WTO解决贸易与环境争端的实践取向与我国的法律对策

WTO在解决贸易与环境争端的实践中,对环保规则做出了富有发展性的新的解释,表现出比在GATT时代更加重视环保的取向。面对这种形势,我国作为一个深受环境壁垒之害的贸易大国,应做出全面的法律对策。     

试论我国行政纠纷解决机制的完善

行政纠纷是社会纠纷的一种,其存在具有客观必然性。随着行政权的扩张,行政纠纷大量出现,从而使和谐社会的建立面临挑战。在这样的社会背景下,完善现有的行政纠纷解决机制成为必然。本文从分析现有行政纠纷解决机制的缺陷入手,尝试性地提出一些重构和健全现有行政纠纷解决机制的途径,以促进我国行政救济制度的完善。     

Explaining criminal victimization in Taiwan: A lifestyle approach

Routine activities and lifestyle-exposure theories were shaped and substantially tested in Western societies; this study extended their application to a non-Western context in Taiwan. Using the most recent but underutilized 2005 Taiwan Areas Criminal Victimization Survey, responses from a random sample of 18,046 participants were analyzed for robbery, assault, and personal larceny victimization. The findings showed that the risk factors associated with criminal victimization in Taiwan resembled those in Western nations, but anomalies also appeared. Females faced a higher risk of being robbed than males; married and affluent persons were more likely to be victims of personal larceny than not married or less affluent persons; and those who stayed home at night were more likely to be assaulted than those who went out at night. The discussion of these findings suggest that explaining victimization patterns involve more than victims' attributes or lifestyles; the social and cultural context should be considered as well.     

Explaining corruption: An institutional choice approach

The end of the Cold War, thestrengthening of world democracy, and the advancement of neoliberaleconomic reforms, have exposed corruption as a major world problem andspawned a plethora of international and national anti-corruption programs. Past theorizing has increased our knowledge about corruption, however, aninterdisciplinary (political, economic, cultural) theory of the causes ofpolitical corruption has never emerged. This article develops amiddle-range interdisciplinary theory of the causes of corruption builtthrough employment of an institutional choice analytic frame. The analyticframe draws on the Institutional Analysis and Development work of ElinorOstrom, Roy Gardner, & James Walker, and the constructivist work ofNicholas Onuf. The resultant theory is advanced through a statisticalanalysis. The article concludes that ongoing international and nationalanti-corruption programs will likely fail unless they include reforms to stateinternal power structures and political cultures.     

Real reform begins within: an organizational approach to health care reform

Health care systems are under pressure to control their increasing costs, to better adapt to evolving demands, to improve the quality and safety of care, and ultimately to ameliorate the health of their populations. This article looks at a battery of organizational options aimed at transforming health care systems and argues that more attention must be paid to reforming the delivery mechanisms that are so crucial for health care systems' overall performance. To support improvement, policies can rely on organizational assets in two ways. First, reforms can promote the creation of new organizational forms; second, they can employ organizational levers (e.g., capacity development, team-based organizations, evidence-informed practices) to achieve specific policy goals. In both cases organizational assets are mobilized with a view to creating complete health care organizations -- that is to say, organizations that have the capacity to function as high-performing systems. The challenges confronting the development of more complete health care organizations are significant. Real health care system reforms may likewise require implementing ecologies of complex innovation at the clinical, organizational, and policy levels. Policies play a determining role in shaping these new spaces for action so that day-to-day practices may change.     

论行政争议——兼论行政争议与民事争议之区分

行政争议作为行政诉讼制度的核心概念 ,是行政诉讼与民事诉讼、刑事诉讼的根本不同之处 ,如何界定与判定行政争议则是行政诉讼理论中的一个基本问题。本文在公私法二元分立理论背景之下指出行政争议是行政主体在行使公权力过程中与相对人 (公民、法人和其他组织 )之间发生的、依据公法可以解决的争议 ,并以主体、公权力、权利义务等因素作为判断行政争议的标准。提出了从制度层面增加“行政争议”的概括性规定和设立权限争议的解决机制两点建议。     

CARICOM states and the WTO dispute settlement system: the case for greater engagement

This paper examines the participation of member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s dispute settlement system and its associated negotiations. In so doing, it highlights the dispute settlement system’s important contribution to the WTO and the need for CARICOM member states to engage more actively with this aspect of the WTO’s work. The paper concludes by articulating some of the lessons learnt from CARICOM member states’ experiences to date and offering some concrete suggestions on how the region can improve its current record of engagement.     

A mouse's tail: how to settle an insurance dispute

Over the last years insurance companies have shown an increased interest in identifications of pest species, either as a form of risk assessment or to address liability issues. This paper describes a case report of such a forensic insurance investigation. The names of the corporations involved have been withheld in compliance with a pre-existing confidentiality agreement. A sea container containing sterile goods was shipped from China to the Netherlands. Upon inspection at its final destination, the contents were declared lost due to the presence of a dead mouse. Determination of which company should be held liable for this loss depended on where the mouse entered the container. The specimen was identified as belonging to the genus Apodemus (Muridae) based on morphology. Two species, A. sylvaticus and A. flavicollis occur in the Netherlands, two different species, A. agrarius and A. draco, occur in the relevant area in Eastern China. The distribution areas of these Dutch and Chinese Apodemus species do not overlap. Because the specimen was adolescent and partly mummified, key morphological characters for species-level identification were missing or not discernable. Published literature and sequence data available on GenBank showed that the four candidate species could be distinguished based on Cytochrome B barcode sequences. Given the decayed condition of the specimen, we expected possible DNA degradation. Therefore, both internal Cyt B primers (designed to amplify a short nucleotide sequence) and universal primers (which amplify a fourfold larger fragment) were employed. Remarkably, the primerset that was designed to amplify a short Cyt B sequence of A. draco amplified a well-studied pseudogene of A. sylvaticus. Both the Cyt B and the pseudogene sequence confirmed that the specimen in question is A. sylvaticus. Contamination of the sterile goods must therefore had taken place in the Netherlands.     

Perceptions of controllers on EU data protection reform: A Finnish perspective

Data protection regulations are undergoing a global reform. The European Commission proposed a reform of the EU data protection framework in 2012. One major driver for the reform has been the research on the consumer perceptions indicating that the consumers are worried about their personal privacy. However, there has been practically no research on perceptions of companies (the controllers of the personal data) and on the data protection reform. This research analyses the awareness and the willingness to act towards compliance regarding the proposed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Finland in 2013. The GDPR will replace the Finnish Personal Data Act and therefore plays a central role in the Finnish privacy regulation. This research found that the general level of awareness was low: only 43% of the controllers were aware of the forthcoming reform. The willingness to act or to take steps towards the compliance was even lower: 31% of controllers said that they are planning to act towards compliance during this year. These results indicate that the companies are quite unfamiliar with the reform that correlates with other relevant studies in Europe. Personal data are said to be the oil of the digital economy, the hottest commodity of the market today. There are companies that understand this, but the majority seems to ignore this at least what comes to their awareness regarding the reform, even the reform captures many of the best practices regarding processing of personal data.     

A democratic responsiveness approach to real reform: an exploration of health care systems' resilience

Real reforms attempt to change how health care is financed and how it is rationed. Three main explanations have been offered to explain why such reforms are so difficult: institutional gridlock, path dependency, and societal preferences. The latter posits that choices made regarding the health care system in a given country reflect the broader societal set of values in that country and that as a result public resistance to real reform may more accurately reflect citizens' personal convictions, self-interest, or even active social choices. "Conscientious objectors" may do more to derail reform than previously recognized.