Does One Size Fit All? A Note on the Harmonization of National Warranty Law as a Tool of Consumer Protection

The European Union's Directive on the Harmonization of national warranty laws directed interest to this particular legal institution. From an economic point of view warranties have different functions. In this note it will be argued that the change in the law of warranties leads to a loss of informational value and to a welfare loss resulting from constricted transaction possibilities, which has not been widely recognised in the recent discussion on warranties.     

Horses for courses: China's accommodative approach to food standard‐setting in response to the internationalization of regulation

This paper examines the evolution of China's food standard‐setting procedures from both domestic and international perspectives, particularly in the context of the internationalization of regulation. After the reform and opening‐up in 1978, state actors and leading enterprises monopolized the process of national food standard setting. With further participation in the global economy in the 21st century, China has become familiar with the international standard‐setting procedures and has modeled its domestic policymaking on these practices. This has resulted in a more transparent, inclusive, scientific, pluralized, and consensus‐based form of decisionmaking. By contrast, the standards of the strategic industries have been harmonized to the standards of international counterparts through a top‐down and authoritarian approach. This paper argues that China uses an accommodative approach, trichotomizing suitable standards and decisionmaking procedures in terms of inclusiveness and transparency, which suits the developmental needs of the domestic market, food export markets, and strategic industries.     

Regulation in Comparative Perspective

Structural changes in the world economy pose challenging new problems for comparative policy analysis. One such problem is the harmonization of domestic policies and institutions, which the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations has identified as a key principle of international economic relations. Harmonization may mean the creation of a single policy space out of a number of distinct jurisdictions. It can also mean the adoption of common policy goals or general principles that national governments can pursue by different strategies. Comparative analysis can help in choosing the type of harmonization most appropriate in a given context. This article analyzes the development of harmonization strategies in the European Community/European Union. The European experience shows that far-reaching economic integration can be achieved without suppressing cultural diversity and legitimate differences in national preferences.     

透视内地与香港协议管辖制度的整合——从国际趋势和管辖权协调的角度

内地和香港协议管辖制度在适用范围、形式要件、限制条件、性质认定和效力等方面存在的立法差异,减损了运用协议管辖制度协调两地管辖权冲突的效用。2006年两地有关认可和执行协议管辖的民商事判决的安排的规定虽对协议管辖制度进行了部分整合,但涉及范围有限。应结合国际趋势和立足两地实际立法,探讨两地协议管辖制度整合的可能性并设计相关的制度。     

Die Prämienverbilligung im Krankenversicherungsgesetz: Vollzugsföderalismus und sekundäre Harmonisierung

Subject of the report is the question about factors of influence on the development of a common policy between the cantons in implementing the subsidizing of contributions to health insurance of persons living in modest economic circumstances. It clearly appears that this so‐called secondary harmonization in the first place has been pushed by the concretization of the executive program by the federal administration. Secondly, the influence of various forms of horizontal cooperation is mentioned, which facilitated the exchange of information and reflection between the cantons and promoted the development of a common model for a solution. Thirdly, the paper refers to the role of the evaluation, in which a comparative analysis of the sociopolitical effectiveness of the cantonal implementation systems was made. This studies induced a number of cantons to make adaptations. In spite of all tendencies towards harmonization, however, the cantonal implementation systems still differ greatly also in this public policy. This fact is explained by fundamentally differing policy cores as well as by the varying extent to which information required for the implementation of subsidizing contributions is available in the cantons.     

Towards an ethics safe harbor for global biomedical research

Although increasingly global, data-driven genomics and other ‘omics’-focused research hold great promise for health discoveries, current research ethics review systems around the world challenge potential improvements in human health from such research. To overcome this challenge, we propose a ‘Safe Harbor Framework for International Ethics Equivalency’ that facilitates the harmonization of ethics review of specific types of data-driven international research projects while respecting globally transposable research ethics norms and principles. The Safe Harbor would consist in part of an agency supporting an International Federation for Ethics Review (IFER), formed by a voluntary compact among countries, granting agencies, philanthropies, institutions, and healthcare, patient advocacy, and research organizations. IFER would be both a central ethics review body, and also a forum for review and follow-up of policies concerning ethics norms for international research projects. It would be built on five principle elements: (1) registration, (2) compliance review, (3) recognition, (4) monitoring and enforcement, and (5) public participation. The Safe Harbor would create many benefits for researchers, countries, and the general public, and may eventually have application beyond (gen)omics to other areas of biomedical research that increasingly engage in secondary use of data and present only negligible risks.     

Who’s afraid of an EU tax and why?—revenue system preferences in the European Parliament

The current revenue system of the EU is still structured like that of an organization based on intergovernmental cooperation, although the EU is already far advanced in legislative and political integration. This antagonism gives reason to discuss whether or not the EU should be granted an autonomous tax source. Our contribution to this debate explores the factors which shape the acceptance of the EU tax option among European policy makers. A self-conducted survey among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), which resulted in a response of some 150 of the representatives, offers us a unique database. Concerning MEPs’ revenue system preferences, our findings confirm an important impact of party ideology and individual characteristics while they indicate that country-specific factors also contribute to understand the attitudes towards an EU tax. In the light of our findings the status quo bias in the revenue system of the EU can be attributed to the persistent importance of national interests with respect to tax policy.

刑事和解与刑法基本原则的协调性

刑事和解是一种在非刑罚化、被害人保护、犯罪人再社会化等方面均极具创意的新制度。刑法基本原则是我国刑事司法过程中应恪守的重要原则。刑事和解与刑法基本原则关系问题是完善刑事和解所必需的基础性理论。不容否认,刑事和解与刑法基本原则之间存在冲突,然而系统论证之后可以得出二者间存在着协调可能性且协调性占主导地位。     

To enforce or not to enforce? Judicialization,venue shopping,and global regulatory harmonization

The regulation of intellectual property rights takes place in a range of international venues. This proliferation of international venues greatly enhances the potential for venue shopping. We argue that different levels of domestic regulation and differing degrees of judicialization account for actors' preferences over institutional venues. We take into consideration two scenarios. Conceiving of judicialization as the delegation of adjudication to an independent third party and the enforcement through multilaterally authorized sanctions, we show that: (i) upward regulatory harmonization leads actors preferring weak regulatory intellectual property rights standards to strive for venues with low degrees of judicialization, whereas those favoring stringent intellectual property rights protection prefer highly judicialized venues; and (ii) downward harmonization leads to the opposite constellation of institutional preferences. We show how these expectations hold by way of in‐depth case studies of two instances of global intellectual property rights regulation: the regulation of plant genetic resources and intellectual property rights for medicines.     

国际法与国内法关系的法理学思考——兼论亚洲国家关于这一问题的观点

本文旨在从法理学的高度来探讨国际法与国内法的关系。以法律规范的和谐统一作为科学地认识国际法与国内法关系的逻辑点 ,通过对法的调整机制和内在特质所具有的普遍性进行分析 ,提出了关于国际法和国内法关系的“法律规范协调说”。