A passive vibration-cancelling isolation mount

An analysis of an idealized passive vibration-cancelling two-terminal mount with one degree of freedom at each mechanical terminal isolating a nonrigid machine from a nonrigid foundation is presented. To evaluate a vibration-cancelling (VC) mount, its effectiveness as a function of frequency is compared with the effectiveness of both conventional and compound mounts isolating a rigid machine from a nonrigid foundation. The comparisons indicate that a carefully designed and manufactured VC mount should provide substantially greater vibration reduction at its cancellation frequency than either a conventional or compound mount having the same low frequency stiffness, i.e., stiffness at the natural frequency of the machine mount system

Regulatory Protectionism and the Law of International Trade

A wide array of policy instruments can protect domestic firms against foreign competition. Regulatory measures that raise the costs of foreign firms relative to domestic firms are exceptionally wasteful protectionist devices, however, with deadweight costs that can greatly exceed those of traditional protectionist instruments such as tariffs and quotas. This Article develops the welfare economics of regulatory protectionism and a related political economy analysis of the national and international legal systems that must confront it, including the WTO, the NAFTA, the European Union, and the United States federal system. It explains why regulatory measures that serve no purpose other than to protect domestic firms against foreign competition will generally be prohibited in politically sophisticated trade agreements, even when other instruments of protection are to a degree permissible. It further suggests why regulatory measures that serve honest, non-protectionist objectives will be permissible in sophisticated trade agreements even though their regulatory benefits may be small and their adverse effect on trade may be great--that is, it explains why trade agreements generally do not authorize balancing analysis akin to that undertaken in certain dormant commerce clause cases under U.S. law

Domestic Regulation, Sovereignty, and Scientific Evidence Requirements: A Pessimistic View

My thesis in this essay, however, is that such an accommodation is exceedingly difficult if not impossible. Meaningful scientific evidence requirements fundamentally conflict with regulatory sovereignty in all cases of serious scientific uncertainty. WTO law must then choose between an interpretation of scientific evidence requirements that essentially eviscerates them and defers to national judgments about science, or an interpretation that gives them real bite at the expense of the capacity of national regulators to choose the level of risk that they will tolerate. The only middle ground lies in the rare cases where scientific uncertainty is remediable quickly at low cost. I further argue that consistency requirements cannot likely supplant scientific evidence requirements in a way that satisfactorily accommodates the tension between the desire to weed out protectionism on the one hand, and the desire to respect regulatory sovereignty on the other. A close examination of pertinent WTO decisions to date, most importantly the decision in the beef hormones dispute and its unsuccessful effort to accommodate scientific evidence requirements with deference to domestic regulators, will provide the bulk of the argument. Section I provides some general background on WTO law, while section II considers the cases. [CONT