Lifestyle Medicine is an evidence-based medical discipline that emphasises behaviour change to improve overall health, focusing on mental wellbeing, social connections, healthy eating, physical activity, sleep, and minimising harmful behaviours. The approach bridges clinical practice with public health interventions, targeting both individual and population health. It is effective in preventing, treating, and sometimes reversing chronic diseases through lifestyle modification. Clinicians practising Lifestyle Medicine support actions beyond clinical consultations, advocating for healthy environments and policies. The discipline also addresses the challenges of non-communicable diseases and enhances resilience against infectious diseases. It offers an alternative to over-medicalisation, promoting self-care and lifestyle changes alongside traditional medical treatments. The new medical paradigm recognises the modifiability of gene expression and the importance of lifestyle factors in health outcomes. Lifestyle Medicine is increasingly integrated into medical education and healthcare delivery systems. It aligns with the shift towards person-centred care that focuses on patients’ values and goals, contributing to a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing.

Legal activity in the third quarter-century of the life of the Convention has greatly surpassed that of the first two quarter-centuries. This can be measured in terms of case law and scholarly writing. The interpretation of the Convention’s definition of genocide has remained quite narrow, and is essentially confined to physical genocide, destruction and extermination. There is potential for this to change in such a way as to extend the scope of the Convention to situations where groups are attacked with view to being driven from the territory where they have lived. This would require a degree of judicial activism. Care must be taken because of the danger of uncontrolled expansion of the definition. The phenomenon of politicized allegations of genocide is significant. Although there has been some resistance to the idea of a hierarchy of international crimes, genocide should remain ’the crime of crimes’.

The title of the Convention and article I both refer to the obligation to prevent genocide. However, the Convention provides no other guidance on the scope of this obligation. In its 2007 judgment in Bosnia v. Serbia the International Court of Justice held that Serbia had had been in breach of its obligation to prevent genocide because it failed to exert pressure on Bosnian Serb forces who were preparing to commit genocide at Srebrenica. The doctrine developed by the Court was quite radical in that it recognized an extraterritoriaoutside their own gterritory unless l dimension of the obligation, one that varied in scope depending upon the influence the State Party was capable of exerting. Prevention of genocide is also contemplated in the General Assembly resolution on the responsibility to protect. Means employed to prevent genocide must be otherwise lawful. States cannot use force to prevent genocide unless authorised pursuant to the Charter of the United Nations.

Genocide is sometimes called the ’crime of crimes’. The word was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, then declared an international crime by the United Nations General Assembly. In 1948, the Genocide Convention was adopted. As the first human rights treaty of modern times, it constituted a significant intrusion into what had previously been a matter exclusively of domestic concern. This explains the narrow definition of the crime of genocide. It requires proof of an intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Only a half century after its adoption did the Genocide Convention take on real significance with inter-State cases being filed at the International Court of Justice and many prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Convention requires that States Parties punish genocide but they are also required to prevent it, even when it takes place outside their own territory. More than 150 States have ratified the Genocide Convention. Genocide is also prohibited under customary international law. It is generally agreed that the duty to punish genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens).

Executives, managers, and employees use legal knowledge with varying levels of sophistication which I term "pathways of legal strategy." There are five discrete pathways of legal strategy that firms use in their legal environment of business. The avoidance pathway focuses on circumvention of legal rules. Firms practicing conformance seek minimum compliance with legal obligations. Prevention firms apply business knowledge to avert legal wrongdoing. Value firms leverage legal knowledge to create and capture value. Firms pursuing a transformation strategy use legal knowledge to redefine the organization or an industry. Each of these pathways is analyzed for its distinct traits regarding the manager’s perception of the law, the level of legal knowledge in the organization, and the role of legal experts, and the pathway’s reinforcement of organizational goals. The pathways can help organizations identify strategic uses of legal knowledge, highlight any mismatches, and develop a clear trajectory in order to shift from one pathway to another. The first three pathways (avoidance, conformance, and prevention) will be addressed in this chapter.

Screening for breast cancer using mammography is one of the most common medical tests for women aged 50 and older. In the United States, many protocols initiate mammography at ages 40 or 45. Although cancer screening tests are widely advocated, some systematic reviews find little evidence supporting the most common screening tests. Cancer screening clearly identifies lesions at an earlier stage. Yet, when evaluated against cancer-specific or all-cause mortality, screening is less likely to be associated with longer life of higher quality of life. This chapter reviews a series of biases, including lead time bias and length bias, that may explain the discrepancy between enthusiasm for cancer screening and clinical trials that have consistently failed to show benefit. We also review potential harms of screening, such as false positive results, unnecessary biopsies, and anxiety. We conclude that more studies are needed, particularly investigations that include a heterogeneous mix of studies participants.

HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, also known as statin medications, are used to reduce cholesterol levels in efforts to prevent heart attacks and strokes. Extensive evidence justifies the use of statins. As an exercise, we take a skeptical look at the evidence and raise concerns about the consistency, patient-centeredness, and potency of benefit. Much of the justification for statins focuses on LDL cholesterol as a surrogate for heart disease. Only one major clinical trial has demonstrated that statins (versus placebos) result in longer life expectancy. Subject populations evaluated in statin trials tend to be highly selected. Older adults, a group that almost universally uses the medications, have been studied only rarely. Assuming that lower LDL levels reflect better health, a recent campaign promotes lowering LDL cholesterol values to below 50 mg/dl. The campaign is based on the assumption that the relationship between LDL cholesterol and mortality is linear. Inspection of the data reveals that the relationship is log linear; there is more benefit for initiating treatment among people who are initially at high LDL levels in comparison with those who are initially at lower risk.

Mental illness continues to be a leading cause of illness in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. The effects of reduced mental health have significant consequences for individuals, families and the community. Prevention and early intervention are crucial to improve health outcomes. Much of the support and care for individuals and families experiencing mental health illness occurs within the community, and nurses are major providers of that care. This chapter focuses on the role of community mental health nurses in providing recovery-orientated care for individuals living with mental illness and their families.

Richard Tremblay started his professional career as a clinician with juvenile delinquents and mentally ill offenders. He spent the rest of his career doing longitudinal and experimental studies to identify effective preventive interventions during the preschool and elementary school years. Results from these studies showed that early interventions with at risk children and their parents had very long-term impacts. Within these longitudinal studies, he also studied genetic and epigenetic effects on the development of violent behavior.