Introducing the Themes

This article introduces the critiques regarding international law explored in the articles found in this volume. First, there are "vertical complaints", as a lack of an international parliament results in international lawmakers lacking ties to democratically elected polities that legitimise law within democracies. Secondly, there are "horizontal complaints" in that there is an absence of democratisation between states. Thirdly, there are ideological critiques as international law-making is dominated by Western governmental elites. Fourthly, traditional international organisations are criticised as their perceived ideological flaws undermine their structural elements. Fifthly, some worry about substantive provisions contained in contemporary multilateral and bilateral agreements for many reasons. Sixthly, the legitimacy of contemporary law-making actors is questioned. Finally, many young scholars did not attempt to rehash the existing arguments above and instead highlighted the virtues of comparative international law. It is concluded that comparative international law remains a useful exercise

Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership's Investment Chapter the new "Gold Standard"?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership's Investment Chapter, and particularly its inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), has been the focus of considerable criticism both in the United States and New Zealand. Despite huge differences between these two potential TPP partners, the anticipated economic and political benefits offered by the pact – but also the threats to democracy posed – have been expressed in similar ways by distinct stakeholders in both countries. This essay describes how this chapter is the culmination of reforms to United States investment protection treaties that began with the investment chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 and that are now evident in the latest United States Model Bilateral Investment Treaty (of 2012). The TPP's Investment Chapter borrows heavily from prior United States efforts to narrow investor rights (as with respect to fair and equitable treatment), expand sovereign policy space, and incorporate certain rule of law reforms. For its critics, the pact falls far short of achieving a new "gold standard" precisely because it merely reforms – but does not abandon – ISDS for its enforcement.Editor's note: The text of this article was originally accepted for publication in March 2016. Recent statements by President-elect Donald Trump indicate that the United States will likely withdraw from further participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership and refrain from ratifying the agreed text. Without the United States' ratification, the agreement will not come into force. Despite this apparent ending to the Trans Pacific Partnership, the editors consider that Professor Alvarez's article remains an extremely useful analysis of investment provisions that may well serve as a model for the negotiation of such provisions in other mega-regional trade agreements in the future

The Case for Reparations for the Color of COVID

This Article surveys the data demonstrating that COVID-19, far from being the great equalizer, has generated starkly skewed adverse outcomes, including grossly disproportionate deaths, among persons of color in the U.S., Brazil, and India, and in all likelihood globally. The “color of COVID” results from governmental actions and inactions that, when combined with long-standing socio-economic vulnerabilities, produce deadly results for certain groups. Global health reformers are not addressing these injustices. Like those who resist reparations for African-Americans, for the global victims of slavery, colonialism and its legacies, or for all of the current pandemic’s victims, those seeking to reform the WHO resist state responsibility or accountability for COVID. This Article argues that since, under international law, states owe a duty to provide remedies to persons within their jurisdiction who are denied fundamental rights because of de facto or de jure discrimination, there will be a substantial number of COVID-related claims presented in national courts and international venues, such as human rights courts and treaty bodies. States will face a choice between allowing judges to respond to actions or anticipating the most serious of them by establishing reparations mechanisms or commissions to address the color of COVID. As students of transitional justice can attest, there are advantages to doing both: allowing tort-like claims to proceed in judicial fora while establishing, at the national and possibly sub-national levels, mechanisms to enable contextually sensitive responses—from government apologies to forms of recompense. Intrastate reparations are more politically viable than interstate claims seeking to establish blame for the spread of COVID. National efforts to provide a measure of restorative justice to those harmed within each country by discriminatory practices are justified morally, legally, and from a utilitarian perspective. Bringing out the facts of the color of COVID and making states accountable may deter discriminatory actions (and inactions) that have furthered COVID-19 and its variants. Enabling accountability for the color of COVID can help mitigate the impact of future pandemics. Reparations would also advance the idea that all persons, irrespective of color of skin, have a basic right to life and health

Performance of the reconstruction algorithms of the FIRST experiment pixel sensors vertex detector

Hadrontherapy treatments use charged particles (e.g. protons and carbon ions) to treat tumors. During a therapeutic treatment with carbon ions, the beam undergoes nuclear fragmentation processes giving rise to significant yields of secondary charged particles. An accurate prediction of these production rates is necessary to estimate precisely the dose deposited into the tumours and the surrounding healthy tissues. Nowadays, a limited set of double differential carbon fragmentation cross-section is available. Experimental data are necessary to benchmark Monte Carlo simulations for their use in hadrontherapy. The purpose of the FIRST experiment is to study nuclear fragmentation processes of ions with kinetic energy in the range from 100 to 1000 MeV/u. Tracks are reconstructed using information from a pixel silicon detector based on the CMOS technology. The performances achieved using this device for hadrontherapy purpose are discussed. For each reconstruction step (clustering, tracking and vertexing), different methods are implemented. The algorithm performances and the accuracy on reconstructed observables are evaluated on the basis of simulated and experimental data

Closed-String Tachyons and the Hagedorn Transition in AdS Space

We discuss some aspects of the behaviour of a string gas at the Hagedorn temperature from a Euclidean point of view. Using AdS space as an infrared regulator, the Hagedorn tachyon can be effectively quasi-localized and its dynamics controled by a finite energetic balance. We propose that the off-shell RG flow matches to an Euclidean AdS black hole geometry in a generalization of the string/black-hole correspondence principle. The final stage of the RG flow can be interpreted semiclassically as the growth of a cool black hole in a hotter radiation bath. The end-point of the condensation is the large Euclidean AdS black hole, and the part of spacetime behind the horizon has been removed. In the flat-space limit, holography is manifest by the system creating its own transverse screen at infinity. This leads to an argument, based on the energetics of the system, explaining why the non-supersymmetric type 0A string theory decays into the supersymmetric type IIB vacuum. We also suggest a notion of `boundary entropy', the value of which decreases along the line of flow.Comment: 24 pages, Harvmac. 2 Figures. Typos corrected and reference adde