Eurasian Economic Union Court and WTO Dispute Settlement Body: Two Housewives in One Kitchen

Using the approach of the United Nations International Law Commission, the law of the Eurasian Economic Union and WTO law might be regarded as autonomous complexes of rules. However, in all current disputes the DSB treats the norms of EAEU law as measures adopted by a specific EAEU member, but not as international law within the meaning of the ILC. These disputes concern import tariffs, anti-dumping investigations, and technical regulation and reveal a number of specific features. First, the EAEU measures are attributable to every EAEU member. Second, the WTO members may try to challenge in the DSB the measures adopted by an EAEU member in its national legislation based on EAEU law that affect national legislation of that EAEU member, rather than EAEU law as such. Third, “forum shopping” may arise, for the same measure can be challenged under EAEU law in the EAEU Court and under WTO law in the DSB. Finally, to overcome uncertainty concerning WTO law in EAEU Court jurisprudence, it is necessary to clarify the approach of the EAEU Court. The authors conclude that this approach should provide for the Court’s right to interpret EAEU law relying on WTO law and DSB jurisprudence. Such interpretation should be made within the context and object of the EAEU Treaty. However, the autonomous EAEU legal order cannot be implemented until the Treaty on Functioning of the Customs Union within the Multilateral Trading System is applicable.Using the approach of the United Nations International Law Commission, the law of the Eurasian Economic Union and WTO law might be regarded as autonomous complexes of rules. However, in all current disputes the DSB treats the norms of EAEU law as measures adopted by a specific EAEU member, but not as international law within the meaning of the ILC. These disputes concern import tariffs, anti-dumping investigations, and technical regulation and reveal a number of specific features. First, the EAEU measures are attributable to every EAEU member. Second, the WTO members may try to challenge in the DSB the measures adopted by an EAEU member in its national legislation based on EAEU law that affect national legislation of that EAEU member, rather than EAEU law as such. Third, “forum shopping” may arise, for the same measure can be challenged under EAEU law in the EAEU Court and under WTO law in the DSB. Finally, to overcome uncertainty concerning WTO law in EAEU Court jurisprudence, it is necessary to clarify the approach of the EAEU Court. The authors conclude that this approach should provide for the Court’s right to interpret EAEU law relying on WTO law and DSB jurisprudence. Such interpretation should be made within the context and object of the EAEU Treaty. However, the autonomous EAEU legal order cannot be implemented until the Treaty on Functioning of the Customs Union within the Multilateral Trading System is applicable

Tax Competence of the Eurasian Economic Union: A New Reading by the Court

In October 2022, the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) adopted the first Advisory Opinion fully devoted to the interpretation of the tax provisions of the EAEU Treaty. While reiterating its previous findings that the powers to impose taxes fall within the jurisdiction of the Member States, for the first time, the Court has argued in favour of limiting these powers by the law of the EAEU. Such limitations derive from the principles of non-discrimination and free competition of goods and services regardless of the country of production. In such a manner, the Court has made a significant contribution to the establishment of a single common market within the Union and has enriched the understanding of the principles governing the division of competence between the Member States and the bodies of the Union. The only conclusion that could be seen as dubious by the Court was regarding the collection of VAT on the basis of the country of destination and the fact that this is necessary to maintain competition and avoid double taxation and that the reasoning for such a mechanism is also predetermined by the nature of this taxIn October 2022, the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) adopted the first Advisory Opinion fully devoted to the interpretation of the tax provisions of the EAEU Treaty. While reiterating its previous findings that the powers to impose taxes fall within the jurisdiction of the Member States, for the first time, the Court has argued in favour of limiting these powers by the law of the EAEU. Such limitations derive from the principles of non-discrimination and free competition of goods and services regardless of the country of production. In such a manner, the Court has made a significant contribution to the establishment of a single common market within the Union and has enriched the understanding of the principles governing the division of competence between the Member States and the bodies of the Union. The only conclusion that could be seen as dubious by the Court was regarding the collection of VAT on the basis of the country of destination and the fact that this is necessary to maintain competition and avoid double taxation and that the reasoning for such a mechanism is also predetermined by the nature of this ta

International Financial Standards in the Global Legal Order and in EU and EAEU Law

The global financial crisis strengthened the role of international financial standards in global commercial architecture and outlined the specialization of standard-settingbodies. These standards may be transposed in international agreements or be implemented in the legal order of states and state communities (such as the European Union (EU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)). The development of standard-setting bodies and the evolving process of soft law rulemaking have led to the establishment of a specific mechanism, which may be called “the soft law mechanism.” The authors argue that this mechanism includes several components: normative (IFS), institutional (SSBs), controlling (peer reviews), and assuring (implementing incentives) components. However, despite the rising influence of international financial standards, a strict boundary between soft and hard law should be established. This article outlines these boundaries and justifies the use of the term soft law. In post-crisis global financial regulation, the role of soft law has increased not only in the financial market but also in the field of monetary regulation. Along with the traditional mechanisms of financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), states may use alternative bilateral and regional mechanisms. At the level of integration associations, soft law manifests in different ways. In the EU, despite the expansion of its field of action, soft law is purely an auxiliary element of the Union’s legal system. In EAEU law, the mechanism of soft-law regulation can beconsidered promising, given the peculiarities of the integration model.

Mathematical modeling of antihypertensive therapy

Hypertension is a multifactorial disease arising from complex pathophysiological pathways. Individual characteristics of patients result in different responses to various classes of antihypertensive medications. Therefore, evaluating the efficacy of therapy based on in silico predictions is an important task. This study is a continuation of research on the modular agent-based model of the cardiovascular and renal systems (presented in the previously published article). In the current work, we included in the model equations simulating the response to antihypertensive therapies with different mechanisms of action. For this, we used the pharmacodynamic effects of the angiotensin II receptor blocker losartan, the calcium channel blocker amlodipine, the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor enalapril, the direct renin inhibitor aliskiren, the thiazide diuretic hydrochlorothiazide, and the β-blocker bisoprolol. We fitted therapy parameters based on known clinical trials for all considered medications, and then tested the model’s ability to show reasonable dynamics (expected by clinical observations) after treatment with individual drugs and their dual combinations in a group of virtual patients with hypertension. The extended model paves the way for the next step in personalized medicine that is adapting the model parameters to a real patient and predicting his response to antihypertensive therapy. The model is implemented in the BioUML software and is available at https://gitlab.sirius-web.org/virtual-patient/antihypertensive-treatment-modeling

Anderson localization in metamaterials and other complex media

We review some recent (mostly ours) results on the Anderson localization of light and electron waves in complex disordered systems, including: (i) left-handed metamaterials, (ii) magneto-active optical structures, (iii) graphene superlattices, and (iv) nonlinear dielectric media. First, we demonstrate that left-handed metamaterials can significantly suppress localization of light and lead to an anomalously enhanced transmission. This suppression is essential at the long-wavelength limit in the case of normal incidence, at specific angles of oblique incidence (Brewster anomaly), and in the vicinity of the zero-epsilon or zero-mu frequencies for dispersive metamaterials. Remarkably, in disordered samples comprised of alternating normal and left-handed metamaterials, the reciprocal Lyapunov exponent and reciprocal transmittance increment can differ from each other. Second, we study magneto-active multilayered structures, which exhibit nonreciprocal localization of light depending on the direction of propagation and on the polarization. At resonant frequencies or realizations, such nonreciprocity results in effectively unidirectional transport of light. Third, we discuss the analogy between the wave propagation through multilayered samples with metamaterials and the charge transport in graphene, which enables a simple physical explanation of unusual conductive properties of disordered graphene superlatices. We predict disorder-induced resonances of the transmission coefficient at oblique incidence of the Dirac quasiparticles. Finally, we demonstrate that an interplay of nonlinearity and disorder in dielectric media can lead to bistability of individual localized states excited inside the medium at resonant frequencies. This results in nonreciprocity of the wave transmission and unidirectional transport of light.Comment: 37 pages, 30 figures, Review pape

A probabilistic inequality related to negative definite functions

Abstract. We prove that for any pair of i.i.d. random vectors , in ℝ and any real-valued continuous negative definite function : ℝ → ℝ the inequality ( − ) ⩽ ( + ). holds. In particular, for ∈ (0, 2] and the Euclidean norm ∥ ⋅ ∥2 one has The latter inequality is due to A. Buja et al. Mathematics Subject Classification (2010). Primary 60E15; Secondary 60G22, 60E10

Aeration modes and engineering preparation of slopes

Subject: the aeration mode of the sloping territories of different terrain, for which engineering adaptation measures are needed. Objectives: analyze the patterns of airflow over the sloping areas, affecting the bioclimatic comfort and wind erosion of the landscape. Materials and methods: flow patterns of sloping areas with different characteristics are given and an assessment of the bioclimatic comfort for a person is presented. Geotechnical methods are presented in the solution of problems of wind erosion and stability of slopes of hills and complex relief in the city. Results: the relationship between the relief and the aeration regime of the territory, the dependence of the aerodynamic roughness on their height, the features of the aeration of the slope and hilly relief, the factors influencing the direction and speed of the wind and the methods for studying the aeration mode of the sloping territories are considered. The results of complex studies on slope territories and recommendations for improving design solutions are presented. The issue of wind erosion and bioclimatic comfort of the territory on the slope is considered, regardingthe aeration regime. Conclusions: the possibilities of using geotechnical structures for strengthening slopes using biopositive structures that affect the parameters of aeration and bioclimatic comfort of the environment are demonstrated, which increases the health indicators of the population

Rehashing for Bayesian Geometric Hashing

Geometric hashing is a model-based recognition technique based on matching of transformation-invariant object representations stored in a hash table. In the last decade a number of enhancements have been suggested to the basic method improving its performance and reliability. One of the important enhancements is rehashing, improving the computational performance by dealing with the problem of non-uniform occupancy of hash bins. However the proposed rehashing schemes aim to redistribute the hash entries uniformly, which is not appropriate for Bayesian approach, another enhancement optimizing the recognition rate in presence of noise. In this paper we derive the rehashing for Bayesian voting scheme, thus improving the computational performance by minimizing the hash table size and the number of bins accessed, while maintaining optimal recognition rate. 1