. This introduction sketches the basic characteristics of a cumulative environmental problem – accumulating, incremental harms at different scales, caused by many and diverse actors, with the added complexity of interacting and uncertain effects addressed by multiple legal regimes. It explains why addressing cumulative environmental problems requires reaching across disciplines, legal contexts, and jurisdictions. The CIRCle Framework is introduced - a Framework of four integrated functions of formal rules for responding to cumulative environmental problems – conceptualization, information, regulatory intervention, and coordination. The chapter also introduces case studies of laws addressing environmental justice concerns related to groundwater in the Central Valley of California, cumulative harms to the biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, and cumulative impacts to grasslands as biocultural landscapes in South Tyrol, Italy.

The concluding chapter provides a synthesis and reflection on insights from this book. It first summarizes the main findings regarding how disaster risk today is a legacy of urban history, drawing on salient examples from the six case study cities and cautioning that risk becomes very “path dependent” as future options are constrained by past decisions. After discussing limitations of the study and further research needs, the chapter suggests that the Urban Risk Dynamics framework and findings from the six cases are relevant to any city, demonstrating this for Vancouver (Canada). It then reflects on the practical significance of the book. It argues that the findings demonstrate why disaster risk and risk reduction should be viewed dynamically; why understanding risk should start with the city, not the hazard or disaster; and why interdisciplinary approaches are critical for reducing risk. Recognizing this can help analysts, planners, and policy-makers, for example, to not only identify current risk hotspots but anticipate future ones, to consider risk from a multihazard standpoint, and to develop strategies and solutions that are effective in the long term.

This chapter examines the transition of pagan architecture and religious practices in Late Antiquity, focusing on the treatment of Roman temples under Christian emperors. Drawing on legal texts, literature, inscriptions and archaeological findings, it evaluates whether temples were preserved, repurposed or destroyed. Challenging the common assumption of widespread temple destruction, it argues that such actions were neither systematic nor state-enforced. Instead, the chapter presents a nuanced perspective, demonstrating that many temples remained intact and were gradually adapted for secular or Christian purposes. Archaeological evidence suggests that abandonment and natural decay played a greater role in their decline than deliberate demolition. It also highlights how Christian emperors often sought to suppress pagan rituals while preserving architectural heritage, with legal measures typically prohibiting sacrifices rather than mandating temple destruction. By emphasising regional variations in temple transformations and critically assessing sources that exaggerate instances of destruction, the chapter challenges traditional narratives, offering a more complex understanding of religious and architectural change in Late Antiquity.