Compliance costs,regulation, and environmental performance: Controlling truck emissions in the US

When explaining regulatory policymaking and the behavior of regulated business firms, scholars have supplemented economic models by emphasizing the role of public‐regarding entrepreneurial politics and of normative pressures on firms. This article explores the limits of such entrepreneurial politics and “social license” pressures by examining regulation of emissions from diesel powered trucks in the US. We find that the economic cost of obtaining the best available control technology – new model lower emissions engines – has: (i) limited the stringency and coerciveness of direct regulation of vehicle owners and operators; (ii) dwarfed the reach and effectiveness of the governmental programs that subsidize the purchase of new less polluting vehicles; and (iii) elevated the importance of each company’s “economic license”– as opposed to its “social license”– in shaping its environmental performance. The prominence of this “regulatory compliance cost” variable in shaping both regulation and firm behavior, we conclude, is likely to recur in highly competitive markets, like trucking, that include many small firms that cannot readily either afford or pass on the cost of best available compliance technologies.     

Judicial review of regulatory decisions: Decoding the contents of appeals against agencies in Spain and the United Kingdom

Despite the important role that courts play to supervise the legality of regulatory agencies' actions, only few comparative studies analyze the contents of judicial appeals against regulatory decisions within European countries. This paper builds on the comparative administrative law scholarship and administrative capacities literature to analyze the content of 2,040 rulings against decisions issued by competition and telecommunications regulators in Spain and the United Kingdom. To understand the substance of the appeals, the study classifies cases according to the alleged administrative principles under breach and the regulatory capacities under challenge. Findings show a clear country-sector variation regarding the information contained in judicial disputes for both dimensions of analysis, which can be explained as a result of existing differences between the institutional settings of courts. These results offer a more in depth understanding of the political role of judicial oversight over regulatory agencies embedded in different institutional arrangements and policy sectors.     

起诉抽象行政行为:行政相对人和人民检察院谁更适合?——关于行政诉讼法修改建议的一点探讨

将抽象行政行为即行政规范性文件纳入司法机关的审查范围,业已成为学界有关行政诉讼法修改的共识。但是,由于检察机关在国家政权体制中的地位和作用以及检察权的性质等因素,由人民检察院作为规范性文件的起诉原告,并不合适。相比较而言,赋予公民个人等其他行政相对人起诉行政规范性文件的原告资格,更为合适。在确保行政相对人优先起诉规范性文件权利的同时,还须进行一些必要的制度设计,以防止诉权的滥用。     

我国食品公共安全规制体系的政策取向

食品公共安全规制体系包括四个基本要素:规制主体、规制客体、规制工具和规制目标。本文基于确保公众身体健康和生命安全的规制目标,分析了我国食品公共安全规制其他三个基本要素各自的现状及问题,提出了完善我国食品公共安全规制体系的政策取向:一是加强规制主体之间的协调,克服规制失灵;二是强化对规制客体的规制,克服市场失灵;三是设计和优化规制工具组合,提高规制效率。     

城市房屋产权的保护：责任规则、财产规则与管制性征收

《征收条例》实现了房屋产权保护方式从“责任规则”到“财产规则”的转变,提高了文本意义上的产权保护水平,但《征收条例》下被征收入的福利水平和社会福利水平的提高都面临着不确定性,要取决于政府的行为。事实上,《征收务例》的实施在一定程度上激励政府采取管制性征收的方式获得房屋产权,使得被征收入的利益受到更大的侵害。因此要从政府、法院、被征收入等多方面着力才能促进实现“高补偿、低交易成本”的征收最优状态。     

场外衍生品市场监管制度改革:英国的经验与启示

2008年金融危机暴露出全球场外衍生品市场监管制度的缺陷;金融危机后,全球各个国家和经济体都加强了场外衍生品市场监管制度改革。英国是全球最大的场外衍生品交易中心,英国场外衍生品市场监管制度改革措施一定程度上代表或影响着全球场外衍生品市场监管制度改革的趋势。通过分析金融危机前英国场外衍生品市场监管制度的缺陷以及金融危机后英国场外衍生品市场监管制度改革的主要措施,在此基础上提出完善我国场外衍生品市场立法和监管制度的建议。     

European Union Soft Law: New Developments Concerning the Divide Between Legally Binding Force and Legal Effects

The judgment in Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa sheds light on the legal effects of soft law instruments that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will recognise, while distinguishing between their legally binding force and their legal or practical effects. European soft law is now often relied on in national courts, and can have an important impact on the rights and obligations of individuals. However, some of the goals of the Commission are only partly attainable due to the specific legal status of soft law instruments, and the current languages policy of the European Union. Given that soft law was not found to expressly impose obligations on individuals, the Court held that there was no requirement to publish it in all the official languages of the European Union. This has a negative impact on transparency and legal certainty, diminishing the role of soft law instruments in promoting such goals.     

Civil society and the regulatory state of the South: A commentary

The basic rationale of the regulatory state is to insulate certain kinds of decisionmaking from political actors. The main purpose of this commentary is to assess the ways that members of civil society, in fact, often shadow and contest the central actors of the regulatory state, even though they are ostensibly well outside it. I offer three distinctions to help broaden and sharpen analysis of the roles and impact of civil society actors: whether civil society actors have special expertise or not; whether the regulatory state is being put in place or already exists; and whether civil society actions are broadly complementary to, or substitutive of, state action. In discussing each of these, I also explore the consequences of the transfer of the regulatory state to the global South, and the way that change in location shapes both the role and impact of civil society and the regulatory state itself.     

Uncertainty,institutions and regulatory responses to emerging technologies: CRISPR Gene editing in the US and the EU (2012–2019)

This study aims to improve theoretical accounts of regulatory responses to emerging technologies by proposing a model of regulatory development, which incorporates a role for types of uncertainty and for existing regulatory institutions. Differently from existing theories of regulatory development, the model proposed here posits a sequence of cyclical activities where regulatory responses arise in incremental fashion out of efforts to make sense of emerging technologies and to ponder the applicability of existing regulatory tools. The model is discussed on the basis of the comparison between regulatory responses to the emergence of CRISPR gene editing in the US and the EU in the period 2012–2019. The comparison between the two cases suggests how regulatory responses to emerging technologies are affected by expectations of future technological and regulatory developments and by existing regulatory institutions.     

论企业合规的性质

企业合规是企业为实现依法依规经营、防控合规风险所建立的一种治理机制。企业合规只有在法律确立了行政监管激励机制和刑法激励机制的前提下，才能得到有效的实施。在国际经济法律体系中，一些国际组织也将企业合规作为对违规企业解除制裁的前提条件。从历史上来看，企业合规是为保护企业利益而设置的风险防控机制，它所要防控的不是企业的经营风险和财务风险，也不是一般意义上的法律风险，而是因可能受到行政处罚或刑事追究而承担的合规风险。企业合规发展到今天，已经不再仅仅属于企业所要承担的道德义务，而变成了一个涉及多个法律领域的重要法律问题。