The Internationalization of Tobacco Tactics

Recently, public health advocates struck a blow against tobacco companies by barring them from bringing challenges under some international trade deals. In this Article, I explain why other governments should adopt similar tobacco “carve-outs.” Specifically, I argue that it is mainly the industry’s aggressive litigation tactics—not the hazardous nature of this consumer product—that justifies treating it in an exceptional manner for the purposes of international litigation. To illustrate my point, first, I explain the nature of the carve-out in relation to a topology of legal forms used to exclude policy areas, economic sectors, and particular industries from obligations stipulated in international economic agreements. I follow with a case study of Phillip Morris International to explain how the industry, by relying on litigation before international courts and tribunals, has aimed at delaying, preempting, and weakening harmonized anti-smoking regulations. I finish by proposing modest ways to refine “Multinational Enterprise or MNE theory,” which aims at understanding the choices of extending control over subsidiaries operating abroad. In particular, I argue for increasing the recognition of international legal capacity and adjudicatory options in conceptualizing ownership, location, and internalization advantages

The Extensive (But Fragile) Authority of the WTO Appellate Body

The authority of an international court (IC) is not necessarily evolutionary and its development unidirectional. This article addresses the authority of the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and shows how it rapidly and almost immediately became extensive, but has since exhibited signs of becoming more fragile. The article applies a typology of IC authority developed by Alter, Helfer and Madsen (2014) and explains the transformation from narrow authority (a dispute resolution venue under the GATT based on political negotiations) to extensive authority (a judicialized WTO dispute settlement system with a sophisticated case law) and presents empirical indicators of the rise of the AB’s authority. Such rapid development of extensive authority is arguably a unique case in international politics at the multilateral level. That authority nonetheless remains fragile, and shows signs that it could decline significantly for reasons we explain

Extending Trade Law Precedent

Precedent is celebrated as a fundamental feature of dense legal systems as it creates predictability, builds coherence, and enhances the authority of courts and tribunals. But, in international adjudication, precedent can also affect interstate cooperation and ultimately the legitimacy of international organizations. Wary of clashing with state interests, most international dispute settlement systems are designed so that rulings do not set obligatory precedent. This Article describes the role of precedent in the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to explain how precedent can affect compliance with the decisions of international courts and tribunals (ICs). This Article makes two main contributions. First, it shows that there can be precedent without a formal stare decisis rule. In theory the AB has a rule against binding precedent. Based on empirical evidence, however, this Article shows that the AB has in fact a strong norm of relying on prior decisions. Second, it shows that over time, the widening of legal commitments can result from extending precedent to new situations and this has an impact on the ability or willingness of states to comply. These findings have implications for the WTO and beyond. For the WTO, efforts to better define the value of precedent are unlikely to resolve the general mistrust of the AB and, therefore, this Article proposes other solutions to control the drift resulting from precedent. Beyond the WTO, international scholars should account for the intertemporal dimension of legal commitments in analyzing and explaining compliance with international law

Greening Investor-State Dispute Settlement

Climate change poses serious threats to human society. Climate change is already affecting our environment and thus, many aspects of human and economic activity. Among the challenges ahead, governments will need to more actively adopt regulatory policies given the international obligations in this area, such as the Paris Agreement, as well as promote green private investment as a means toward unlocking sustainable growth. How can international investment law be adapted and modernized to respond to these challenges? In this Essay, we summarize a comprehensive set of innovations that could be included in International Investment Agreements to address international obligations regarding climate change. Our discussion, based on a Green Treaty Model, first stresses the role of balanced obligations for investors and host countries, and then focuses on dispute settlement. We conclude by explaining how the current process of reform under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law can be used for a more ambitious transformation of international investment; a transformation in which investment treaties can act as catalysts for green foreign direct investment necessary to reverse the momentum for climate change already built into the atmosphere

Efficient complementary viewpoint selection in volume rendering

A major goal of visualization is to appropriately express knowledge of scientific data. Generally, gathering visual information contained in the volume data often requires a lot of expertise from the final user to setup the parameters of the visualization. One way of alleviating this problem is to provide the position of inner structures with different viewpoint locations to enhance the perception and construction of the mental image. To this end, traditional illustrations use two or three different views of the regions of interest. Similarly, with the aim of assisting the users to easily place a good viewpoint location, this paper proposes an automatic and interactive method that locates different complementary viewpoints from a reference camera in volume datasets. Specifically, the proposed method combines the quantity of information each camera provides for each structure and the shape similarity of the projections of the remaining viewpoints based on Dynamic Time Warping. The selected complementary viewpoints allow a better understanding of the focused structure in several applications. Thus, the user interactively receives feedback based on several viewpoints that helps him to understand the visual information. A live-user evaluation on different data sets show a good convergence to useful complementary viewpoints.Postprint (published version

Disseny d’un contenidor marítim plegable

El present projecte descriu el procés que s’ha dut a terme per a dissenyar un contenidor marítim plegable. S’ha volgut dotar a un contenidor, de dimensions estàndards, de diferents mecanismes de manera que l’estructura tingui la capacitat de plegar-se sobre si mateixa amb l’objectiu que la base ocupi la mateixa àrea però que s’aconsegueixi una considerable reducció del volum d’aquest. A més d’aplicar-hi unes dimensions estandarditzades, s’ha procurat trobar el sistema que pugui ser més fàcilment adaptable a un contenidor no plegable o, almenys, que presenti en la seva estructura gran part dels seus elements. Com també s’ha procurat assolir unes característiques similars de pes i de capacitat resistiva de l’estructura

Against Secrecy: The Social Cost of International Dispute Settlement

For decades, the scope of international legal commitments has expanded to cover policy areas previously considered to be exclusive sovereign domains of the State. In tandem with expanding scope there has been a decisive shift of authority and decision-making power to legal actors across many domains of public international law-such as in public finance, human rights, investment, and environmental regulation