Business Adaptation to Regulation: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

There is, predictably, a gap between the normative model and empirical pictures of regulation drawn from many societies. We may get an approximation of the goals of much regulation, but often regulatory policy is not carried out exactly as legislated. Agencies pursue enforcement strategies in light of their priorities and resources. They engage in soft law enforcement and bargain with the targets of regulation. Regulated businesses have many tactics available to blunt or evade regulation. We can fashion plausible normative arguments both for and against these common empirical pictures. To a great extent, however, these normative positions rest on unexamined empirical assumptions. Future research might profitably focus on the roles played by those individuals who act for business associations and cope with regulation. Attention should be paid particularly to the roles played by business lawyers in such coping. James Gould Cozzens' novel , Guard of Honor, suggests how lawyers comply narrowly, evade, cover up and otherwise divert the impact of regulation, all in the service of what they see as the greater good. Cozzens' story suggests important empirical and normative questions for future consideration.     

为什么要立法保护投资自由

中国国民一旦享有投资自由,投资市场就会产生更多合法的投资渠道和＂财产性收入＂。积蓄的民间资本之水被疏导至合法的投资出路,自然不会流向非法的投资去处,也就用不着让＂非法吸收公众存款罪＂和＂集资诈骗罪＂费力不讨好地堵塞民间资本之水。然而,迄今仍然存在着投资法律空白     

Global Politics of Mercury Pollution: The Need for Multi-Scale Governance

This article analyses international legal and policy developments on mercury from the 1970s to the present time, and examines options for continued abatement. Multiple scientific assessments have demonstrated that mercury is an environmental pollutant that can pose a serious threat to human health and development. Currently, the international community is engaged in extensive debate about options for improved mercury governance. This article will critically examine three major policy options under discussion: the creation of a global mercury convention; the regulation of mercury under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants; and the development of voluntary partnerships. It is concluded that expanded and better integrated policy efforts are needed across global, regional and local governance scales to address mercury pollution and contamination effectively.     

Countering Hybrid Eco-threats to Global Security Under International Law: The Need for an Comprehensive Legal Approach

Threats to environmental security (‘eco-threats’) face not only shortcomings of environmental protection during hostilities under the Law of Armed Conflict. Considering the new ‘Hybrid Threat’ concept, which had recently been discussed by NATO, the authors recognise from the perspective of International Law the need for adopting a comprehensive legal approach towards such threats. The International Environmental Law, the International Humanitarian Law and the Customary International Law show some shortcomings to tackle the new challenge. In the focus is the rule of law, in particular the principle of proportionality, which can play a role when countering such threats and legal rules can have a positive effect on the international community’s ability to act.     

Green Alert: The Need to Rescue New York's Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard

New York is set to miss the 2015 Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard deadline, due in a large part to over-reliance on in-state generation projects. Although much of the current discussion and articles written about New York energy policies are focused on hydrofracking, clean and renewable energy should not be lost in the discussion and the state cannot afford to miss a major energy policy goal. This article provides an analysis of the current energy policies of the Cuomo administration and highlights a major out-of-state generation project, the Champlain Hudson Power Express.     

New Approaches to Age Estimation Using Palatal Suture Fusion

Palatal suture fusion has seen little testing and/or application due in part to an inadequately described relationship to formal age ranges. This study presents a modified scoring method that examines fusion on samples of modern documented adult males and compares two Bayesian approaches to age estimation. In the first analysis, American and Portuguese collections were used to derive univariate and multivariate transition analysis (TA) parameters, which combined with an informative prior, estimated age in a sample of modern Americans and Portuguese. For the second analysis, a Bayesian multiple linear regression (BMLR) used indicator statuses as the independent variables with age as the dependent variable. Highest posterior density regions (HPDRs) and highest posterior density intervals (HDI) were calculated for a holdout sample. Final age estimates for the methods were tested for accuracy using cumulative binomial tests at 75% and 90% coverages. The HPDRs from multivariate TA captured age better for younger individuals, but consistently underaged. The cumulative binomial tests on the BMLR results indicated the prediction intervals performed as expected, and we show they are narrower (more precise) and/or more accurate than the corresponding HPDR. The modified method presented here formally links palatal suture obliteration to age using two different approaches, one of which (BMLR) is new to the aging literature. The BMLR provided results free from bias and more reasonable age ranges while maintaining accuracy. We present a look-up table and a free, simple R file for users to download and run their own estimates with BMLR.     

New Approaches to Technology Transfer from Publicly Funded Research

The conventional wisdom is that American universities transfer technologies more rapidly and more effectively than their European counterparts. While this appears to be true, it is important to note that there are substantial cultural, legal, and regulatory differences between the two regions, and even within Europe. We believe that European universities can enhance their effectiveness in technology transfer if this function is given more visibility and prestige, enhanced public support, and formal procedures are implemented to facilitate benchmarking. In this paper, we examine some of the differences in university technology transfer in Europe and the U.S., and discuss these new approaches, which have recently been fully supported by the European Commission.     

Act and omission,mens rea,and complicity: Approaches to codification

This article is an updated and edited version of a briefing paper prepared for a seminar on The Structure of Conduct and Blame, Including Duties and Secondary Liability, at the first conference of the Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, Inns of Court, London, England, July 26–29, 1987.     

Human Rights, Risks, and New Strategies for Global Investment

It is often argued that the rules and practices of foreign directinvestment can threaten the protection of human rights. Thatdanger used to arise from the fact that the investors simplydismissed concern for these rights as their responsibility.This is no longer so. Major lenders and project sponsors nowregularly make commitments to human rights and to allied principlesgoverning environmental protection and health and safety. Thedanger instead arises from the way in which the two domainsare being brought together. The collision that threatens isnot over whether, but over how commercial imperatives are tobe integrated with this branch of social justice. The article aims at diagnosis of the problem and considers somepossible solutions to it. It frames the issues in terms of severalcompeting fundamental principles, and draws on concrete examplesfrom the investment contracts regulating the Baku – Tibilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) and Chad/Cameroon pipeline projects. Once theareas of potential collision between these contracts and humanrights requirements are explored, the essay considers a significantalteration to the BTC agreement, designed to open it up moreeffectively to human rights concerns. The analysis ends witha consideration of some model clauses for investment contractsin the future.     

From International Sanitary Conventions to Global Health Security: The New International Health Regulations

In May 2005, the World Health Organization adopted the new InternationalHealth Regulations (IHR), which constitute one of the most radicaland far-reaching changes to international law on public healthsince the beginning of international health co-operation inthe mid-nineteenth century. This article comprehensively analysesthe new IHR by examining the history of international law oninfectious disease control, the IHR revision process, the substantivechanges contained in the new IHR and concerns regarding thefuture of the new IHR. The article demonstrates why the newIHR constitute a seminal event in the relationship between internationallaw and public health and send messages about how human societiesshould govern their vulnerabilities to serious, acute diseaseevents in the twenty-first century.