Compelling the EPA to Regulate GHG Emissions Under the Act to Prevent Pollution From Ships

Shipping remains the only sector in the world not currently subject to any legally binding greenhouse gas emission (“GHG”) reduction measures. If left unregulated, ships may represent over 20% of GHG emissions by 2050. This article examines the possibility of compelling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate GHGs from ships under the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (the “APPS”), 33?U.S.C. § 1901, et seq. Unfortunately, until there is an international agreement to reduce GHG emissions from ships, as well as amendments to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships and the APPS, a citizen suit under the APPS will not be effective.     

观往知来：美国第四修正案非法证据排除规则的新发展对中国的启示

美国联邦宪法第四修正案的证据排除规则是一项饱受争议的排除规则,曾经历过从严格适用到不断受限的发展过程,赫灵案的判决进一步削弱了该规则的基础。在未来,对该规则进行限制在相当长的时期内仍是一种主流趋势,其例外规则的适用范围将进一步得到扩张,而该规则本身的适用范围也将被进一步缩小。中国目前初步建立起了非法证据排除规则．在具体...     

Modeling the Impact of Technical Change on Emissions Abatement Investments in Developing Countries

The cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation over time depends on both the rate of technical change in leading-edge technologies and the diffusion of knowledge and capabilities throughout international markets. This paper presents a framework developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and RTI International (RTI) for incorporating technical change in non-CO₂ GHG mitigation projections over time. An engineering (bottom-up) approach is used to model technical change as a set of price and productivity factors that change over time as a function of technology advances and the location of developing countries relative to the technology efficiency frontier. S-shaped diffusion curves are generated, which demonstrate the maturity of the market for a given technology in a given region. The framework is demonstrated for coal mine methane mitigation technologies in the United States and China, but it is applicable for the full range of technology adoption issues.     

China and climate justice: moving beyond statism

China is the largest national source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution causing climate change. However, despite some rhetorical progress at the 2011 Durban climate conference, it has consistently rejected calls to take on binding targets to reduce its GHG emissions. The Chinese Government has understandably argued that developed states are responsible for the predominant share of historical GHG emissions, have greater capacity to pay for the cost of mitigation, and indeed have an obligation to do so before China is required to take action. However, due to the explosive growth in its GHG emissions, China is now in a position to single-handedly dash any hope of climate stability if its position does not change. On the diplomatic level, other big polluters, particularly the United States, will not enter into new binding agreements to reduce substantially their own GHG emissions without a credible commitment from China. Challenging the “statist” framing of the climate justice, this article explores the possibility for China to take on a leadership role in climate change diplomacy in a way that allows it to maintain its long-standing principled resistance to binding national emissions targets while making meaningful progress toward combating the problem. Action by China’s rapidly growing affluent classes may hold the key to long-term climate stability.     

‘US, China and the Economics of Climate Negotiations’

Despite the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, the US decision not to comply with its Kyoto commitments seems to drastically undermine the effectiveness of the Protocol in controlling GHG emissions. Therefore, it is important to explore whether there are economic incentives that might help the US to modify its current decision and move to a more environmentally effective climate policy. For example, can an increased participation of developing countries induce the US to effectively participate in the effort to reduce GHG emissions? Is a single emission trading market the appropriate policy framework to increase the signatories of the Kyoto Protocol? This paper addresses the above questions by analysing whether the participation of China in the cooperative effort to control GHG emissions can provide adequate incentives for the US to re-join the Kyoto process and eventually ratify the Kyoto Protocol. This paper analyses three different climate regimes in which China could be involved and assesses the economic incentives for the major world countries and regions to participate in these three regimes. The main conclusion is that the participation of the US in a climate regime is not likely, at least in the short run. The US is more likely to adopt unilateral policies than to join the present Kyoto coalition (even when it includes China). However, a two bloc regime would become the most preferred option if both China and the US, for some political or environmental reasons, decide to cooperate on GHG emission control. If the US decides to cooperate, the climate regime that provides the highest economic incentives to the cooperating countries is the one in which China and the US cooperate bilaterally, with the Annex B_?US countries remaining within the Kyoto framework.     

Introducing Value Chain Stewardship (VCS)

After a decade of international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a sufficient number of countries have ratified the Kyoto agreement. However, even with this positive development there is a formidable challenge since, according to the World Resource Institute (WRI 2004), For the most part, developed nations have failed to attain the non-binding emission reductions they committed to in the original climate treaty in 1992. Ensuring adherence to the reductions stated in the treaty by these nations may become an immense managerial task, not to mention the enforcement of sanctions. Instead of national emission targets the approach of this paper is to focus on trade within selected industry sectors – i.e. housing and transport – responsible for most of the world’s GHG emissions. This paper shows that vehicle manufacturers – the design owners – may use their information advantages to influence customers to focus on other aspects of the vehicle than costs during use. Expanding the environmental responsibility of the design owners to coincide with the area of environmental impacts will convert emissions cost into a production cost. It is indicated in this paper that when applying the estimated costs for GHG emissions to the vehicle user, strong enough incentives are not given to drive technological change, but if the responsibility is allocated to the design owner the very same additional costs will be an incentive for the designer to use its information advantage to innovate away from those emissions-rendering technologies. A value chain stewardship (VCS) is, thus, established.     

美国海事法规则B保全措施述评

概述美国海事补充规则之规则B的适用条件,并对电子转账的保全、辅助国外仲裁/诉讼的保全、执行国外裁决或判决的保全及对保全的抗辩进行介绍,并分析规则B的最新发展。     

Delay reduction in the federal courts: Rule 50(b) and the Federal Speedy Trial Act of 1974

During the 1970s, 94 federal district courts implemented two major policy initiatives, Rule 50(b) of theFederal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Federal Speedy Trial Act, that were designed in Washington to combat delay in the processing of federal criminal cases. Both of these initiatives established a national priority of delay reduction in criminal cases, encouraged local district court planning for delay reduction; established reporting procedures for monitoring local compliance, and provided for the determination of quantitative goals for the time to disposition of criminal cases. Neither initiative mandated specific activities for delay reduction; this determination was left to the discretion of local federal district courts. This research examines the effectiveness of Rule 50(b) and the Speedy Trial Act by constructing a 150-month time series of three measures of case processing time. A multiple-intervention time-series model found that both of these initiatives contributed to the dramatic reduction in the time to disposition in federal criminal cases. These effects persisted after controls for changes in case characteristics and judicial resources were introduced.Points of view expressed in this research are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.     

Guilty plea hearings and judicial supervision: Some differences between federal and state judges regarding Rule 11 and a defendant’s right to due process

Samples of 120 district court judges from six randomly selected circuit court jurisdictions were compared with 62 circuit and criminal court judges in Tennessee concerning their compliance with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (U.S.C.A., 1986) governing guilty plea hearings. Among other things, Rule 11 provides that judges will inquire of defendants in open court about the voluntariness of their guilty pleas, whether they understand that they are waiving several important constitutional rights, whether there is a factual basis for the guilty plea, whether they realize they have a right to an attorney, and whether they understand the nature and consequences of the charges against them. It was found that federal judges are substantially in compliance with these provisions of Rule 11, although full compliance was not observed for all issue areas. By comparison, Tennessee trial judges adhered to these provisions (duplicated in the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure verbatim) much less frequently. Various reasons for these discrepancies are discussed, as are some implications for defendant’s access to due process and certain constitutional guarantees.     

Special report on antitrust. Criminal antitrust enforcement--when, who, and why?

Government civil antitrust enforcement and private antitrust litigation are not always easy to avoid, because even innocent actions can be alleged to have been improperly motivated or to adversely affect competition. On the other hand, criminal antitrust violations can be readily avoided by following a set of basic, simple, and easy to remember rules: 1. Providers should not agree with competing or potentially competing providers on any terms of price, quantity, or quality of service; 2. Providers should not agree with competing or potentially competing providers as to which patients (or payors) will be served, what kinds of services will be offered, or where to locate offices or facilities; and 3. Providers should not agree with competing or potentially competing providers to refuse to offer services to payors or other alternative delivery systems. There are circumstances in which exceptions to these general rules are appropriate, such as when an agreement among providers is necessary in order to participate in a legitimate alternative delivery system, preferred provider organization, or individual practice association. However, these exceptions are narrow and technical. The best advice is the following warning to providers by Charles F. Rule, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for antitrust: "You should never act as if an exception applies until after you have consulted an experienced antitrust lawyer or until you have obtained adequate assurance that competent counsel has structured the system to eliminate antitrust problems."     

SB 375: Smart Growth Savior or Just the Beginning?

This article analyzes and dissects SB 375. This bill, which was the result of a unique compromise between environmentalists, local governments, and the building industry, seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating incentives for smarter land use and development choices by local governments and developers thereby seeking to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Although proponents and drafters have deemed SB 375 as a bill that will be responsible for reshaping the face of California's communities into more sustainable walkable communities, this article places doubt on these optimistic predictions based on both internal and external constraints that will make achieving its ultimate goal of GHG reduction a demanding task.     

Corporate environmental violence and racism

Drawing upon a social justice framework, this analysis expands and integrates issues relating to corporate violence and environmental justice to investigate the spatial distribution of chemical accidents across census tracts in Hillsborough County, Florida. To test the hypothesis that corporate environmental violence (CEV) is more likely to impact blacks and Hispanics, data from the 1990 census was combined with chemical accident data obtained from the U.S. EPA under the Accidental Release Information Program (ARIP). The results of our bivariate analysis suggest that blacks and Hispanics reside closer to chemical facilities reporting accidents than their white counterparts. A multivariate analysis of the problem reveals that racial sub-populations are much more likely to be proximate to these accidents even when facility location and urbanization are controlled. We discuss the implications of our findings and point out that any solutions to the unequal distribution of CEV must lie outside the traditional criminal justice response. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Reporting to the police in western nations: A theoretical analysis of the effects of social context

One of the most consistent findings in empirical studies using victimization data is that the decision to report victimization to the police is determined in large part by the seriousness of the crime. The police will be notified more often of crimes that involve more serious injury or greater monetary loss. These findings, however, may be due to the fact that most studies on reporting have been conducted using victimization surveys that devote a great deal of attention to the crime event and victim characteristics and much less to the social context of that event. As a result, influences on reporting operating at the neighborhood, jurisdiction, or nation level have been neglected. The aim of this paper is to bring social context into the discourse on reporting to the police by presenting a much more inclusive model of crime reporting. In addition, the influence of four aspects of macro-level social context on reporting are tested—the perceived competence of the police, institutionalization of insurance business, norm of conformity, and level of individualism—by merging incident-level data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) for 16 Western industrialized countries with nation-level data from various sources. Hierarchical logistic modeling is used to analyze the nested data. The perceived competence of the police has a positive effect on whether property crimes are reported.     

Reporting Femicide-Suicide in the News: The Current Utilization of Suicide Reporting Guidelines and Recommendations for the Future

Public health officials have developed and disseminated recommendations for the responsible reporting of suicide in an effort to dispel myths about suicide-completers and minimize contagion effects. However, recommendations as to the reporting of homicide-suicide events have not been a priority in these initiatives. The current study assesses the degree to which newspaper coverage of the most commonly occurring type of homicide-suicide event, femicide-suicide, adhere to existing suicide reporting recommendations by examining newspaper coverage (n?=?143) of a population of femicide-suicide cases (n?=?83) from North Carolina for the years 2002–2009. The current study demonstrates the importance of developing and disseminating reporting guidelines to assist in dispelling myths about the victims and perpetrators of lethal intimate partner violence.     

我国气候变化立法的缺陷及其对策分析

我国气候变化立法存在着一些较为明显的缺陷,这在一定程度上制约着我国温室气体排放控制战略的实施。目前,气候变化问题已经成为威胁人类生存和发展的一大国际环境问题。温室气体的排放控制战略是《气候变化框架公约》所确立的应对气候变化问题的根本举措。我国应当按照《气候变化框架公约》和《京都议定书》的法律要求,健全和完善气候变化立法以进一步控制温室气体的排放量,从而为全球气候变化问题的应对做出更大的贡献。     

Analysis of the governance architecture to regulate GHG emissions from international shipping

Despite the substantial and likely increasing contribution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping and the related adverse impacts on global climate change, GHG emissions from international shipping are yet neither regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, nor through any other legally binding, internationally accepted regulation. This paper is looking into the governance architecture that is currently in place to regulate GHG emissions from international shipping with a view to analyze whether the institutional degree of fragmentation within this architecture is contributing to the current situation where no legally binding, internationally accepted regulation has been set up yet. Following the hypothesis that the degree and the characteristics of governance fragmentation have a crucial impact on the effectiveness and performance of a governance system, this paper focuses on the current architecture of climate change governance in international shipping and the institutional interplay between its actors. Therefore, the analytical framework builds on approaches from international environmental governance, regime theory, institutional interplay, and fragmentation in international governance architectures.     

Waiver of two-year home-country physical presence requirement, foreign medical graduates, exchange visitor program--USIA. Final rule

Section 220 of the Immigration and Nationality Technical Corrections Act of 1994 (Pub. L. 103-416) amended Section 212(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(e)) and added a new subsection (k) to section 214 of that Act (8 U.S.C. 1184) regarding waiver of the two-year foreign residence requirement as it applies to foreign medical graduates. An Interim Final Rule with request for comments was published in the Federal Register on April 3, 1995 (60 FR 16785). This final rulemaking amends the Exchange Visitor Program regulations to reflect those legislative changes.     

The Relationship Between Crime Reporting and Police: Implications for the Use of Uniform Crime Reports

Empirical studies that use reported crime data to evaluate policies for reducing crime will understate the true effectiveness of these policies if crime reporting/recording behavior is also affected by the policies. For instance, when the size of the police force increases, changes in the perceived likelihood that a crime will be solved may lead a higher fraction of victimizations to be reported to the police. In this paper, three data sets are employed to measure the magnitude of this reporting bias. While each of these analyses is subject to individual criticisms, all of the approaches yield similar estimates. Reporting bias appears to be present but relatively small in magnitude: each additional officer is associated with an increase of roughly five Index crimes that previously would have gone unreported. Taking reporting bias into account makes the hiring of additional police substantially more attractive from a cost–benefit perspective but cannot explain the frequent inability of past studies to uncover a systematic negative relationship between the size of the police force and crime rates.     

Environmental effectiveness and economic consequences of fragmented versus universal regimes: what can we learn from model studies?

A post-2012 regime aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could develop towards a universal or fragmented regime. The fundamental difference between a universal and a fragmented regime is that the first involves a single comprehensive climate regime in which all countries participate, whereas the second involves either multiple treaties or a single treaty in which not all countries participate. This study assesses the literature on a wide range of different model studies concerning the environmental effectiveness and economic consequences of various universal and fragmented climate regimes. The most important conclusions (e.g. relative position of regions in terms of costs) are generally consistent across different studies, despite the differences in methodology. We conclude that stabilising GHG concentrations at low levels is more costly with a fragmented regime than with a universal regime, because reduction targets must be achieved by a smaller number of countries or because fragmented treaties may prevent reducing GHGs where it is cheapest to do so. However, establishing a universal regime will be challenging due to cost differences between regions if emissions are allocated based on specific allocation rules and incentives to free-ride on a universal regime. Even though alternative behaviours such as responsibility, the implementation of transfer schemes or exclusive membership can increase the likelihood of achieving a universal regime, a fragmented regime seems more feasible. Therefore, a transitional fragmented ‘coalition of the willing’ could be established first, which could provide the basis for a larger, universal regime in the long term.