15. Challenging Governmental Decisions: The Process

This chapter examines the legal procedures an applicant must follow when challenging a government decision and explores how court decisions in this nominally very technical area of administrative law can have profound implications for the meaning in practical terms of such broad constitutional principles as the rule of law and the sovereignty of Parliament. The chapter begins by examining the historical duality with English administrative law of the mechanism through which citizens might question the lawfulness of government action. The chapter then continues to cover the case of Barnard v National Dock Labour Board; the Order 53 reforms; the case of O’Reilly v Mackman (1982); the post-O’Reilly case law; the case of Roy v Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Family Practitioner Committee; and public law principle as a defence in criminal proceedings.

Keeping ‘Development’ in a Multilateral Framework on Investment Facilitation for Development

In December 2019, World Trade Organization (WTO) Members agreed that the Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation for Development would move into a negotiating mode, previously set to begin in March 2020. Their goal is to have a concrete outcome by the WTO’s 2021 Ministerial Conference. These negotiations are an important step towards creating a multilateral framework on a specific, technical area of foreign investment – investment facilitation. This paper seeks to do two things: (1) to provide a comprehensive analysis of a potential framework by chronicling the genesis of the idea for such a framework and the discussions, discussing competing views on an investment facilitation framework and outlining the principal elements a framework; and (2) to argue that a framework should include provisions focused on facilitating sustainable investment for sustainable development. To that end, it advances suggestions for promoting sustainable investment and introduces a provision, the Recognized Sustainable Investor, that could be included in the framework to incentivize international investors to invest sustainably.

Approach to Regulatory Pre-Licensing SMR Vendor Design Review

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has recently completed the first phase of the pre-licensing vendor design review (VDR) for the SMR-160 small modular reactor (SMR) designed by Holtec International (USA). This event is an example of early involvement of the regulatory authority into review of the safety assessment for SMR design developed in compliance with standards and rules of another country. This example deserves a detailed analysis considering that the introduction of SMR technology is potentially attractive for Ukraine and there is national interest in this area. The paper presents an overview of the regulatory framework governing the pre-licensing VDR by CNSC: objective, initial conditions, main stages, technical content and general expected results of this process. According to the first phase of the review performed for the SMR-160 design, information on the main aspects addressed for each technical area and the main review findings are provided. Since the implementation of relevant advanced practices is reasonable and relevant, the paper proposes to consider the development and implementation of regulatory framework for the national nuclear regulatory authority to perform further pre-licensing reviews of designs using the latest foreign technologies.

Tolerance analysis for automobile transmission shaft based on minimum cost and reliability target

To design a reasonable dimensional tolerance of a transmission shaft, the higher product quality while lower manufacturing cost must be considered. This paper provides a mathematical model and a flowchart which elucidates the relationship between process capability index (PCI), reliability, tolerance and manufacturing cost, considering the characteristics of the shaft diameter, the material and manufacturing process. A 10.904% cost reduction under certain PCI range of a real case shows the effectiveness of the model and flowchart, thus it can be applied to those technical area when optimizing product design.