Post-regime-change Afghan and Iraqi media systems: Strategic ambivalence as technology of media governance

This article investigates the governance of post-US invasion Afghan and Iraqi media systems by analyzing provisions pertinent to public broadcasting, licensing, and defamation in 14 laws and policy documents in the two nations. The author argues that the results point to a regime of regulatory ambivalence whereby state authorities have established an ontologically incongruent complex of legal and policy structures characterized by a simultaneous cohabitation of democratic and authoritarian tendencies. This ambivalence, born of struggles and contestations between state authorities, domestic civil societies and external supporters and donors, is a deliberate technology of media governance. The authoritarian tendencies of this regulatory regime have implications for media/journalists’ self-regulation as they are designed to curtail the agency of media institutions and journalists, and assert government control over speech and the flow of information.

Regulation of Competition in the Telecommunications Sector: A Comparative Study of the Korean and Nigerian Legal Regimes

The liberalisation of telecommunications sectors in many countries has brought with it the need to regulate and develop regulatory models for competition. South Korea and Nigeria followed the liberalisation trend of the telecommunications markets in late 1980s and 1990s. Both countries have also established competition laws and adopt various regulatory models. This paper, through a comparative analysis, examines how both countries regulate competition in their telecommunications markets. It argues that their regulatory models have merits and demerits which may affect efficient regulation of competition in the industry. It concludes that notwithstanding the pros and cons of their regulatory models, the regulatory choices are tailored to meet the peculiarities of their markets and reflect the environment in which they are used. Also, the Nigerian model reflects its slow level of telecommunication development and the more sophisticated the industry becomes, it becomes imperative for its regulatory regime to become sector-specific.

The Right to Choose Non-Law: How to Open Pandora’s Box with Lex Voluntatis

The autonomy of the will of the parties (lex voluntatis) is one of the central institutions of private international law that, in the context of proliferation of non-legal subject matter, multiplying sources of non-state regulation, and also due to the conceptualization of the institution of “rules of law” in the practice of world arbitrations, acquires a new methodological meaning and requires its rethinking. The paper examines the institution of the autonomy of the will of the parties from different angles: as a principle of conflict of laws, as a substantive law institution, and as a mechanism for legitimizing the norms of non-state regulation. The autonomy of the will of the parties today acquires a visible potential of a legal basis for the construction of a special, possibly “hybrid,” regulatory regime for cross-border private law, for mainly contractual relations, it becomes a form of expression of the right to choose non-law. Interpreting the autonomy of the will through the prism of the substantive law theory and in the context of admitting the choice of non-state regulation as the applicable law can pose a serious risk both for the parties to cross-border agreements and for the law-enforcer in terms of conflicting law and non-law. The author concludes that acknowledgement that the institution of autonomy of the will authorizes the right to choose non-law, in fact, means that a fragmented legal space, which itself differs significantly from state to state, can collide with a rapidly scalable, even more heterogeneous non-state array of norms emanating from non-state actors. This state of the normative superstructure can be characterized as a conflict of law and non-law and requires the development and adjustment of an appropriate methodology of private international law.

Rights to Own and Operate a Hydro Floating Solar Project in Thailand

This paper finds that the current electricity regulatory regime, established by the Energy Industry Act B.E. 2550 (2007), together with the current electricity industry structure—the enhanced single buyer model—serves as a favorable legal basis for a state electricity enterprise, especially the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), to own and operate a hydro-floating solar project in Thailand. However, it argues that, despite their ability to obtain the relevant licenses under the Energy Industry Act B.E. 2550 (2007) as well as enter into power purchase agreements with state electricity enterprises or private customers, the rights of private hydro-floating solar project operators to own and operate a hydro-floating solar project on the surface of public water resources are undermined by uncertainty pertaining to the possessory right over the water surface of public water resources, as well as unfair or discriminatory practices concerning electricity network access.

The Influence of Intra-Day Non-Uniformity of Operation of Large Hydroelectric Powerplants on the Performance Stability of Water Intakes Located in Their Upper Pools

The creation of reservoirs in water streams leads to significant changes in the hydrological regime of water bodies: it allows smoothing the peaks of maximum water discharge during a flood period and regulating low-water flow. The creation of reservoirs with significant storage capacity makes it possible to solve a wide range of water-management problems, including the use of falling water energy for hydropower purposes, and maintenance of the uninterrupted water supply and navigation. Since constructed dams are usually operated by hydropower companies, the regulatory regime for the discharge of water into the lower pool is often determined by the daily electricity consumption regime. Intra-day variations in the volume of water discharges through hydroelectric power stations generate multidirectional streams in the upper pool, which can affect the operation of other water withdrawal systems. This paper considers the effect of intraday variations in water discharges into the lower pool on the dynamic and physical properties of the water mass in the region of the location of drinking water-intake heads of Perm city and the quality of the withdrawn water.

The necessity for Zambia's vitamin A sugar fortification requirement

Zambia faces a serious vitamin A deficiency (VAD) that affects most infants and expectant mothers, leading to night blindness, maternal deaths, and more. One of the efforts to address this is by permitting only the manufacture, sale, or import of household consumption sugar which is fortified with vitamin A - which is seen as a disguised restriction on international trade. Through a desk-top research study, the article examines the question, as to what extent Zambia's fortification requirement complies with the necessity principle in the Technical Barrier to Trade Annex to the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Trade (TBT Annex) and Article 2(2) of the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement). The research finds that the measure is a technical regulation with a legitimate objective to protect the health and lives of a target VAD Zambian population. Further, it is applied to both domestic and like foreign products; therefore, it is neither discriminatory nor directly linked to the lack of competitive opportunities for like foreign products. Even if fortified maize meal could be opted for instead of sugar, it cannot achieve the equivalent contribution in dealing with the VAD problem because of challenges, such as, the uncertainty in regulatory regime, and its irregular consumption pattern. Consequently, the sugar fortification requirement is not more trade restrictive than necessary under the TBT Annex and Article 2(2) of the TBT Agreement.

Disseminating and Containing Communist Propaganda to Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia through Hong Kong, the Cold War Pivot, 1949–1960

This article explores an understudied aspect in Asia's Cold War history: how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used Hong Kong as a Cold War pivot to produce and disseminate left-wing literature for overseas Chinese living in Southeast Asia. It argues that the CCP's expanding cultural influence can be attributed to the Party's commercial acumen. Operating within a permissive colonial regulatory regime, the CCP expanded its control of local and regional markets for left-wing printed materials. The content of CCP literature was inevitably propagandistic – that is, shaped by the changing demands of the Chinese government's foreign policy and by a need to attract foreign remittances and accommodate socialist transformation at home. Hong Kong's emergence as a pivot in propaganda wars that were global in scope created tensions between the United States and Britain, and led governments in Southeast Asia to strengthen state controls on imported communist media. As such, this article makes an original contribution to Hong Kong colonial history and deepens our understanding of transnational dynamics within Southeast Asia.

Hybrid posttensioned rocking (HPR) frame buildings: Low-damage vs low-loss paradox

The 2010-11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence inflicted seismic losses worth more than $40B, which is about 25% of the GDP of New Zealand (as per 2011 data). More than 80% of these losses were insured, which comprised of more than $10B covered by the Earthquake Commission (a New Zealand crown entity providing insurance to residential property owners) and more than $22B (comprising of roughly equal split between domestic and commercial claims) by private insurers [1]. The scale of financial impact has been perceived to be disproportionately large given the building regulatory regime in New Zealand is relatively stringent and the earthquakes and aftershocks were of moderate magnitude. As it is well known that some of the major faults spread in the Wellington region and the subduction boundary passing through the centre of New Zealand can generate much bigger earthquakes (upwards of magnitude 8), people are left pondering whether New Zealand is able to cope with the financial impact of larger earthquakes. This fearful realisation gradually led to people being dissatisfied with merely life-safe buildings and demanding more resilient buildings that meet the objectives of performance based design; i.e. suffer less damage, incur less loss, and can remain functional after earthquakes. In light of the extensive building damage resulting in high financial loss in recent earthquakes, practicing engineers and researchers in New Zealand have been advocating for revising the current design approach to improve performance of new structures and infrastructure in future earthquakes [2-5]. As a result, large proportion of buildings constructed in the last decade (including those built to replace earthquake-damaged buildings) have shied away from the traditional damage-friendly ductile structural systems and instead adopted one of the new and emerging structural systems claimed to be “low-damage”. In many cases, the adopted structural systems are not covered by existing design standards and are approved as alternate solutions through expert peer review. The “low-damage” attribute of most structural systems has been validated by component (or sub-assembly) level experimental tests, but their interactions with other building components and implications of their use in buildings have not been rigorously scrutinised. Hence, the rushed adoption of some of these systems in buildings can surprise the engineering community in future earthquakes with mismatch between the expected and real performances of the buildings; akin to what New Zealand engineering fraternity is currently going through due to realisation of poor seismic performance of precast hollow-core flooring system that has been widely used in New Zealand buildings without rigorous scrutiny. One such “low-damage” structural system is precast post-tensioned rocking frames with supplemental energy dissipaters. This paper summarises the development of this structural system, critically reviews the literature reporting the seismic performance of this system, and qualitatively evaluates system-level implications of its use in buildings. This paper is intended to better inform engineers of the likely seismic performance of buildings with this structural system so that they can optimise its benefits by giving due consideration to its effect on other building components.

Binge Watching to Binge Serving in India: Revolution, Regulations and Restrictions of Over-the-Top (OTT) Platforms

Information technology has changed the living style of people in the last few decades by its evolution and revolution. So, ‘digitalisation’ is considered as very imperative in human history especially after the ‘industrial revolution’. With the changing paradigm, digitalisation has provided enormous space for the entertainment of Individuals through the Over-the-Top (OTT) video platforms on their demand. In India, the significant growths of OTT platforms have been noticed during the last decade with an increasingly growing number of consumers. With such huge demand, a surge of consumers in India, the OTT became a commodity rather than a luxury. Further, the demands of consumers & internationalisation open up its OTT market for domestic as well as international players. The OTT players like Hotstar and Jio Cinema has expanded a stouter position, whereas global players like Netflix and Amazon Prime have also extended progressively their market share in India. According to one report, the Video on Demand (VoD) industry is still at its emerging stage but the entry of 40 VoD companies in a span of just three years indicates the popularity and demand of such industry. This huge demand has exposed the concept of ‘Binge Watching’ in India as this platform provides on-demand, anywhere access, without a commercial break and unlimited access. However, these growing OTT players and online content have faced many controversies and fought legal battles in India due to the lack of regulatory mechanisms. This paper explores the emergence & growth of OTT platforms with their recent trends in India. Further, the paper specifically focuses on the regulatory regime of OTT platforms since the beginning and its current scenario.

Potemkin Protections: Assessing Provider Directory Accuracy and Timely Access for Four Specialties in California

Context: Accurate provider directories and whether consumers can schedule timely appointments are crucial determinants of health access and outcomes. We assessed whether consumers can rely on provider directories to find in-network primary care providers, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and gastroenterologists for 2018 and 2019 for all managed care plans in California and whether they can access these providers in a timely manner. Method: We used large, random, and representative surveys of provider directories for all managed care plans in California for four specialties obtained from the California Department of Managed Health Care with a total of 657,012 observations (290,711 for 2018 and 475,524 for 2019). Findings: Surveys were able to verify provider directory entries for the four specialties for 59% to 76% of listings or 78% to 88% of providers reached. Moreover, we found that consumers were able to schedule urgent care appointments for 28% to 54% of listings or 44% to 72% of appropriately listed providers. For general care appointments, the percentages ranged from 35% to 64% of listed providers or 51% to 87% of appropriately listed providers. Differences across markets were generally small related to accuracy. Medi-Cal plans outperformed other markets with regards to timely access. Primary care consistently outperformed all other specialties. Timely access rates were higher for general appointments than for urgent care appointments. Conclusions: Despite the fact that California is one of the most active and well-resourced regulators in the nation, we found concerning results for consumers when it comes to locating in-network providers and gaining timely access. This raises questions about the regulatory regime as well as consumer access and health outcomes.