Competition, Not Regulation – or Regulated Competition?

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-417
Author(s):  
Alexia Herwig
Keyword(s):  
Imperfect Competition ◽  
Burden Of Proof ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Perfect Competition ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
Treatment Standard ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Regulated Competition ◽  
Domestic Products

GATT Article III:4 aims at equal treatment in respect of competitive opportunities of imports and competing domestic products by preventing protectionism. A key question is whether regulations with heavier burdens on imported products than on domestic products and a valid regulatory purpose are consistent with Article III:4. Inquiry into regulatory purpose under Article III:4 would allow by-passing Article XX whose list of regulatory objectives is a closed one and which puts the burden of proof on the defending WTO member. In EC-Seal Products, the Appellate Body has rejected any role for the regulatory purpose inquiry under Article III:4. This article shows why a purely empirical definition of likeness and less favourable treatment as disparate impact cannot logically lead to a finding of a violation of Article III:4. It then argues that regulatory purpose continues to play a role under Article III:4 because of the centrality of the notion of competition. It proposes to frame that competition as perfect competition. It shows that the adoption of perfect competition as the evaluative benchmark for all of Article III:4 makes better legal sense than starting from imperfect competition for the likeness analysis and perfect competition for the less favourable treatment standard, as is proposed in the literature. It also shows that even in case where imperfect competition is used as the sole benchmark for both parts of Article III:4, an assessment of how regulation interacts with competition continues to play some role.

Smart Contracts

2019 ◽  
pp. 311-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Brownsword
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
The Other ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Smart Contract ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Business To Consumer ◽  
Covering Law ◽  
Business To Business

The main purpose of this chapter is to sketch two principal ways in which lawyers are likely to engage with new transactional technologies (such as smart contract applications of blockchain technologies), each form of engagement being characterized by its own questions and conversations. Whereas one form of engagement, ‘coherentism’, focuses on the fit between particular new technologies and the covering law of contract, the other, ‘regulatory-instrumentalism’, focuses on whether the law (relative to particular new technologies) is fit for regulatory purpose. The sketch is refined by drawing further distinctions between ‘transactionalist’ and ‘relationalist’ variants of ‘coherentism’ and ‘rule-based’ and ‘technocratic’ variants of regulatory-instrumentalism. With a view to decoding legal debates about emerging transactional technologies, this sketch is then applied to questions concerning smart contracts in, respectively, business-to-consumer, business-to-business, and peer-to-peer transactions.

Addressing procedural bias in municipal planning governance: A case for incorporating citizen participation within technical advisory committees

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Stephen Kleinschmit
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Advisory Committees ◽  
Municipal Planning ◽  
Community Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Meetings ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Power Differentials ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Technical Advisory Committee

This essay presents models of multiparty negotiation as a means to compare the conventional public meetings format of planning to a preliminary process, the technical advisory committee. A metric of market concentration, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, is used to quantify the structural advantages in each, and presented within the context of municipal planning processes. In doing so, this work advances several propositions: First, open meetings expand power differentials between parties, which lead to outcomes that reflect the political efficacy of participants over the regulatory purpose of government. Second, such meetings create substantial transaction costs for the public, creating a barrier to the expression of community values. Finally, preliminary processes constitute a more effective forum for citizen participation than open meetings.

scholarly journals Dual functions of a small regulatory subunit in the mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex

eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming-Feng Tsai ◽  
Charles B Phillips ◽  
Matthew Ranaghan ◽  
Chen-Wei Tsai ◽  
Yujiao Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Regulatory Subunit ◽  
Mitochondrial Calcium ◽  
Transmembrane Helices ◽  
Mitochondrial Calcium Uniporter ◽  
Activating Function ◽  
Mitochondrial Inner Membrane ◽  
Calcium Uniporter ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Inner Membrane Protein ◽  
Dual Functions

Mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake, a process crucial for bioenergetics and Ca2+ signaling, is catalyzed by the mitochondrial calcium uniporter. The uniporter is a multi-subunit Ca2+-activated Ca2+ channel, with the Ca2+ pore formed by the MCU protein and Ca2+-dependent activation mediated by MICU subunits. Recently, a mitochondrial inner membrane protein EMRE was identified as a uniporter subunit absolutely required for Ca2+ permeation. However, the molecular mechanism and regulatory purpose of EMRE remain largely unexplored. Here, we determine the transmembrane orientation of EMRE, and show that its known MCU-activating function is mediated by the interaction of transmembrane helices from both proteins. We also reveal a second function of EMRE: to maintain tight MICU regulation of the MCU pore, a role that requires EMRE to bind MICU1 using its conserved C-terminal polyaspartate tail. This dual functionality of EMRE ensures that all transport-competent uniporters are tightly regulated, responding appropriately to a dynamic intracellular Ca2+ landscape.

scholarly journals Trends and Variation in Data Quality on the EU Clinical Trials Register: A Cross-Sectional Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J DeVito ◽  
Ben Goldacre
Keyword(s):  
Data Quality ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
European Economic Area ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Reporting Requirements ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Public Dataset ◽  
Clinical Trial Register ◽  
The Eu

The EU Clinical Trial Register (EUCTR) is a public facing portal containing information on trials of medicinal products conducted in the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). Today, the registry holds information on over 30,000 trials. Given its distinct regulatory purpose, and results reporting requirements, the EUCTR should be a valuable open-source hub for trial information. Past work examining the EUCTR has suggested that data quality on the registry may be lacking. Using the full EUCTR public dataset, we examined areas in which national regulators are expected to ensure data quality including the posting of registrations, updating trial completion information, and monitoring results posting in line with EU guidelines. We identified issues across all areas examined with notable research hubs like France, Spain, and The Netherlands lacking consistent and complete data on the registry. These deficiencies complicate the utility of the EUCTR for research, transparency, and accountability efforts.

PERMISSION TO ACT: THE LEGAL CHARACTER OF GENERAL AND SECURITY EXCEPTIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INVESTMENT LAW

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-584
Author(s):  
Caroline Henckels
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Regulatory Capacity ◽  
Investment Law ◽  
Investment Treaties ◽  
Legal Character ◽  
Trade And Investment ◽  
Practical Implications

AbstractThe dyadic rule–exception structure common to many legal systems has posed particular interpretive difficulties in international trade and investment law. Adjudicators have interpreted general and security exceptions in GATT, GATS and cognate provisions of investment treaties in divergent ways, and the analytic character of these provisions is under-theorised in the literature. This article argues that we should understand exceptions from a deontological perspective as permissions that affirm governmental regulatory capacity and thus limit the scope of the commands set out in the treaty. This characterisation of exceptions has both symbolic and practical implications, of which this article discusses two: determining the exception's applicability as a preliminary matter rather than as a defence, which would in turn permit consideration of regulatory purpose at the point of obligation; and whether the applicability of an exception is properly a question of merits or jurisdiction.

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