Grocery Store Activism: A WTO Compliant Means to Incentivize Social Responsibility

Despite the increases in global wealth attributable to globalization and increased international trade, the damage done by socially irresponsible production practices remains an area of concern for international human and labor rights advocates. Because international trade law under the World Trade Organization (WTO) imposes strict limitations on the policy options available to Member States, international human rights and international trade have been viewed as fundamentally at odds with one another. This Article argues that market-based incentives can be used to allow international trade to reinforce established human rights principles, rather than constantly undermining government attempts to formulate appropriate policy solutions. This Article proposes that the United States create and implement a voluntary, government-run system of human rights label. Like the content positive labels currently offered for organic products, this human rights labeling system would provide consumers with additional information in order to reward producers who had met certain standards. Unlike the current system that allows producers to place whatever “human rights” labels that they want on their products and allows numerous third-party certification schemes, a government-run system could serve to create one label that consumers will recognize as credible, consistent, and enforceable. Most importantly, the labeling system proposed by this Article does not run afoul of the United States’s commitments under the WTO. The two relevant agreements, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), are examined in depth for any possible conflicts. The Article concludes that because of the voluntary nature of the label, the proposed labeling scheme should be able to survive scrutiny by a WTO dispute settlement panel, if it such a challenge were to arise. Further, the Article argues that the label could be justified as a general exception, as provided for in Article XX of the GATT

MuRF1 activity is present in cardiac mitochondria and regulates reactive oxygen species production in vivo

Erratum: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10863-014-9597-1MuRF1 is a previously reported ubiquitin-ligase found in striated muscle that targets troponin I and myosin heavy chain for degradation. While MuRF1 has been reported to interact with mitochondrial substrates in yeast two-hybrid studies, no studies have identified MuRF1’s role in regulating mitochondrial function to date. In the present study, we measured cardiac mitochondrial function from isolated permeabilized muscle fibers in previously phenotyped MuRF1 transgenic and MuRF1−/− mouse models to determine the role of MuRF1 in intermediate energy metabolism and ROS production. We identified a significant decrease in reactive oxygen species production in cardiac muscle fibers from MuRF1 transgenic mice with increased α-MHC driven MuRF1 expression. Increased MuRF1 expression in ex vivo and in vitro experiments revealed no alterations in the respiratory chain complex I and II function. Working perfusion experiments on MuRF1 transgenic hearts demonstrated significant changes in glucose oxidation. This is an factual error as written; however, total oxygen consumption was decreased. This data provides evidence for MuRF1 as a novel regulator of cardiac ROS, offering another mechanism by which increased MuRF1 expression may be cardioprotective in ischemia reperfusion injury, in addition to its inhibition of apoptosis via proteasome-mediate degradation of c-Jun. The lack of mitochondrial function phenotype identified in MuRF1−/− hearts may be due to the overlapping interactions of MuRF1 and MuRF2 with energy regulating proteins found by yeast two-hybrid studies reported here, implying a duplicity in MuRF1 and MuRF2’s regulation of mitochondrial function.Funding support from Medical Research Council, United Kingdom; National Institutes of Health, United States; British Heart Foundation, United Kingdo

Modelling human choices: MADeM and decision‑making

Research supported by FAPESP 2015/50122-0 and DFG-GRTK 1740/2. RP and AR are also part of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics FAPESP grant (2013/07699-0). RP is supported by a FAPESP scholarship (2013/25667-8). ACR is partially supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Human Rights Labeling: A WTO Compliant Strategy to Harness the Power of Consumer Preference

In a local grocery store in middle-America, a chocolate-loving consumer contemplates two substantially identical candy bars. The hungry shopper has no particular brand loyalty and both sweets are of a comparable price. Before proceeding to the checkout line, the consumer spots a seal on the wrapper of one of the candy bars, indicating that the chocolate has been certified by the United States government for having been produced in a socially responsible manner. This seal, if credible and easily recognizable, has added a new dimension to the consumer’s choice by allowing her to make a decision based on information that goes beyond nutrition, ingredients, taste or any other properties associated with the candy bar itself. Instead, the consumer is empowered to make a choice based on how the candy bar was produced. As a consequence of this information, the consumer can elect to use her buying power to effectively cast a vote in favor of socially responsible production by giving the certified chocolate a competitive edge. On the other side of the globe, in West Africa, a child works long hours harvesting cocoa beans, one of an estimated 12,000 children trafficked for this purpose in Cote d’Ivoire alone. Approximately 40% of world cocoa production originates in Cote d’Ivoire, where the pressure to keep production prices as low as possible stems from the easy substitutability and high competition in the market for this agricultural good. Stories of children being trafficked to work in “horrific” conditions in the West African cocoa fields were brought to the public’s attention in 2000, yet consumers in the United States are still unwittingly buying chocolate produced by trafficked children. Pressure from the public and from Congress shamed the chocolate industry into agreeing to a comprehensive protocol aimed at creating a certification process for a “no child slavery” label, but stalled negotiations have left chocolate unlabeled and consumers uninformed