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It is difficult to get an adequate account of human needs but there are known needs which, for hundreds of millions of people, are not met. Can the present economic system meet them? Can any economic system meet them? Is simple economic growth the answer? The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the questions, emphasizing the problems and paradoxes.

The paper looks at India where poverty is rampant despite recent gains, and at Bhutan which ranks low in economic production but quite high on the “happiness scales”. It also looks at questions of the relation of economic inequality to social problems, citing recent studies.

The paper focuses on how well the world's economic systems address, or fail to address, human needs.

This paper is written by a philosopher and writer on social economics (and Editor of International Journal of Social Economics (IJSE )) who works in a variety of fields: metaphysics and its epistemological relations, the theory of the history of philosophy (focusing on the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries), and moral, social, and economic philosophy and their relations to culture and religion. The paper then introduces the papers in this special issue of the IJSE devoted to human needs.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

This paper explores the health rights of prisoners as defined in international law, and the mechanisms that have been used to ensure the rights of persons in detention to realise the highest attainable standard of health. It examines this right as articulated within United Nations and regional human rights treaties, non‐binding or so‐called soft law instruments from international organisations and the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies. It explores the use of economic, social and cultural rights mechanisms, and those within civil and political rights, as they engage the right to health of prisoners, and identifies the minimum legal obligations of governments in order to remain compliant with human rights norms as defined within the international case law. In addressing these issues, this article adopts a holistic approach to the definition of the highest attainable standard of health. This includes a consideration of adequate standards of general medical care, including preventative health and mental health services. It also examines the question of environmental health, and those poor conditions of detention that may exacerbate health decline, disease transmission, mental illness or death. The paper examines the approach to prison health of the United Nations human rights system and its various monitoring bodies, as well as the regional human rights systems in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Based upon this analysis, the paper draws conclusions on the current fulfilment of the right to health of prisoners on an international scale, and proposes expanded mechanisms under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment to monitor and promote the health rights of prisoners at the international and domestic levels.

I describe the shifting standards model of stereotyping and explain the implications of this model for organizational decisions. I present research showing that the standards one sets for inferring competence and incompetence affect important organizational decisions, including short listing, hiring, probation, and firing decisions. I also present research documenting that gender stereotypes interact with parental status to affect standards set for hiring a mother and father. I conclude by offering recommendations for future research that delineates the subtle ways stereotypes affect judgments of work-related competence.

BY the time these words appear the majority of those who attend Library Association Conferences will have made tentative arrangements for their visit to Margate in June. Already, we understand, adhesions are coming in as many in number as for any September conference, and, if this is so, the fact will reassure those who have doubts of the wisdom of the change from September to June. We give on other pages some outline of the programme and in Letters on Our Affairs are presented with a Study of the subjects of the papers. Here we can concentrate upon one or two important points.

A few weeks ago a correspondent to The Times suggested that there was a good case for the establishment of a Nutrition Council; and in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal a leading article is devoted to this subject. While all will agree that the war has made us very “ food‐conscious,” and that this ensures that for some years the times will continue to be very propitious for acceptance by the public of expert advice upon food, the need for the suggested Council will be questioned; for as The Times correspondent reminds us, there are already many Bodies concerned in some way or other with nutrition. For instance, there are the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Health, the Medical Research Council, the newly‐formed Nutrition Society, the Cabinet Advisory Committee on Food Policy, the Board of Education, the Ministry of Labour and National Service, the Agricultural Research Council, the Food Investigation Board, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research—all of which have food problems to solve. Of these Bodies the war‐time Ministry of Food has been the most successful in stirring the public interest in nutrition as the basis of good health, and so impressing the necessity for making a wise selection of food articles in our daily diet. While much of the advice offered is shaped to meet war‐time circumstances, the success achieved should lead to the adoption of similar methods by any organisation dealing with future peace‐time conditions. But there is much technical information that loudly calls for expert co‐ordination and appraisal, aided by international co‐operation; and this fact favours the formation of a Nutrition Council embracing the highest authorities upon Food and Nutrition. Such a Council would be useful also as a stimulating agency for research, assuming that it is able to “ foot the bill ” ; for there remain many gaps in our knowledge of the subject of Nutrition. As suggested in the British Medical Journal article, such research should be directed “ upon co‐ordinated lines among the various sciences that converge upon the kitchen table.” Lord Horder takes the view that the proposed new Body should be constituted as a Committee of the Privy Council, and so enjoy many advantages that are lacking, in varying degree, among existing organisations above referred to. All information collected by a Nutrition Council which is of essential importance to the public would be conveyed to them by experts in publicity, by every available means, in discharge of its functions as a bureau of information upon the subject of Nutrition; and if this is done in the direct and simple terms that make understanding easy to the masses, its publicity department will not lack success. After full consideration the conclusion is forced upon us that a Nutrition Council would fulfil really useful purposes; for there is much that remains but partly, and sometimes poorly, done by agencies working independently. It would be a great gain to concentrate our efforts in one powerful Body dedicated to the sole object of the improvement of our food‐supply and our national nutrition.

WHAT WAS DESCRIBED as a “new‐look” Library Association Council, the first constituted under the scheme of reorganisation, met last month at Chaucer House. There were many new faces, especially from the ranks of the university and special libraries, and it was a happy thought on somebody's part to have a roll‐call, so that old and new members could be introduced to one another. The reorganisation of the Association was still not signed and sealed by the Privy Council, but members were informed that approval was imminent, subject to a minor alteration in the audit arrangements. This alteration was speedily accepted by Council and the Privy Council's final approval has now been given.

Every summer since 1957 selected leaders of U.S. industry have convened at a rustic but elegant Vail, Colo., conference facility to take a three‐week “leadership development” seminar from professors of the highly rated University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Often the business school's Center for Continuing Studies' staff has had to turn away would‐be participants, including some very distinguished business leaders. But this year, the course will not be offered—university officials canceled it, citing declining profitability.

THE Hastings Conference of the Library Association has come and gone, and the battle fought during the Annual General Meeting was in full keeping with the town's historical tradition. But whereas the defeat of Harold in 1066 led to a long era of stability in English history, the results of the A.G.M. vote last month will cause chaos and uncertainty in the immediate future of the Library Association. After protracted debate the Council's proposals for reorganisation went to the vote and gained a majority of very nearly 4 to 1. But just before the ballot it transpired that, at the request of the Privy Council, to which body the bye‐law alterations must be sent for approval, the votes of institutional delegates had to be counted separately from those of personal members. At the count, over 500 personal members voted for, with 35 against, but the institutional delegate vote was 135 for, with 141 against. So, for the present, all is uncertainty, and librarians everywhere will now await the Privy Council's decision with more than usual interest and impatience.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.