In Chapter 9, the author discusses both content and statistical approaches to evaluating and revising criterion-referenced assessments at both the item and test levels. The chapter includes guidelines for judging criterion-referenced item types and the content of specific items. The chapter also discusses standard setting and takes readers through an example of how to use the Angoff method for this purpose. It introduces descriptive statistics for criterion-refenced assessments, including median, mastery rate, item facility, and B-Index, a statistic that provides an indication of how well an item distinguishes among test takers who have mastered and test takers who have not mastered the targeted ability of the assessment. The chapter concludes with an explanation of how to calculate and interpret dependability for a classroom vocabulary test. It includes an appendix which shows how to use Excel to calculate each of the statistics that the chapter introduces.

This chapter provides an original inquiry into the use of General Assembly resolutions within domestic legal systems. The scholarly literature is silent on this, being entirely focused on the use of resolutions by international courts and tribunals. As a result, this chapter supplements the current academic debate by revealing a neglected aspect of the legal significance of resolutions. It evaluates the degree of legal significance that states attach to resolutions at the implementation stage by analysing the process of incorporation of resolutions into domestic law. It shows that the source of the legal significance of resolutions can be ultimately traced back to the will of individual states to rely on resolutions depending on context and circumstances. As a result, generalizations about the legal significance of resolutions within domestic legal systems appear to be neither convincing nor useful.

This chapter examines the different functions that resolutions serve in state submissions before international courts and tribunals. The analysis revolves around two interrelated issues. On the one hand, it discerns between instances in which states treat resolutions as evidence of state practice and instances in which states treat resolutions as the practice of the General Assembly. On the other hand, the analysis evaluates the extent to which states and judges hold different views on the legal significance of resolutions. It demonstrates that issues relating to the legal significance of resolutions revolve around a double dichotomy generated by the different positions taken by states and judges in relation to assertion and attribution of the source of the legal significance of resolutions to state practice or the separate will of the General Assembly. It contends that it is difficult, if not impossible, to generalize about the legal significance of resolutions given the character of international polyarchy of the General Assembly. It then offers insights into the concept of autonomy of the General Assembly from its member states.

This chapter introduces the evolution of a new field in family law – international human rights family law (IHRFL) – and traces the major role of one of the human rights treaty-monitoring bodies, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), in forming this field. In this new field, issues that have traditionally been thought of as solely part of the domestic legal order (i.e., under the jurisdiction and authority of each state) are now perceived to be part of international human rights law: protection from domestic violence; aspects of child custody; inheritance and property distribution upon dissolution of family relations. This means that family law should be understood as also governed by international human rights standards, whether they are hard law provisions in international treaties, or soft law jurisprudence of treaty bodies. States that have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) must scrutinise their family laws and bring them in line with the standards set by the CEDAW Committee in such matters as property relations, inheritance, protection from domestic violence and child custody. Through its standard setting function (i.e., the adoption of Concluding Observations, Views in Individual Communications, and General Recommendations), the CEDAW Committee is gradually and consistently contributing to the substantive development of IHRFL.

It is a commonplace to state that we live in a time of continuous change. But that doesn’t make it any less true. The force and impact of change become all the more obvious when considering a horizon that spans two generations. Fifty years ago, a mere handful of advanced industrial economies dominated the global economy. Since then, a wide array of countries have emerged as new economic powerhouses. Economic development and prosperity are now more equally spread across the globe than at any other time over at least the past two centuries.

This chapter on standard setting began by exploring the differences between legal and economic notions of standards and what standard setting means in both research disciplines. We then further clarified the legal concept for environmental law, wherein we set out three forms of standards to be set: (i) target standards, such as or ambient quality standards; (ii) emission standards, and (iii) production or specification standards. We then discussed optimal standard setting and we reviewed cultural relativity, that different cultural communities might place various environmental goals in different priorities. Standard setting is clearly at the heart of environmental law -- to set environmental goals, predicated on community preferences, to better achieve desired levels of environmental welfare or services. But the task of standard setting is both as complex as the set of environmental challenges facing a community as it is complicated by the particular goals desired in diverse communities. Standard setting is then also a question of ‘environmental federalism; the guidelines for setting standards for local injuries and global injuries might differ substantially.