Constitutional Analogies in the International Legal System

This Article explores issues at the frontier of international law and constitutional law. It considers five key structural and systemic challenges that the international legal system now faces: (1) decentralization and disaggregation; (2) normative and institutional hierarchies; (3) compliance and enforcement; (4) exit and escape; and (5) democracy and legitimacy. Each of these issues raises questions of governance, institutional design, and allocation of authority paralleling the questions that domestic legal systems have answered in constitutional terms. For each of these issues, I survey the international legal landscape and consider the salience of potential analogies to domestic constitutions, drawing upon and extending the writings of international legal scholars and international relations theorists. I also offer some preliminary thoughts about why some treaties and institutions, but not others, more readily lend themselves to analysis in constitutional terms. And I distinguish those legal and political issues that may generate useful insights for scholars studying the growing intersections of international and constitutional law from other areas that may be more resistant to constitutional analogies

Negative tunneling magnetoresistance by canted magnetization in MgO/NiO tunnel barriers

The influence of insertion of an ultra-thin NiO layer between the MgO barrier and ferromagnetic electrode in magnetic tunnel junctions has been investigated by measuring the tunneling magnetoresistance and the X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The magnetoresistance shows a high asymmetry with respect to bias voltage, giving rise to a negative value of -16% at 2.8 K. We attribute this to the formation of non-collinear spin structures in the NiO layer as observed by XMCD. The magnetic moments of the interface Ni atoms tilt from the easy axis due to exchange interaction and the tilting angle decreases with increasing the NiO thickness. The experimental observations are further support by non-collinear spin density functional theory

Fluid Convection, Generation and Reinfusion in Haemodiafiltration

Despite widespread use in clinical practice for over 30 years, many questions remain unanswered regarding fluid convection and reinfusion strategies in haemodiafiltration (HDF). Randomised controlled trials have failed to consistently demonstrate improved survival with convective therapies, but a dose-dependent improvement in outcome has been suggested. The ‘minimum’ and ‘ideal’ volumes of convection are undefined. Online generation of ultrapure dialysis fluid has allowed unprecedented convection volumes; however, delivery of fluid directly into the blood circuit requires strict monitoring. The replacement fluid may be reinfused at multiple points in the circuit. Post-dilution HDF is highly efficient in terms of solute clearance but is limited by haemoconcentration. Pre-dilution HDF prolongs filter life but requires significant convection volumes to achieve adequate solute clearance. Mid-dilution HDF utilises a specific dialyser, which is associated with additional cost and escalating transmembrane pressure. Mixed-dilution HDF appears to offer an attractive balance between solute clearance efficiency and haemoconcentration, however these findings need to be confirmed in large studies. The majority of trials comparing fluid reinfusion strategies have enrolled small numbers of patients over brief study periods. It is unclear whether high-quality evidence examining fluid convection and reinfusion will become available and practice may need to rely on observational data

Wrong Turn in Cyberspace: Using ICANN to Route Around the APA and the Constitution

The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the root. Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace. This Article first describes how the United States government found itself in control of the root. It then describes how, in an attempt to meet concerns that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U. S. Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a formally private nonprofit California corporation. DoC then signed contracts with ICANN in order to clothe it with most of the U. S. government\u27s power over the DNS, and convinced other parties to recognize ICANN\u27s authority. ICANN then took regulatory actions that the U. S. Department of Commerce was unable or unwilling to make itself, including the imposition on all registrants of Internet addresses of an idiosyncratic set of arbitration rules and procedures that benefit third-party trademark holders. Professor Froomkin then argues that the use of ICANN to regulate in the stead of an executive agency violates fundamental values and policies designed to ensure democratic control over the use of government power, and sets a precedent that risks being expanded into other regulatory activities. He argues that DoC\u27s use of ICANN to make rules either violates the APA\u27s requirement for notice and comment in rulemaking and judicial review, or it violates the Constitution\u27s nondelegation doctrine. Professor Froomkin reviews possible alternatives to ICANN, and ultimately proposes a decentralized structure in which the namespace of the DNS is spread out over a transnational group of policy partners with DoC

Global standards of Constitutional law : epistemology and methodology

Just as it led the philosophy of science to gravitate around scientific practice, the abandonment of all foundationalist aspirations has already begun making political philosophy into an attentive observer of the new ways in which constitutional law is practiced. Yet paradoxically, lawyers and legal scholars are not those who understand this the most clearly. Beyond analyzing the jurisprudence that has emerged from the expansion of constitutional justice, and taking into account the development of international and regional law, the ongoing globalization of constitutional law requires comparing the constitutional laws of individual nations. Following Waldron, the product of this new legal science can be considered as ius gentium. This legal science is not as well established as one might like to think. But it can be developed on the grounds of the practice that consists in ascertaining standards. As abstract types of best “practices” (and especially norms) of constitutional law from around the world, these are only a source of law in a substantive, not a formal, sense. They thus belong to what I should like to call a “second order legal positivity.” In this article I will undertake, both at a methodological and an epistemological level, the development of a model for ascertaining global standards of constitutional law

Challenging SO(10) SUSY GUTs with family symmetries through FCNC processes

We perform a detailed analysis of the SO(10) SUSY GUT model with D3 family symmetry of Dermisek and Raby (DR). The model is specified in terms of 24 parameters and predicts, as a function of them, the whole MSSM set of parameters at low energy scales. Concerning the SM subset of such parameters, the model is able to give a satisfactory description of the quark and lepton masses, of the PMNS matrix and of the CKM matrix. We perform a global fit to the model, including flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) processes Bs --> mu+ mu-, B --> Xs gamma, B --> Xs l+ l- and the B(d,s) - bar B(d,s) mass differences Delta M(d,s) as well as the flavour changing (FC) process B+ --> tau+ nu. These observables provide at present the most sensitive probe of the SUSY mass spectrum and couplings predicted by the model. Our analysis demonstrates that the simultaneous description of the FC observables in question represents a serious challenge for the DR model, unless the masses of the scalars are moved to regions which are problematic from the point of view of naturalness and probably beyond the reach of the LHC. We emphasize that this problem could be a general feature of SUSY GUT models with third generation Yukawa unification and weak-scale minimal flavour violation.Comment: 1 + 37 pages, 5 figures, 11 tables. v3: minor typos fixed. Matches JHEP published versio