Barking & Biting: The Poetry of Sina Queyras selected by Erin Wunker

Review of Erin Wunker\u27s (ed.) Barking & Biting: The Poetry of Sina Queyras

Border Crossings, Watery Spaces, and the (Un)Verified Self in Middlesex

Kerber traces the ways in which water liberates and transforms various characters in Middlesex in order to critique and complicate water’s taken-for-granted liberatory powers. Kerber invites us to consider the majority of those for whom water is as deadly as it is (possibly) emancipating, especially those most vulnerable to climate change and other ecological and violent upheavals

Rewriting the Break Event: Mennonites and Migration in Canadian Literature by Robert Zacharias

Review of Rewriting the Break Event: Mennonites and Migration in Canadian Literature by Robert Zacharias

Competition Policy with Optimally Differentiated Rules Instead of "Per se Rules vs. Rule of Reason"

Abstract: Both in US antitrust and EU competition policy a development to a broader appli-cation of rule of reason instead of per se rules can be observed. In the European discussion the attempt to base competition policy on a "more economic approach" is mainly viewed as im-proving the economic analysis in the assessment of specific cases. In this paper it is shown from a general law and economics perspective that the application of rules instead of focus-sing on case-by-case analyses can have many advantages (less regulation costs, rent seeking and knowledge problems), although an additional differentiation of rules through a deeper assessment can also have advantages in regard to the reduction of decision errors of type I and II. After introducing the notion of a continuum of more or less differentiated rules, we show - based upon law and economics literature upon the optimal complexity of rules - in a simple model that a competition rule is optimally differentiated, if the marginal reduction of the sum of error costs (as the marginal benefit of differentiation) equals the marginal costs of differen-tiation. This model also allows for a more detailed analysis of the most important determi-nants of the optimal degree of rule-differentia¬tion. From this law and economics perspective, competition policy should consist mainly of (more or less differentiated) rules and should only rarely rely on case-by-case analysis. Therefore the main task of a "more economic ap-proach" is to use economics for the formulation of appropriate competition rules.Competition Policy, European Competition Law, Rule of Reason

An Optional European Contract Law Code: Advantages and Disadvantages

Should the EU introduce an Optional European Contract Law Code and what should it look like? By applying economic theories of federalism and regulatory competition (legal federalism), it is shown why an Optional Code would be a very suitable legal instrument within a two-level European System of Contract Laws. By allowing private parties choice of law to a certain extent, it can combine the most important advantages of centralisation and decentralisation of competences for legal rules. Through differentiated analyses of three kinds of contract law rules (mandatory substantive rules, mandatory information rules and facilitative law), important conclusions can be reached: which kinds of contract law rules are most suitable to be applied on an optional basis (e.g. facilitative law) and which might be less so (e.g. information regulations). Furthermore a number of additional general conclusions about the design and scope of an Optional EU Code and some conclusions in regard to sales law are derived.contract law, European Union, legal federalism, regulatory competition

On the self-consistent physical parameters of LMC intermediate-age clusters

The LMC clusters are unique templates of simple stellar population (SSP), being crucial to calibrate models describing the integral light as well as to test the stellar evolution theory. With this in mind we analyzed HST/WFPC2 (V, B--V) colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) of 15 populous LMC clusters with ages between ~0.3 Gyr and ~4 Gyr using different stellar evolutionary models (Padova, PEL or Pisa, BaSTI or Teramo). Following the approach described by Kerber, Santiago & Brocato (2007), we determined accurate and self-consistent physical parameters (age, metallicity, distance modulus and reddening) for each cluster by comparing the observed CMDs with synthetic ones. We found significant trends in the physical parameters due to the choice of stellar evolutionary model and treatment of convective core overshooting. In general, models that incorporate overshooting presented more reliable results than those that do not. Comparisons with the results found in the literature demonstrated that our derived metallicities are in good agreement with the ones from the spectroscopy of red giants. We also confirmed that, independent of the adopted stellar evolutionary library, the recovered 3D distribution for these clusters is consistent with a thick disk roughly aligned with the LMC disk as defined by field stars. Finally, we also provide new estimates of distance modulus to the LMC center, that are marginally consistent with the canonical value of 18.50.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, conference contribution to IAU Symposium 256, van Loon J.T. & Oliviera J.M., ed

An International Multi-Level System of Competition Laws: Federalism in Antitrust

Since the 1990s, an intensive discussion on the necessity and the potential design of international competition policy has developed. As a preliminary result, some general tendencies can be observed: Many states (including the U.S. and the EU) and most antitrust experts hold the opinion that the traditional system of national competition laws (including their extra-territorial application) is not sufficient for the protection of competition in the new millennium. Therefore, some kind of international arrangement in regard to competition rules seems to be necessary. The introduction of substantive international competition rules with an international competition authority and a corresponding court (in analogy to the supranational European competition law) is not seen as feasible and/or desirable. Thus the solution should not be sought in centralised global competition rules but be based primarily upon national competition laws and authorities. Consequently, the main thrust of the discussion has shifted from the idea of a larger harmonisation and convergence of national competition laws to the problem of better international enforcement of these laws. Although bilateral cooperation between national competition authorities have become an increasingly important issue, bilateral cooperation agreements are considered only a first step to a more preferable multilateral (or plurilateral) solution (e.g. within the WTO). Generally, the path to international competition rules is seen as a pragmatic, step-by-step approach, which can achieve its aim only in the long run. The currently favoured informal network approach, which remains without commitment and emphasizes primarily the gathering, discussion and exchange of information between national competition authorities, is in line with such a pragmatic approach to the incremental evolution of international competition rules. How can we describe the present situation from a global perspective? We have a multitude of national competition laws and enforcement agencies (competition authorities, courts) with more or less different substantive and procedural rules. Different competition laws and enforcement agencies can also exist within a (kind of) federal system, as to some degree within the U.S. and to a larger extent within the EU, where European competition rules and national competition laws coexist on two different levels. Since the competencies of these competition laws and enforcement agencies overlap, many external effects and conflicts can emerge. Up to now we cannot reasonably argue that this complex structure of competition laws forms an integrated system for protecting competition in international markets. The establishment of international competition rules (as well as the less ambitious international network approach), which on one side should help to solve the problems of the current situation, can, on the other side, increase the complexity of the system, because an additional vertical regulatory level in regard to competition rules would be introduced – including new potential conflicts of competencies. But what are the long-term perspectives of this situation? What can an international system for protecting competition look like in the long run? Two basic perspectives can be outlined: One perspective is that such a pragmatic approach, which fosters the discussion between different countries and their competition authorities, eventually will lead to a uniform global competition law or – at least – to a quasi-harmonisation of national competition laws. If the differences between the competition laws disappeared, many of the current problems would vanish. From this perspective, the current situation with many different competition laws on two or three different levels does constitute only an intermediate phase, which in the long run would be replaced by one quasiuniform set of global competition rules. Another perspective proceeds from the more sceptical assumption that it will not be possible for all countries to agree on one uniform set of competition rules, even in the long run. There will always be different objectives of competition laws and different theories about what competition is and what rules are necessary for the protection of competition. Therefore, the coexistence of different competition laws should be seen as a permanent feature of an international system of competition laws, implying that substantial decentralisation and variety will remain a major characteristic of such an international system, also in the long run. This paper will focus on the second perspective, which can be characterised as an evolutionary one: The objectives of competition policy in different countries might change and remain different; competition theories mightevolve through academic progress; the rules for the protection of competition might have to change due to new anticompetitive business practices or new technology (such as the Internet). From this evolutionary perspective, it is crucial that an international system for the protection of competition should also include the long-term capability of adapting quickly to new competition problems, particularly by fostering legal innovations for improving the protection of competition. One important argument for a more decentralised international system of competition laws will be that decentralisation will increase the capability of the system for innovation and learning in regard to the development of effective legal rules for the protection of competition. But what can a workable international system with different competition laws and enforcement agencies on different levels, i.e., a decentralised international system of competition laws, look like? This paper can only present some considerations about this problem. But its goal is to outline an analytical framework, which can be used for designing a workable multi-level system of competition laws. The main idea is that we should apply economic theories about federalism and the advantages and disadvantages of centralisation and decentralisation to develop arguments about the appropriate institutional structure of an international multi-level system of competition laws. The theories that are used in this paper are the economic theory of federalism, the attempts to apply the concept of federalism to legal rules as well (legal federalism), and the theories of interjurisdictional and regulatory competition. The paper is structured as follows. In section II it is shown that the present situation can be interpreted as being already rather close to a kind of threelevel system of competition laws and that many current issues in European and international competition policy can be interpreted as discussions about problems of the horizontal and vertical delimitation of competencies within such a three-level system. In the main section III an analytical framework concerning the potential advantages and disadvantages of centralisation and decentralisation of competition policy will be developed on the basis of economic theories of federalism and regulatory competition. This will include a (still incomplete) set of criteria for regulatory federalism in competition law. Some conclusions for reconstructing international competition policy as a multi-level system of competition laws are presented in section IV.