我国区域经济一体化背景下的行政协议

我国区域经济一体化背景下出现的行政协议,是区域政府为克服行政区划障碍而进行合作的法律机制。区域政府间的行政协议,应当以区域平等为法治基础,是对话和协商的结果。行政协议的缔结,主要涉及主体资格、公众参与和主要条款等问题,关系到中央与地方、地方与地方、政府与公众、公权与私权的界限,行政协议的履行,则涉及行政协议的效力、实施机构和纠纷解决机制。行政协议不仅适用于区域政府间的合作,也可适用于所有行政机关之间纠纷的解决与合作。但是它的运用和发展,需要以行政协议法为制度平台。     

离职竞业限制违约金问题探究

目前,很多离职竞业限制合同没有约定给付劳动者补偿金,却约定了劳动者违反竞业限制义务时应承担的违约金责任,对于这样的违约金条款是否具有法律约束力存在激烈的意见分歧。我国现行立法对此未做明确的规定,一些地方为便于执法则做出了各自不同的规定,导致司法实践中的法律裁决也存在巨大的差异。从合同权利的性质、当事人的法律地位以及法律维护合同实质公平的角度来看,离职竞业限制合同应当无效,违约金责任也不具有法律效力。在现实经济活动中,已约定补偿金的离职竞业限制合同,几乎同时也约定了劳动者违反竞业限制义务时的违约金责任,一些合同在给予劳动者较低的补偿金的同时,却要求劳动者违约时须承担巨额的违约金。如此一来,该违约金应如何处理就成了这类案件争议的焦点。对此,应在立法上弥补相应的缺失,明确规定无补偿金条款时该离职竞业限制合同无效,则违约金条款也无须履行;对于已约定补偿金的,也应提出补偿金数额方面的强制性要求,并明确违约金可调整的样态。     

以法经济学的视角浅析婚前协议

法经济学的产生及发展使法学的研究手段拓宽到经济领域,使法学研究的视野不再局限于公平正义的权衡与选择,而是开辟了一条法学与经济结合的新路径.经济学作为一个对法律规范进行分析的有力工具,在一个资源稀缺的世界,效率是一个公认的价值,即考虑如何使整个社会的成本最小.当前,全社会离婚率呈上升态势,签订婚前财产协议这种未雨绸缪的做法能事先就财产等事项的处分达成一致,显然可以简化程序和节省各方人力、物力、财力,是一种社会进步的表现.     

Negotiating North–South dynamics and the Philippine experience in the WTO

This paper elucidates how domestic and external factors have shaped the negotiating policy of the Philippines in bringing about incremental gains not only for its benefit but also for other developing countries during the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture Doha Development Round (DDR). The internal factors include the following: (1) executive monopoly of the WTO negotiations; (2) issue-based fragmentation and dispersal of authority; (3) the autonomy and flexibility of the Philippine WTO negotiator; (4) the involvement of civil society in the WTO negotiations, and (4) the central role of the Department of Agriculture as the lead agency in the WTO negotiations. A major reason for this is attributed to an external factor which is the centrality of agriculture as a major WTO issue among developing countries. Other external factors, on the other hand, include the following: (1) the strong solidarity among developing countries and (2) the confinement to particular issues with regards to coalition-building. These factors helped to strengthen the bargaining leverage of the Philippines, a seemingly ‘weak’ country, vis-à-vis the developed countries in the WTO.     

家事协议的效力与认定

家事协议是由具备家事行为能力的家庭成员就家庭生活重要事项协商一致达成的约束所有家庭成员之协议。具体司法裁判中，家事协议效力应基于其与法律之多重博弈关系，通过考量司法政策取向、司法能力及其系统性影响等因素来认定和择取案件最佳裁判路径与效果。     

通讯企业劳务用工管理探析

通讯企业用工形式多样,劳务用工是其当前主要的用工形式之一。这种用工形式一方面为企业减少了人工成本的支出,提高了人员管理效率,另一方面也给企业带来了一定的法律风险。如何完善劳务用工机制,避免不必要的劳动纠纷,使劳务派遣人员的既得利益不受到损害,促进企业健康发展,是通讯企业亟待解决的问题。     

Endangering alliance or risking proliferation?: US–Japan and US–Korea nuclear energy cooperation agreements

This paper seeks to understand why the United States treated Japan and Korea differently in the revisions of bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements. On the sensitive issue of grating its allies the rights of developing enrichment and reprocessing (ENR), the United States did so for Japan in the 1977 and 1987 revisions, but did not for Korea during the 2015 revision. For the great power as a supplier state, there are two factors affecting the decision: policy-makers’ concern about alliance management prior to the calculation of security outcome, and firms’ commercial interests. In order to avoid damage to the US–Japan alliance and to maintain Japan's complementation for the US nuclear industry, Washington granted the rights of ENR to Tokyo. In contrast, because of its confidence of managing the US–Korea alliance and partly because of incompatibility of commercial interests between the two, Washington did not grant the rights to Seoul at the 2015 revision. Based on the comparison of the two cases, this paper underscores a need to alter the power projection theory regarding nuclear proliferation by explicating the alliance management as the ex ante element of power projection and by accounting for commercial interests such as fuel sale and technological partnership.     

医疗纠纷协商和解的利弊分析及对策

协商和解是解决医疗纠纷的重要方式,有明确的法律依据,但在实践当中也存在诸多弊端。要充分发挥协商和解的优势,消除其弊端关键在于依法办事,只有依法办事才能从根本上保障医患双方的合法权益。     

Full circle? Ideas and ordeals of creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

In 2004 and 2006, proposals were made at APEC summits to establish a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). This was an essentially a reworking of an idea first raised in the mid-1960s to create a Pacific Free Trade Area, or PAFTA. Although the PAFTA initiative never advanced, it helped lay the first organizational foundations for regional economic community building in the Asia-Pacific. The recent FTAAP proposal thus brings us full circle to the antecedent origins of APEC itself. If realized, an FTAAP would also create a free trade zone that would encircle the Pacific Rim economy and thereby subsume the region's now large number of bilateral and sub-regional free trade agreements (FTAs) into one unified agreement. Yet there are many inherent problems with establishing an FTAAP. These broadly relate to deconstructing the preferentialism of existing bilateral and sub-regional FTAs, achieving a consensus on the technical policy content and ideational principles on which an FTAAP would be based, and addressing various geopolitical issues such as reconciling the formation of a pan-regional Asia-Pacific FTA with an already fragile multilateral trading system. Growing interest in a ‘rival’ East Asia Free Trade Area project presents another geopolitical challenge. In considering these and other questions, it is concluded that many obstacles will remain in the path to realizing an FTAAP, and that this may not actually be a desirable objective to pursue for some time yet.     

Expert Interpretation of Bitemark Injuries—A Contemporary Qualitative Study

This study attempts to characterize the nature of disagreement among odontologists in determining the fundamental properties of suspected bitemark injuries. Fifteen odontologists were asked to freely comment on six images of supposed bitemarks. Qualitative analysis using a grounded theory approach revealed that practitioner agreement was at best fair, with wide‐ranging opinions on the origin, circumstance, and characteristics of the wound given for all six images. More experienced practitioners (>10 years) tended to agree with each other less than those who had 10 years or less experience in forensic odontology. The differences in opinions can be at least partly accounted for by the inconsistent nature of approaches used by different practitioners in assessing bitemark evidence. The results of this study indicate that more definitive guidelines as to the assessment of bitemarks as patterned injuries should be developed to ensure the highest possible level of practitioner agreement.