Specific issues concerning the management of patients on the waiting list and after liver transplantation

The present document is a second contribution collecting the recommendations of an expert panel of transplant hepatologists appointed by the Italian Association for the Study of the Liver (AISF) concerning the management of certain aspects of liver transplantation, including: the issue of prompt referral; the management of difficult candidates; malnutrition; living related liver transplants; hepatocellular carcinoma; and the role of direct acting antiviral agents before and after transplantation. The statements on each topic were approved by participants at the AISF Transplant Hepatology Expert Meeting organized by the Permanent Liver Transplant Commission in Mondello on 12-13 May 2017. They are graded according to the GRADE grading system

Set-Monotonicity Implies Kelly-Strategyproofness

This paper studies the strategic manipulation of set-valued social choice functions according to Kelly's preference extension, which prescribes that one set of alternatives is preferred to another if and only if all elements of the former are preferred to all elements of the latter. It is shown that set-monotonicity---a new variant of Maskin-monotonicity---implies Kelly-strategyproofness in comprehensive subdomains of the linear domain. Interestingly, there are a handful of appealing Condorcet extensions---such as the top cycle, the minimal covering set, and the bipartisan set---that satisfy set-monotonicity even in the unrestricted linear domain, thereby answering questions raised independently by Barber\`a (1977) and Kelly (1977).Comment: 14 page

Comment letters on on the exposure draft, Amendments to Statements on Auditing Standards and Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagements to Incorporate the Internal Control - Integrated Framework Report.

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1724/thumbnail.jp

UMBRELLA CLAUSES: A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

A considerable number of currently in force investment treaties houses what investment tribunals and academics call an ‘umbrella clause’ provision. The umbrella clause is a provision in investment protection treaties whereby the investment hosting State is bound to respect the undertakings it has assumed with a foreign investor and/or with regard to its investments. This clause, and in particular how its function is interpreted, is the subject-matter of this thesis. Function is best described as the purpose that the clause fulfils within the treaty structure, viz enhancing the protection of commitments voluntarily undertaken in relation to foreign investors or their investments. After the first introductory chapter, which accounts for the many inconsistencies in the interpretation of the clause, as well as for the interpretive criteria tribunals have employed, the second chapter gathers some punctual data on the topicality of the umbrella clause debate. It pictures how the clause has been interpreted thus far, highlighting areas of consensus, and also dissensus, in investment decisions. In particular, around the issue of function consensus has failed to materialise. Conversely, around jurisdictional precedence, an interpretive concern which looks at the interference between dispute settlement fora designated in the contract and in the treaty respectively, tribunals seem to allow for parallel proceedings. Further, it is underscored how the decline in popularity of the clause in newly signed investment agreements is yet to translate in a waning relevance of the umbrella clause debate. Chapter 3 avers that out of the four known interpretations of the function of the umbrella clause, only two are prima facie compatible with the VCLT rules and are, for this reason, retained in the debate. Jurisdictional internationalisation (or third camp) and full internationalisation (or fourth camp) are identified as the most plausible interpretations of the clause’s function. Tribunals, pursuant to the former, have argued that it was a conceivable interpretation of the umbrella clause to turn the failure to observe a protected commitment into a breach of treaty, thereby allowing for the claim to be heard before an international tribunal. Compared to the forth camp, however, the assumption that the law applicable to the claim would be international law, as opposed to the proper law of the contract, was rejected. In an effort to discern between the two interpretations, chapters 4 and 5 advance the argument that the third camp interpretation would not allow for the jurisdictional precedence concern to be interpreted in a fashion which is compatible with the VCLT rules. In particular, it would cause commonly formulated contractual forum selection clauses to waive the offer to bring treaty disputes for the violation of the umbrella clause before an investment treaty tribunal. Additionally, compatibility problems might arise between fork- in-the-road provisions and choice of forum clauses in the contract. Even in the event of parallel treaty and contract proceedings issues of compatibility might arise. The lis pendens and res judicata principles, the applicability of article 53 of the ICSID Convention, as well as the frequent recourse of investment tribunals to comity in order to halt treaty proceedings pending the decision of the forum designated in the contract, all contribute to create uncertainty and arbitrariness. Arguably, the fourth camp interpretation, by allowing the umbrella clause claim to be decided in accordance with international law, not the law applicable to the contract, erects a separation between contract and treaty proceedings which renders parallel proceedings unproblematic. It is argued that this is the only solution compatible with the purpose of the treaty, the principle of good faith interpretation as well as with the consequent practice of the treaty Parties pursuant to article 31 of the VCLT

Consistent Probabilistic Social Choice

Two fundamental axioms in social choice theory are consistency with respect to a variable electorate and consistency with respect to components of similar alternatives. In the context of traditional non-probabilistic social choice, these axioms are incompatible with each other. We show that in the context of probabilistic social choice, these axioms uniquely characterize a function proposed by Fishburn (Rev. Econ. Stud., 51(4), 683--692, 1984). Fishburn's function returns so-called maximal lotteries, i.e., lotteries that correspond to optimal mixed strategies of the underlying plurality game. Maximal lotteries are guaranteed to exist due to von Neumann's Minimax Theorem, are almost always unique, and can be efficiently computed using linear programming

Law’s Laboratory: Developing International Law on Investment Protection as Common Law

Abstract: This Article posits that international law on investment protection develops as a common law through adjudication of investor-state disputes. It reviews the three prevalent theories on the development of international law on investment protection. These three theories are (a) that investor-state decisions reflect a new customary international law, (b) that investor-state decisions are a potentially corrupt tool of corporate usurpation of international law, and (c) that investor-state disputes form part of a self-contained legal regime. The Article explains that each theory fails because it superimposes policy preferences not present in investor-state decisions. In rejecting these theories, this Article argues that investor-state disputes trace a case-by-case common law process rather than conform to any rigid theory. Accordingly, this Article provides a cogent theory of persuasive precedent in investor-state arbitration premised upon a common law understanding of persuasive authority in the U.S. courts. The case-by-case common law approach clarifies the current problem of substantively inconsistent decisions arising out of investor-state disputes. Normatively, the decision-making divergence between investor-state tribunals is preferable to artificial uniformity that the three currently prevalent theories impose upon investor-state decision-making tribunals and outcomes

Comment letters on Proposed Statement on Auditing Standards, Amendments to Statement on Auditing Standards No. 61, Communication with Audit Committees, and Statement on Auditing Standards No. 71, Interim Financial Information.

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1716/thumbnail.jp