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Lexicon
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
JUS COGENS dʒ s 'ko dʒ nz / noun Peremptory norm of international law protecting human rights that may not be violated under any circumstance.
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Origin: From the Latin “compelling law,” jus cogens originated under Roman law. More recently, rules governing interpretation of these fundamental norms were codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Usage: Ratified treaties in conflict with a peremptory norm of international law are void.
“This century jurists will probably consider recognition of new jus cogens of gender and racial equality, the right to a fair trial, access to medicine and the Internet.
“Jus cogens is a sort of super norm. In his classic essay ‘It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Jus Cogens,’ international law expert Anthony D’Amato says, ‘If an International Oscar were awarded for the category of Best Norm, the winner by acclamation would surely be jus cogens.’ ”
Alison Dundes Renteln, professor of political science, anthropology, public policy and law, teaches international law and human rights in USC Dornsife’s Department of Political Science and International Relations and at USC Gould School of Law. Her interdisciplinary publications focus on human rights, bioethics and global health, comparative jurisprudence, sensory studies and international public policy.
Numbers
LIVING IN L.A.
The annual USC Dornsife-Union Bank LABarometer livability survey reveals Angelenos plan to leave Los Angeles County even as residents’ consumer confidence is rising. It also shows that while Angelenos continue to be less satisfied with their quality of life compared to all California residents and people throughout the country, they perceive there to be less crime, vandalism, and drug and alcohol use in their neighborhoods than they did in 2019.
1/10
Number of Angelenos plan to leave L.A. County next year.
40%
Increase from 2019 to 2020 in the number of Angelenos who want to leave the county.
2.7
Percent rise in consumer confidence in L.A. County from June 2020 to February 2021.
-3
Change from 2019 (37%) to 2021 (34%) in percentage of Angelenos who agree there is a lot of crime in their neighborhood.
Exploring the Impact of Innovation
Bitcoin for your thoughts? A new center at USC Dornsife aims to help us understand the social, economic, political and ethical implications of innovation. By Stephen Koenig
Innovation has always recast the ways in which a public collectively engages, laying bare its utility and promise well ahead of its oft-unintended consequences. No one foresaw that Gutenberg’s printing press would lead to the publication of a popular book outlining how to identify and sentence witches, bringing about the execution of scores of innocent people in the pre-Enlightenment. But never has the pace of innovation rivaled what we are experiencing in the 21st century.
While we are drawn to reports on the latest gizmo or treatment for disease, it is increasingly clear that we need to better understand the social, economic, political and ethical implications of innovation — especially those that are not immediately obvious. This is the driving force behind the USC Dornsife Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life (STPL). Formally launched in December 2020, STPL is a venue for collaborative reflection and research on a scientific and technological ecosystem that is changing in real time.
“The center seeks to improve our understanding of the implications of new technologies, like artificial intelligence and genomics, that have got a lot of public attention,” says Professor of Sociology Andrew Lakoff, who is director of STPL. “It is also looking at the role of technologies that profoundly shape social life but tend to remain below the radar, like logistics and infrastructure.”
The center is designed around three broad intellectual areas that are particularly fraught in terms of the social and political impact of innovation: The implementation of policy to address the planet’s environmental crises; biomedicine and the life sciences; and the social and ethical impact of new digital technologies.
Additionally, STPL hosts the USC Berggruen Fellowship Program, a partnership with the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute. Each year, six to eight prominent experts spend roughly a year interacting with USC faculty and students as they work on ambitious research projects.
Complex supply chain logistics have recently been at the forefront of Lakoff’s mind, as the pandemic revealed unanticipated challenges. Early in the crisis, there were difficulties in obtaining enough protective gear for medical professionals and essential workers. And who can forget the empty shelves in the toilet paper aisle? Massive changes were needed in the information infrastructure that links manufacturers, ports and trains to hospitals and retail outlets — changes that require both new algorithms to streamline delivery and new discussions of equity and ethics. Going forward, scholars could explore the assumptions underlying pandemic preparedness planning or ask how essential workers should be defined and protected.
USC has a wide range of faculty interested in the impact of science and technology on social life, but they are scattered across different schools and departments. STPL looks to serve as a bridge, amplifying research that will benefit from administrative structure and facilitating conversation among people who might not otherwise meet.
“I’d like us to be seen as a place where new ideas emerge, where scholars and students are able to develop novel projects with our collaboration and support,” says Lakoff.
Sweet Memories
Scientists find a direct connection between particular bacteria in the gut and impaired brain function.
New research shows how drinking sugary beverages early in life may lead to impaired memory in adulthood. The study is also the first to show how a specific change to the gut microbiome can alter the function of a particular region of the brain.
Neuroscientist Scott Kanoski, associate professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife, and researchers at UCLA and the University of Georgia, Athens, gave adolescent rats free access to a sugar-sweetened beverage.
When the rats grew to be adults, the researchers tested memory function controlled by two different brain regions: the hippocampus and the perirhinal cortex.
The researchers found that, compared to rats that drank just water, the rats that consumed high levels of the sugary drink had more difficulty with memory linked to the hippocampus. Sugar consumption did not affect memories made by the perirhinal cortex.
The scientists then checked the rats’ gut microbiomes and found differences between sugar drinkers and water drinkers: The sugar drinkers had larger populations of two particular species of gut bacteria.
Next, the researchers transplanted lab-grown samples of those bacteria into the guts of adolescent rats that drank just water. The rats receiving the bacteria showed memory impairment in both the hippocampus and the perirhinal cortex, suggesting that diet-related changes to brain function may actually be rooted in changes to the gut microbiome.
Finally, the scientists found that gene activity in the hippocampus changed in both sugar-drinking rats and rats transplanted with the bacteria. The affected genes control how nerve cells transmit electrical signals to other nerve cells and how they send molecular signals internally.
The results of this study confirm a direct link, on a molecular level, between the gut microbiome and brain function. —D.S.J.
Writing Behind Bars
Bringing poetry, philosophy and physics to prisoners in an effort to reduce recidivism and stereotyping.
Prison may not seem the best place to teach universitylevel classes, but to the surprise of instructors in the Prison Education Project (PEP) at USC Dornsife, the venue has proven to be ideal. With no phones or internet access, the classroom environment harkens back to a simpler time in education.
“We’re present with one another in a way that I don’t find in my other classrooms. No one’s checking their phone,” says PEP Co-director Nik De Dominic, assistant professor (teaching) of writing.
Since 2018, PEP has brought classes on subjects including film, biology and writing to prisons around the state, including the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco and the Santa Fe Springs women’s prison. USC Dornsife faculty teach the classes and USC students serve as volunteer assistants.
Inmates at some prisons receive a reduced sentence in exchange for attending PEP classes.
For those who balk at the thought of prisoners receiving free classes, Kate Levin, co-director of PEP and assistant professor (teaching) of writing, argues that PEP provides practical benefits to the community.
“Research shows that if someone in prison just takes one class, they’re far less likely to recidivate,” she says. It costs a little more than $80,000 to incarcerate an inmate for one year in California. If programs like PEP can prevent inmates from returning to the system, it could save taxpayers a considerable amount of cash.
G Bajaj, a health and human sciences major who is PEP’s student co-director, says working with the prison population has broadened his perspective as he studies toward becoming a physician.
“In order to be a good health professional, you have to understand the different facets of the community you’re serving,” he says. “If you can’t understand someone that’s experiencing homelessness or someone that’s formerly incarcerated, how do you expect to advocate for that patient?” —M.C.
Spotlight
BRYSON CHOY ’22 QUANTITATIVE BIOLOGY QUANTITATIVE AND COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
Chosen from a pool of over 5,000 students from 438 academic institutions, Bryson Choy has been awarded a coveted scholarship from the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
Choy, who hails from Honolulu, is currently working toward a bachelor’s degree and a progressive master’s degree.
He plans to use the Goldwater Scholarship to apply the computational techniques he learns at USC Dornsife to advance knowledge of human health. In particular, he’ll focus on how the shape of certain proteins and biological molecules contributes to their role in disease and how they might be targeted with therapies.
“My future research will place an emphasis on elucidating the structure-function of clinically relevant proteins and biological macromolecules, as well as the development of novel computational tools for accelerating structure-based drug discovery,” he says. —C.B-S.
