Combining Norms, Roles, Dependence and Argumentation in Agreement Technologies

A major challenge for Agreement Technologies is the combination of existing technologies and rea- soning methods. In this paper we focus on the three core layers of the Agreement Technologies tower, called Norms, Organization and Argumentation. We present a framework for arguing about agreements based on norms, roles and dependence, together with a case study from the sharing economy

The Bioterrorism Act of the USA and international food trade: Evaluating WTO conformity and effects on bilateral imports

The September 11th event focused the world's attention on the threat of bioterrorism to the food chain. As a consequence, the U.S. implemented the Bioterrorism Act (BTA). These new administrative import rules will be evaluated regarding WTO conformity and trade impact. This analysis is based on an inventory approach systematizing the BTA, and a trade flow analysis. The BTA do not significantly deviate from WTO rules, however, the findings are driven by existing flexibility in international administrative import guidelines. The trade analysis highlights that products and countries with prior expedited or less regulated procedures and small import quantities are affected.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,

Competitive Pressure in Transition: A Role for Trade and Competition Policies?

This paper investigates the effects of trade reforms and antitrust enforcement on the pricing behavior of firms, shedding light on the respective contributions of these policy instruments to the shaping of competitive markets. To this end, we use a rich panel data set of more than 25,000 manufacturing firms from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, spanning a five-year period. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between domestic firms' mark-ups and industry protection, as reflected in MFN and trade-weighted import tariffs. The toughness of competition policy enforcement, captured by the number of final instance decisions delivered by national antitrust authorities and an index developed by the EBRD, has a negative impact of greater magnitude than tariff protection. We also test for the significance of enacting major legislative amendments with regard to competition policy in the studied countries, as well as for differential effects in export-oriented and import-competing industries.Competition policy; Mark-up; Import penetration; Transitional economies

Introducing EU Competition Law and Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: Requirements in Theory and Problems in Practice

This Article gives an overview of the requirements that must be fulfilled before a Central and Eastern European Country ( CEEC ) can truly claim to be willing and able to apply the acquis communautaire in the field of competition law and policy and thus to be ready for full membership in the European Union ( EU )

Algorithms for finding coalitions exploiting a new reciprocity condition

We introduce a reciprocity criterion for coalition formation among goal-directed agents, which we call the indecomposable do-ut-des property. It refines an older reciprocity property, called the do-ut-des or give-to-get property by considering the fact that agents prefer to form coalitions whose components cannot be formed independently. A formal description of this property is provided as well as an analysis of algorithms and their complexity. We provide an algorithm to decide whether a coalition has the desired property, and we show that the problem to verify whether a single coalition satisfies the property is tractable. Moreover, we provide an algorithm to search all the sub-coalitions of a given coalition satisfying the new property. Even if this problem is not computationally tractable, we show that in several cases, also the complexity of this problem may decrease considerably

A Thematic Analysis on How Forensic Psychologists Conduct Personal Injury Evaluations

Psychological evaluations administered by forensic psychologist in personal injury cases are surrounded by complex issues. Although empirically-based research has legitimized that psychological damages do exist in personal injury cases there is a missing link in the way forensic psychologists are conducting these evaluations. Prior researchers suggested that some personal injury evaluations had been dismissed or overlooked due to a lack of a standard of care. Addressing the current literature, this study examined how a diverse group of 14 licensed forensic psychologists, operating in different judicial jurisdictions (Daubert, Frye, and Independent) were conducting personal injury evaluations and their perspectives on the implementation of a standard of care. A qualitative thematic analysis design was used to gain a more in-depth understanding of this phenomenon. Systems theory was the conceptual framework that informed this study and guided the methodology employed. The identified themes were organized into steps reflected in an adapted version cube model. The study promotes positive social change by fostering confidence in the field of psychology and personal injury evaluations with regard to bolstering the overall credibility, reliability, and validity of the practice and processes involved. Further, positive change can occur through the development of framework that assists in leveling the practice by keeping evaluations flexible, but consistent; basing the decision regarding implementing a standard of care on the utility of the framework, along with future findings and developments in the field

Toward a Theory of Effective Supranational Adjudication

Supranational adjudication in Europe is a remarkable and surprising success. Europe\u27s two supranational courts -- the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) -- issue dozens of judgments each year with which defending national governments habitually comply in essentially the same manner as they would with domestic court rulings. These experiences stand in striking contrast to those of many international tribunals past and present. Can the European experience of supranational adjudication be transplanted beyond Europe? Professors Helfer and Slaughter argue that the effectiveness of the ECJ and the ECHR is linked to their power to hear claims brought by private parties directly against national governments or against other private parties. Such supranational jurisdiction has allowed the European courts to penetrate the surface of the state, to forge direct relationships not only with individual citizens but also with distinct government institutions such as national courts. Over time, this penetration and the deepening relationships between supranational jurists and domestic legal actors have led to the evolution of a community of law, a web of nominally apolitical relations among subnational and supranational legal actors. The simple provision of supranational jurisdiction, however, is not a guarantee of effective adjudication. Drawing on the observations of scholars, practitioners, and judges, Professors Helfer and Slaughter develop a checklist of factors that enhance the effectiveness of supranational adjudication. They distinguish among those factors that are within the control of member states; those that are within the control of the judges themselves; and those that may be beyond the control of either states or judges. Isolating the factors in this way provides both a rough metric for evaluating the effectiveness of other supranational tribunals and a potential set of prescriptions for judges on those tribunals seeking to enhance their institutions\u27 effectiveness. After developing the checklist, Professors Helfer and Slaughter use it to analyze the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). Although the UNHRC was established expressly as a committee of experts rather than a court, analysis of its recent practice reveals that it is becoming increasingly court-like. Moreover, within the constraints imposed by severely limited resources, UNHRC members are independently following many of the checklist prescriptions for increased effectiveness. The next step is for the organization to enter into a sustained dialogue with its European counterparts, harmonizing its decisions with theirs in some areas while consciously preserving its own distinctive jurisprudence in others. Structured and regular interaction between these tribunals would add additional voices to an emerging transjudicial conversation, potentially laying the foundation for a global community of law