The Government’s Regulatory Obligations to Public Utilities Franchise

Under the public utilities franchise system, the executive branch may transfer the task of providing public utilities services for the common good to a private party. It should undertake to regulate and prevent the private party from pursuing its own interests to the detriment of public interest while discharging its duty under the public utilities franchise. Since any public interest must be enjoyed by all individuals, we can say that the obligations owed under administrative regulations aim at the ultimate goal of increasing individual welfare. In the public utilities franchise system, regulations of this kind can be divided into six different categories: maintaining and promoting necessary market competition, ensuring the continuity of public utilities services, ensuring non-discriminatory provision of public utilities services, ensuring the quality of public utilities services, ensuring reasonable charges for public utilities services, and ensuring the conservation of energy and protection of the environment while providing public utilities services. The absence of governmental regulation of the provision of public utilities and of reforms in such services in China has harmed both public interest and the rights and interests of consumers. Some of the problems caused include chaotic market access for public utilities, no guarantee of the sustainability of public utilities, the failure of the universality of public utilities, declining quality of public utilities, sharp rise in the prices of public utilities, insufficient regulations on the conservation of energy and environmental protection, and so on. In order to achieve the effective implementation of the administrative regulations and obligations therein with respect to public utilities and the maximization of public interest, the Chinese government should enhance its consciousness of regulating public utilities, improve the legal system to regulate public utilities, perfect the regulatory system for public utilities, and establish a system of liability to compensate for failures in regulation.     

A Second Scottish Independence Referendum: Should the Diaspora get a Vote?

The 2014 Scottish independence referendum settled little in terms of Scotland's constitutional future. The after-effects of what was the largest exercise in democracy in Scottish history certainly increased Scotland's devolved authority but, following withdrawal from the EU and with continuing differences and disagreements between the Westminster and Scottish governments, there have been increasing demands for a second referendum. One aspect of these conversations has been about the voting rights of Scots living outside Scotland, whose relationship with the nation would certainly be impacted by any successful vote for Scottish independence. And yet, they have had no voice in that decision and despite calls for their inclusion in any future vote, such inclusion remains unlikely. This article examines the reasons why such inclusion would be challenging and then considers what the Scottish diaspora think about Scottish independence and voting rights, by considering qualitative responses to a survey of members of the Scottish diaspora.     

特许经营中的信息披露制度

近年特许经营发展呈迅猛势头。如何加强管理,避免特许经营销售成为诈骗金钱的方式,成为引导其良性发展的关键。我们应借鉴国外做法,建立完备的信息披露制度,以促使我国特许经营良性发展。     

国际特许经营中商标独占使用权保护的困境与选择——由一起商标商品平行进口案例引发的思考

国际特许经营中商标商品的平行进口造成了对特许经营人商标独占使用权的侵害。本文着力分析了这一具体平行进口模型中平行进口行为的性质,试图探求一种被侵害知识产权的救济方式。在效益不同而权利发生冲突时应遵循效益最大化原则。如何通过保护特许经营人之商标权来实现利益最大化或者至少防止利益失衡应成为我们要思考的一个问题。     

公用事业特许经营的行政法观察

对于行政法学知识体系来说,公用事业特许经营在传统上与法国的公务特许和行政公产利用理论相联系,在当代与德国和我国台湾地区的公私协力理论相呼应。厘清公用事业特许经营在行政法上的地位,有助于澄清理论上存在的一些争论,发现实践中存在的问题,为我国公用事业特许经营的健康发展提供指导。     

公用事业特许决策中的风险评估制度研究

特许经营作为民营化的一种常见方式被广泛应用于公用事业领域，但我国公用事业特许经营决策机制中风险评估制度的缺失，使公用事业市场化改革隐藏着巨大风险。通过对风险评估制度内涵及其性质的分析，揭示出风险评估的作用及其局限性，并试图在此基础上构建一套行之有效的风险评估制度，以确保评估主体的独立、评估内容的全面、评估程序的科学和公正、评估结论的说理和公开。     

人权与公民权之异同

人权和公民权是两个关系非常密切的概念,它们既有相同之处,又有细微差别。它们的共同点表现为:起源相同,社会基础和制约条件相同,内容基本相同,价值取向和理论基础相同。它们的区别体现在:主体不完全相同,适用范围不同,属性不同,表达方式的差异,实施和监督机制的差异,救济途径的差异。     

Democratic Representation and the Property Franchise in Australian Local Government

Australia remains one of the last liberal democracies to retain a property franchise at the local government level. This particular feature is both the result of historical particularities and contemporary political arrangements. This article analyses the property franchise in the City of Melbourne, the capital of the Australian State of Victoria, based on democratic theory and an empirical study. It illustrates the tensions between the democratic principles of representation and political equality in defining structures for representation at the local government level. The authors suggest that a more nuanced interpretation of representation can be adopted at a local level based on territorial residency rather than legal citizenship. Despite this, based on analysis of both electoral and non‐electoral mechanisms, the property franchises are found to be anachronistic and indefensible from a democratic perspective and unrelated to the status of capital city. The article concludes that, at a local level, deliberative democracy holds the promise to better represent various interests, including property interests.     

Passed,regulated, or applied? The different stages of emigrant enfranchisement in Latin America and the Caribbean

ABSTRACT

When are emigrants really enfranchised? Lengthy lags exist between some reforms that de jure introduced external voting and their application. In the blooming literature on emigrant enfranchisement, these lags remain unexplained. We argue that this hampers our understanding of enfranchisement processes as having different legal and political stages. With data on Latin American and Caribbean states since 1965 until the present, we investigate why some states in this region have delayed the regulation and application of external franchise while others have implemented it right after enactment. We propose hypotheses to understand these reforms as episodes marked by different contexts, engineered by different agent coalitions and embedded into larger processes of political change. In particular, we suggest that enfranchisement processes are composed of three stages: enactment, regulation, and first application. Our findings suggest that the process of adoption of external voting is shaped by the legal mechanism of enactment and the stability of political coalitions.     

特许经营中的商标权保护——以特许人权利保护为视角

特许经营的发展是以知识产权的集中许可和使用为其基本特征，商标权是特许经营权的核心内容之一。以商标权为核心的知识产权在特许经营中体现了重要的价值功能。由于特许人的维权意识不足，国内相关立法不够完善，经常发生针对特许人商标权的侵权行为。针对以上情况，结合具体的案例，分析特许人商标权遭受侵权的表现形式和原因，提出特许人维护其商标权的应对策略。