3,819 research outputs found
Montana v. Wyoming: Sprinklers, Irrigation Water Use Efficiency and the Doctrine of Recapture
Parity realization in Vector-like theories from Fermion Bilinears
We reconsider in this paper the old aim of trying to understand if the
observed realization of discrete symmetries as Parity or CP in the QCD vacuum
can be satisfied from first principles. We show how under the appropriate
assumptions implicitely done by Vafa and Witten in their old paper on parity
realization in vector-like theories, all parity and CP odd operators
constructed from fermion bilinears of the form should
take a vanishing vacuum expectation value in a vector-like theory with N
degenerate flavours (N>1). In our analysis the Vafa-Witten theorem on the
impossibility to break spontaneously the flavour symmetry in a vector-like
theory plays a fundamental role.Comment: 12 pages, no figures To be published in JHE
The Chagos Islands cases: the empire strikes back
Good governance requires the accommodation of multiple interests in the cause of decision making. However, undue regard for particular sectional interests can take their toll upon public faith in government administration. Historically, broad conceptions of the good of the commonwealth were employed to outweigh the interests of groups that resisted colonisation. In the decision making of the British Empire, the standard approach for justifying the marginalisation of the interests of colonised groups was that they were uncivilised and that particular hardships were the price to be paid for bringing to them the imperial dividend of industrial society. It is widely assumed that with the dismantling of the British Empire, such impulses and their accompanying jurisprudence became a thing of the past. Even as decolonisation proceeded apace after the Second World War, however, the United Kingdom maintained control of strategically important islands with a view towards sustaining its global role. In an infamous example from this twilight period of empire, in the 1960s imperial interests were used to justify the expulsion of the Chagos islanders from the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Into the twenty-first century, this forced elision of the UKâs interests with the imperial âcommon goodâ continues to take centre stage in courtroom battles over the islandersâ rights, being cited before domestic and international tribunals in order to maintain the Chagossiansâ exclusion from their homeland. This article considers the new jurisprudence of imperialism which has emerged in a string of decisions which have continued to marginalise the Chagossiansâ interests
When Statutory Regimes Collide:Will Wisconsin Right to Life and Citizens United Invalidate Federal Tax Regulation of Campaign Activity?
In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life (2007) and Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010), the United States Supreme Court dramatically reduced the ability of Congress to regulate campaign finance activities of corporations and others active in elections. Many of the same activities are still subject to restrictions by the Internal Revenue Code, which regulates the type and amount of political campaign activities that certain nonprofits exempt under federal tax law can engage in.
In the wake of the campaign finance decisions, the constitutionality of the tax lawâs restrictions on campaign activity is now being challenged in the lower courts. This Article analyzes the two recent campaign finance decisions and campaign finance precedents more broadly to determine how, if at all, the Robertsâ Courtâs campaign finance jurisprudence is likely to alter existing tax law jurisprudence in the area of campaign activity. It finds that, for the most part, tax law constitutional doctrines have developed independently of other areas of First Amendment free speech law. Based upon an analysis of the distinctive tax law doctrines, the Article concludes that the tax law provision prohibiting section 501(c)(3) charities from engaging in campaigns is likely to withstand challenges arguing that the provision prevents these nonprofits from engaging in protected political speech. However, there is some likelihood that the tax law prohibition is vulnerable to constitutional attack under traditional doctrines of vagueness or overbreadth due to the lack of precision of the terms of the political prohibition, as these have been elaborated by the IRS and the courts to date
Reframing Kurtzâs Painting: Colonial Legacies and Minority Rights in Ethnically Divided Societies
Minority rights constitute some of the most normatively and economically important human rights. Although the political science and legal literatures have proffered a number of constitutional and institutional design solutions to address the protection of minority rights, these solutions are characterized by a noticeable neglect of, and lack of sensitivity to, historical processes. This Article addresses that gap in the literature by developing a causal argument that explains diverging practices of minority rights protections as functions of colonial governmentsâ variegated institutional practices with respect to particular ethnic groups. Specifically, this Article argues that in instances where colonial governments politicize and institutionalize ethnic hegemony in the pre-independence period, an institutional legacy is created that leads to lower levels of minority rights protections. Conversely, a uniform treatment and depoliticization of ethnicity prior to independence ultimately minimizes ethnic cleavages post-independence and consequently causes higher levels of minority rights protections. Through a highly structured comparative historical analysis of Botswana and Ghana, this Article builds on a new and exciting research agenda that focuses on the role of long-term historio-structural and institutional influences on human rights performance and makes important empirical contributions by eschewing traditional methodologies that focus on single case studies that are largely descriptive in their analyses. Ultimately, this Article highlights both the strength of a historical approach to understanding current variations in minority rights protections and the varied institutional responses within a specific colonial government
Thiemann transform for gravity with matter fields
The generalised Wick transform discovered by Thiemann provides a
well-established relation between the Euclidean and Lorentzian theories of
general relativity. We extend this Thiemann transform to the Ashtekar
formulation for gravity coupled with spin-1/2 fermions, a non-Abelian
Yang-Mills field, and a scalar field. It is proved that, on functions of the
gravitational and matter phase space variables, the Thiemann transform is
equivalent to the composition of an inverse Wick rotation and a constant
complex scale transformation of all fields. This result holds as well for
functions that depend on the shift vector, the lapse function, and the Lagrange
multipliers of the Yang-Mills and gravitational Gauss constraints, provided
that the Wick rotation is implemented by means of an analytic continuation of
the lapse. In this way, the Thiemann transform is furnished with a geometric
interpretation. Finally, we confirm the expectation that the generator of the
Thiemann transform can be determined just from the spin of the fields and give
a simple explanation for this fact.Comment: LaTeX 2.09, 14 pages, no figure
Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Fluxes: New Constraints and Implications
We apply new upper limits on neutrino fluxes and the diffuse extragalactic
component of the GeV gamma-ray flux to various scenarios for ultra high energy
cosmic rays and neutrinos. As a result we find that extra-galactic top-down
sources can not contribute significantly to the observed flux of highest energy
cosmic rays. The Z-burst mechanism where ultra-high energy neutrinos produce
cosmic rays via interactions with relic neutrinos is practically ruled out if
cosmological limits on neutrino mass and clustering apply.Comment: 10 revtex pages, 9 postscript figure
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