12,654 research outputs found
Increasing Protection of GIS at the WTO: Clawbacks, Greenfields and Monopoly Rents
Currently there are proposals and negotiations regarding the strengthening of protection for geographic indicators (GIs) in the WTO. A major proponent of stronger protection for GIs has been the European Union. One of the arguments it has put forward for stronger protection has been that it will provide an avenue for economic development for agricultural producers in developing countries – a way to capture rents in the markets of developed countries. This paper first outlines the proposed changes to the international protection of geographic indicators. Second, the potential for groups of producers to generate and capture rents in foreign markets is assessed under differing assumptions pertaining to industry structure, product differentiation in the short and long run, barriers to entry reputation and the form of legal protection in importing countries. A discussion of the resource requirements to establish and maintain a GI is also provided.Agricultural and Food Policy, International Development, International Relations/Trade, WTO, GIS,
Post-Moratorium EU Regulation of Generically Modified Products: Trade Concerns
EU, GMO, trade, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,
John Craig (1512?-1600): with special reference to his contribution to the upbuilding of the reformed Church of Scotland
"Master" John Craig,whose long and honorable life all but spanned
the sixteenth century,was among the most versatile of the Scottish reformers. He was approaching early middle-age when he joined Knox in
Edinburgh,becoming his trusted colleague in the onerous ministry at the
High Kirk of St Giles. Prior to throwing in his lot with his country's religious reformers,Craig,the scion of gentry originally hailing
from Buchan.had been educated at the University of St Andrews,attaching
himself some four years after graduation to a House of the Dominican
friars. Proceeding to Italy,he at length rose to a high position of
trust and responsibility in the Dominican priory within the University
city of Bologna. Around the year he broke with the Papacy,in consequence of which he narrowly escaped being burnt at the stake as a
heretic.Craig possessed choice gifts of mind and heart,and these being at
once recognised by Knox and others,he quickly gained an ascendant position in all of the important counsels and work of the Scottish Reformed
Church. From his busy pen came the first native Scottish Catechism and
also a Communion preparation manual,not to mention his lengthy Treatise
on Fasting( written in collaboration with Knox)and his labours shared with
Andrew Melville in having a chief hand in the compilation of the Second
Book of Discipline. But authorship was never really Craig's me'tier.
He was essentially a man of affairs,moving in high places with an easy
grace,and playing his part in the recurring political and religious crises of his generation with considerable and consistent determination and
skill-though not always with universal acceptance. He made the discipline and worship of the Reformed Church of Scotland the field of hip
main contribution to the new society,and of commissioners to sixteenth
century General Assemblies,he was,with few exceptions,the most indefatigable. Craig had the distinction of being thrice moderator of the
General Assembly,and that within the short period of fourteen years.
For upwards of forty years,he served with outstanding success on all
their principal committees,being in constant demand there because of his
expert knowledge of both civil and canon law. Forthright and unsparing in his denunciation of wrong-doing whether of princes or people,he
was nevertheless not by nature a vehement man;he could on occasion temper judgement with mercy,even with grace. His courage was beyond dispute, this being revealed at its most sterling in the laudable stand which
he took with regard to the marriage of <4ueen Mary and Bothwell. Although Craig was ever ready to fight on to the death on behalf of his
religious principles,he was at heart a man of peece.no one deploring
more than he the bitter and destructive civil war of 1370—72• Indeed,
his pacific stand during this unhappy time made his very unpopular with
not a few of his brethren,with the result that he was compelled to retire from the capital,serving as principal minister at Aberdeen for over
six years. Becoming second chaplain to King James in 1580,Craig,during the next year was instrumental in drawing up the national Covenant
or King's Confession,the most fiercely anti-Papist Confession ever written. Three years later,he was again accused of "leaning over-much to
the sword hand," in not contesting as Andrew Melville and others had
done,the right of the king to introduce diocesan bishops to the Reformed
Church of Scotland and also to dictate her general policy. Yet here,
as in 157-',Craig's conduct was guided throughout by motives of peace-he
strove at all costs to avert fratricidal strife,and he succeeded. And
the many Scottish ministers who followed his lead,were through his compromise with the royal authority,never forced to signify their obedience to bishops or to sign the king's bond. Yet,in his zeal for law
and order,Craig probably erred here,in yielding overmuch to royal
claims
Post-Moratorium EU Regulation of Genetically Modified Products: Trade Concerns
Trade in genetically modified (GM) products remains a major issue in agricultural trade policy. In particular, the European Union has sought to deny market access to GM-products. In the wake of a WTO case brought by Canada and the US, among others, against an import ban imposed on genetically modified agricultural products by the European Union (EU) – which the EU lost – the import ban was dropped and the EU put in place a new regulatory regime for GM-products. The EU suggests that the post-moratorium regulatory regime is compliant with its WTO obligations. As of June 2011, the operation of this new import regime has not been formally assessed. The first GM-crops are just now working their way through the post-moratorium regulatory system and an assessment of the operation of the regime is timely. The results of this assessment suggest that the EU’s approval system is only partially based in science and thus is not in conformity with its SPS obligations under the WTO. Hence, the new EU regulatory regime could be challenged through a WTO Disputes panel.EU regulatory regime, Genetically Modified (GM) products, Science, SPS, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,
Post-Moratorium EU Regulation of Genetically Modified Products: Triffid Flax
The regulatory regime for contamination permits the imposition of import bans with neither a scientific justification nor a risk assessment. No scientific assessment of Triffid flax was done prior to the import ban. The import regime put in place to deal with the contamination of flax with the GM-flax CDC Triffid provides no rationale for the thresholds of safety established for the testing regime. The EU is consistently pushing for commercial, economic and social considerations to be included, along with science, in decision-making. Such considerations are often perceived as avenues for economic protection to creep into EU decision-making. Such considerations can, however, cut both ways. The Canada-EU testing regime for Triffid makes provision for, but does not necessarily require, the testing of cargoes when they reach European ports (Western Producer, 2010). The risks associated with inspection upon arrival made exports to Europe too risky. By only requiring the passing of the tests prior to product leaving Canada, flexibility to find alternative markets for contaminated cargoes has been gained. Thus, while costly, the testing regime for flax exports to the EU has allowed for the resumption of Canadian flax exports to the EU. Of course, the import Protocol negotiated between the EU and Canada was a one off. In a future case, economic and commercial considerations could be used to bolster economic protection. This is why science was agreed upon as the arbitrator of SPS-based trade barriers by the Member States of the WTO, including the EU. Thus, the EU regulatory regime for GM-products would seem open to a new challenge at the WTO. Of course, the political consequences of such a challenge would have to be carefully weighed.GMO, food, EU, Triffid Flax, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade,
Light-curve modelling constraints on the obliquities and aspect angles of the young Fermi pulsars
In more than four years of observation the Large Area Telescope on board the
Fermi satellite has identified pulsed -ray emission from more than 80
young pulsars, providing light curves with high statistics. Fitting the
observations with geometrical models can provide estimates of the magnetic
obliquity and aspect angle , yielding estimates of the
radiation beaming factor and luminosity. Using -ray emission geometries
(Polar Cap, Slot Gap, Outer Gap, One Pole Caustic) and radio emission geometry,
we fit -ray light curves for 76 young pulsars and we jointly fit their
-ray plus radio light curves when possible. We find that a joint radio
plus -ray fit strategy is important to obtain (, )
estimates that can explain simultaneous radio and -ray emission. The
intermediate-to-high altitude magnetosphere models, Slot Gap, Outer Gap, and
One pole Caustic, are favoured in explaining the observations. We find no
evolution of on a time scale of a million years. For all emission
geometries our derived -ray beaming factors are generally less than one
and do not significantly evolve with the spin-down power. A more pronounced
beaming factor vs. spin-down power correlation is observed for Slot Gap model
and radio-quiet pulsars and for the Outer Gap model and radio-loud pulsars. For
all models, the correlation between -ray luminosity and spin-down power
is consistent with a square root dependence. The -ray luminosities
obtained by using our beaming factors not exceed the spin-down power. This
suggests that assuming a beaming factor of one for all objects, as done in
other studies, likely overestimates the real values. The data show a relation
between the pulsar spectral characteristics and the width of the accelerator
gap that is consistent with the theoretical prediction for the Slot Gap model.Comment: 90 pages, 80 figures (63 in Appendices), accepted for publication in
Astronomy and Astrophysic
Modeling the non-recycled Fermi gamma-ray pulsar population
We use Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detections and upper limits on
non-recycled pulsars obtained from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) to constrain
how the gamma-ray luminosity L depends on the period P and the period
derivative \dot{P}. We use a Bayesian analysis to calculate a best-fit
luminosity law, or dependence of L on P and \dot{P}, including different
methods for modeling the beaming factor. An outer gap (OG) magnetosphere
geometry provides the best-fit model, which is L \propto P^{-a} \dot{P}^{b}
where a=1.36\pm0.03 and b=0.44\pm0.02, similar to but not identical to the
commonly assumed L \propto \sqrt{\dot{E}} \propto P^{-1.5} \dot{P}^{0.5}. Given
upper limits on gamma-ray fluxes of currently known radio pulsars and using the
OG model, we find that about 92% of the radio-detected pulsars have gamma-ray
beams that intersect our line of sight. By modeling the misalignment of radio
and gamma-ray beams of these pulsars, we find an average gamma-ray beaming
solid angle of about 3.7{\pi} for the OG model, assuming a uniform beam. Using
LAT-measured diffuse fluxes, we place a 2{\sigma} upper limit on the average
braking index and a 2{\sigma} lower limit on the average surface magnetic field
strength of the pulsar population of 3.8 and 3.2 X 10^{10} G, respectively. We
then predict the number of non-recycled pulsars detectable by the LAT based on
our population model. Using the two-year sensitivity, we find that the LAT is
capable of detecting emission from about 380 non-recycled pulsars, including
150 currently identified radio pulsars. Using the expected five-year
sensitivity, about 620 non-recycled pulsars are detectable, including about 220
currently identified radio pulsars. We note that these predictions
significantly depend on our model assumptions.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by ApJ on 8 September 201
Crystal structures of four indole derivatives as possible cannabinoid allosteric antagonists
Acknowledgements We thank the EPSRC National Crystallography Service (University of Southampton) for the data collections and the EPSRC National Mass Spectrometry Service (University of Swansea) for the HRMS data. We thank John Low for carrying out the Cambridge Database survey.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
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