Certification (and) Marks – Understanding Usage and Practices Among Standards Organizations

In addition to creating technical standards that describe how different products or services interoperate, many standards development organizations (SDOs) also perform testing services that are designed to ensure that products that ostensibly comply with a standard actually work together. SDOs frequently call this process “certification,” and authorize implementers that pass the testing process to use a logo or similar mark. Certification marks are a type of trademark that would seem to be tailor-made for this process. Our empirical analysis shows that SDOs use certification marks only relatively rarely, however. This dissonance is striking, providing insight into both the remarkably sophisticated practices of many SDOs in connection with compliance and interoperability testing and into potential weaknesses of the certification mark legal regime. The empirical data presented in the paper is intended to serve as a foundational platform for further work analysing the law and policy of certification marks and the practices of SDOs in connection with interoperability testing and certification

The National Security Implications of Cyberbiosecurity

The cyber- and biological sciences are converging rapidly, creating benefits, new and advantageous applications, and increasing risks to all nations. The parts of the public and private sectors that should be responsible for cyberbiosecurity are not yet sufficiently organized or supported financially. This article addresses the need to ensure that national security policy: (1) assesses cyberbiological risk and incorporates deterrent and enforcement measures; (2) sets forth clear consequences for those individuals and countries that conduct cyberbiological attacks or otherwise compromise cyberbiosecurity, without imperiling the legitimate sharing of scientific data and information; (3) establishes voluntary cyberbiosecurity standards in partnership with the private sector; (4) identifies cyberbiosecurity threats, vulnerabilities, consequences, and solutions; and (5) results from the combined efforts of all branches of government and the private sector

Globalization and the Design of International Institutions

In an increasingly globalized world, international rules and organizations have grown ever more crucial to the resolution of major economic and social concerns. How can leaders design international institutions that will effectively solve global regulatory problems? This paper confronts this question by presenting three major types of global problems, distinguishing six main categories of institutional forms that can be used to address these problems, and showing how the effectiveness of international institutions depends on achieving “form-problem” fit. Complicating that fit will be the tendency of nation states to prefer institutional forms that do little to constrain their sovereignty. Yet the least-constraining institutional forms are the very ones that will tend to be the least successful in dealing with global regulatory problems – especially commons problems and threats to human rights. Achieving effective form-problem fit therefore depends on creating institutional structures that can give nation-states adequate assurance that their interests will not be unduly undermined while simultaneously ensuring that global institutions enjoy sufficient independence for solving global problems

Technical barriers to trade: The case of Turkey and the European Union

The purpose of this paper is to study in detail the policies Turkey has adopted for the elimination of Technical Barriers to Trade within the context of 1995 Customs Union Decision between the EU and Turkey as of January 1, 1996. In addition, the paper emphasize the problems Turkey have encountered during the implementation of the policies, administrative costs of implementation. It is hoped that the Turkish experience will be beneficial for Southern and Eastern neighbors of the EU pursuing deeper economic integration with the EU within the context of EU’s European Neighborhood Policy. © 2015-Center for Economic Integration, Sejong Institution, Sejong University, All Rights Reserved

On the European Union – Turkey Customs Union

The purpose of the paper is to study the European Union - Turkey customs union (CU) of 1995 covering trade in industrial goods. The customs union decision of 1995 tending to rules and disciplines on various regulatory border and behind-the-border policies covers in particular customs reform, technical barriers to trade, competition policy, intellectual property rights, and administrative procedures. The paper after assessing in each case the status quo at the time of the entry of the CU into force evaluates the commitments undertaken under the CU, and assesses the degree of implementation of the CU requirements as well as the administrative costs of implementation of the CU. Finally, the paper shows how the CU has successfully moved the Turkish economy from a government-controlled regime to a market based one.Economic Integration, Customs Union

Globalization and Standards: The Logic of Two-Level Game

The emergence of a global information architecture has fueled regulatory competition among nations and regions to set information and communication technology (“ICT”) standards. Such regulatory competition can be thought of as a two level game: level one is competition to set ICT standards within a nation or region; level two is competition to set the global ICT standards with reference to local standards. The United States and the European Union are global leaders in setting ICT standards, and compete to set global ICT standards based on different local regulatory cultures: the U.S. is a “liberal market economy” (“LME”) within which informal standard developing processes are perceived as legitimate, while formal standard developing processes are perceived as legitimate within the “coordinated market economies” (“CME”) that tend to dominate EU regulation. In recent decades, informal ICT standard setting organizations (“SDOs”) known as consortia, which are more narrowly focused and less transparent than traditional SDOs have emerged in the U.S. and have come to dominate global ICT regulatory competition. Standards for Radio Frequency Identifiers (“RFID”) provide an example that illustrates this trend. EU regulators now are considering what changes may be needed in the EU system of harmonizing standards and EU regulation in order to reverse this trend. If EU regulators succeed in engaging with selected ICT standards consortia, this might permit CME regulation to prevail over LME regulation in competition to set global ICT standards

Standardizing Warhol: Antitrust Liability for Denying the Authenticity of Artwork

Art authentication boards are powerful; their determinations of authenticity can render artwork worthless or add millions of dollars to market value. In the past, boards that denied authenticity of artwork typically risked tort liability for disparagement, defamation, or fraud. In Simon-Whelan v. Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., however, an art collector alleged monopolization and market restraint after an authentication board denied the authenticity of his Andy Warhol painting by stamping “DENIED” on the back of it. The case is the first antitrust lawsuit against an authentication board to survive the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The decision therefore suggests potential liability exposure under the Sherman Antitrust Act for art professionals who render opinions on the authenticity of artwork. This Article discusses how Simon-Whelan provides a framework for pleading antitrust claims against authentication boards and considers what standard could be appropriate for analyzing similar claims at trial. This Article also describes how antitrust law governing standards setting and product certification outside the art world could apply to art authentication and organizations setting authenticity standards

Quantifying the impact of technical barriers to trade : a framework for analysis

There has been increasing use of technical regulations as instruments of commercial policy in the context of multilateral, regional, and global trade. These nontariff barriers are of special concern to developing countries, which may bear additional costs in meeting mandatory standards. Many industrial and developing countries express frustration with regulations that vary across their export markets, require duplicative conformity procedures, and are continually revised to exclude imports. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the policy debate and methodological issues surrounding product standards and technical barriers to trade. They begin with a review of the policy context driving demand for empirical analysis of standards in trade, then provide an analytical overview of the role of standards and their relationship to trade. They then review methodological approaches that have been used to analyze standards and theirimpact on trade. Their main interest lies in advancing techniques that are practical and may be fruitfully extended to the empirical analysis of regulations and trade. They discuss concrete steps that could be taken to move forward a practical, policy-relevant program of empirical research. Such steps would include: a) administering firm-level surveys in developing countries; b) devising methods for assessing how much standards restrict trade; and c) establishing econometric approaches that could be applied to survey and microeconomic data, to improve understanding of the role of standards in exports.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Trade and Services,Trade and Regional Integration