Why Civil Society Cannot Battle it All Alone: The Roles of Civil Society Environment, Transparent Laws and Quality of Public Administration in Political Corruption Mitigation

Utilizing a large-N data that covers about 20000 observations from about 200 countries from 1789 to 2018 from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, and anchored on institutionalism as an overarching theory, and the nascent literature on civil-society corruption nexus, the paper looks at the predictive capacity of civil society environment, transparency of laws and predictability of enforcement, and rigorousness and impartiality of public administration in political corruption. Using a four-step hierarchical multiple regression, results show that while civil society and its structure is a significant determinant of the level of political corruption, the introduction of transparency of laws and predictability of enforcement, rigorousness, and impartiality of public administration, and civil society environment in the regression model accounted for additional variance in political corruption. Practical and theoretical implications, particularly on civil society-corruption nexus and the broader corruption-democracy linkage, are discussed

Soft Law and competition policy: promoting competition through guidelines in Brazil

This paper examines the use of soft law in competition policy. The focus is on the guidelines issued by the Brazilian competition authority in order to foster a better understanding of the competition law and enforcement approaches. The economic agents and their legal advisors benefit from these measures, as they increase the predictability and transparency of competition enforcement, facilitate self-assessment, and improve legal certainty for business transactions that often involve high monetary sums. From previous experience, these guidelines are often well perceived by local competition community as there is an increasingly concern with the objective of gathering information from interested parties to facilitate the drafting of higher quality documents through public consultations.This paper examines the use of soft law in competition policy. The focus is on the guidelines issued by the Brazilian competition authority in order to foster a better understanding of the competition law and enforcement approaches. The economic agents and their legal advisors benefit from these measures, as they increase the predictability and transparency of competition enforcement, facilitate self-assessment, and improve legal certainty for business transactions that often involve high monetary sums. From previous experience, these guidelines are often well perceived by local competition community as there is an increasingly concern with the objective of gathering information from interested parties to facilitate the drafting of higher quality documents through public consultations

San Francisco Predictable Scheduling and Fair Treatment for Formula Retail Employees Ordinance

Economic and labor force changes since the Great Recession of 2007 have changed the way many American workers support themselves and their families. Today, Americans who would prefer full-time stable work are more likely to work in part-time jobs, and have little control over their work schedules. As employers seek new ways to maximize scheduling efficiency and profit, worker advocate groups have raised concerns about the implications of these scheduling practices on the lives of employees. This issue brief highlights some of the research on the growth of unstable work schedules, and describes the provisions of recently introduced legislation in San Francisco that seeks to increase predictable scheduling among certain retail and food service workers. San Francisco's is the first such legislation to be introduced at the local level in the natio

Constraint through Delegation: The Case of Executive Control over Immigration Policy

This Article proposes recalibrating the separation of powers between the political branches in the context of their regulation of immigration law\u27s core questions: how many and what types of immigrants to admit to the United States. Whereas Congress holds a virtual monopoly over formal decisionmaking, the executive branch makes de facto admissions decisions using its discretionary enforcement power. As a result of this structure, stasis and excessive prosecutorial discretion characterize the regime, particularly with respect to labor migration. Both of these features exacerbate pathologies associated with illegal immigration and call for a structural response. This Article contends that Congress should create an executive branch agency, marked by indicia of independence, to set visa policy-an avenue increasingly contemplated by reformers. Though it may seem counterintuitive, delegation of greater authority can help constrain executive power by substituting a transparent process, subject to monitoring, for decisionmaking that occurs hidden from view. Delegation can also help overcome limitations in the legislative process that contribute to the current regime\u27s dysfunction, making immigration policy more efficient and effective. The Refugee Act of 1980 provides a parallel that is helpful in thinking through what it would mean to delegate ex ante admissions power to the executive

Collective action problems posed by no-take zones

Around 0.04% of the world's marine area is presently designated as no-take zone (NTZ), in which all fishing is banned. The IUCN, backed by many marine fisheries and ecology scientists, has called for this to be increased to 20-30% by 2012 in order to conserve fish stocks and marine biodiversity. This ambitious target presents a number of collective action problems (CAPs) that must be addressed and overcome if fishers and other relevant actors are to collaborate towards its achievement. These are discussed, drawing on the common-pool resource (CPR) literature, with particular reference to those raised by divergent aims, predictability, different knowledges, role of advocacy, locality, level of decision-making and enforceability. As NTZs are ultimately about altering the behaviour of humans, it is argued that studies based on social sciences, on how NTZs can be designed, implemented and enforced on a collective basis, are essential. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Rules, Standards, and the Internal Point of View

Large scale structure and cosmolog

The Non-Uniform Commercial Code: The Creeping, Problematic Application of Article 9 to Determine Outcomes in Foreclosure Cases

[Excerpt] “This article will discuss the operation of two portions of the Uniform Commercial Code (“U.C.C.”) on mortgage foreclosure law. Article 3 of the U.C.C. governs negotiable instruments, whereas Article 9 governs secured transactions. For decades, courts have utilized Article 3 to determine the rights of lenders and their assigns to enforce mortgage promissory notes and to foreclose mortgages thereon. However, certain jurisdictions do not utilize the U.C.C. in foreclosure cases, whereas other jurisdictions have recently begun to look to Article 9 instead. This article argues that the Uniform Commercial Code should receive more uniform application, with Article 3 as the enforcement tool of the land. . . . Parts I-III of this Article will discuss the negotiable nature of mortgage notes, and the significance of this character. Part I will briefly discuss the importance of a plaintiff’s standing to initiate and pursue foreclosure. Part II will analyze the history of both the negotiability of notes and the foreclosure of mortgages. This historical analysis is meant to provide an explication of the divergent paths notes and mortgages have taken, in terms of the predictability of enforcement outcomes and the relative harshness each produces. Part III will discuss the negotiable character of mortgage promissory notes. If a note is a negotiable instrument, then transfer of the note may be analyzed under Article 3. However, even if a note is negotiable, that does not mean that it is not also potentially subject to enforcement under Article 9. Part IV will provide an overview of enforcement mechanisms utilized in various jurisdictions. This Part will highlight the law in jurisdictions in which Article 3 is applied to determine the standing of foreclosure plaintiffs. Following that, Part IV will review application of common law and other enforcement mechanisms in jurisdictions that do not look to the U.C.C. in determining a plaintiff’s standing to enforce a negotiable instrument and foreclosure the security interest secured thereby. Finally, this Part will explore recent cases in which Article 9 has been applied in the foreclosure context. Part V will argue that uniform application of the U.C.C. will aid the recovering housing market and provide a predictable framework for foreclosure of mortgage, going forward. Specifically, Part V will argue that the U.C.C. should be applied to determine whether a plaintiff has standing to foreclose and will further argue that courts should utilize Article 3 of the Code in making such determinations.