Constitutional Analogies in the International Legal System

This Article explores issues at the frontier of international law and constitutional law. It considers five key structural and systemic challenges that the international legal system now faces: (1) decentralization and disaggregation; (2) normative and institutional hierarchies; (3) compliance and enforcement; (4) exit and escape; and (5) democracy and legitimacy. Each of these issues raises questions of governance, institutional design, and allocation of authority paralleling the questions that domestic legal systems have answered in constitutional terms. For each of these issues, I survey the international legal landscape and consider the salience of potential analogies to domestic constitutions, drawing upon and extending the writings of international legal scholars and international relations theorists. I also offer some preliminary thoughts about why some treaties and institutions, but not others, more readily lend themselves to analysis in constitutional terms. And I distinguish those legal and political issues that may generate useful insights for scholars studying the growing intersections of international and constitutional law from other areas that may be more resistant to constitutional analogies

Electromagnetic Zero Point Field as Active Energy Source in the Intergalactic Medium

For over twenty years the possibility that the electromagnetic zero point field (ZPF) may actively accelerate electromagnetically interacting particles in regions of extremely low particle density (as those extant in intergalactic space (IGS) with n < 1 particle/m^3 has been studied and analyzed. This energizing phenomenon has been one of the few contenders for acceleration of cosmic rays (CR), particularly at ultrahigh energies. The recent finding by the AGASA collaboration (Phys. Rev. Lett., 81, 1163, 1998) that the CR energy spectrum does not display any signs of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cut-off (that should be present if these CR particles were indeed generated in localized ultrahigh energies CR sources, as e.g., quasars and other highly active galactic nuclei), may indicate the need for an acceleration mechanism that is distributed throughout IGS as is the case with the ZPF. Other unexplained phenomena that receive an explanation from this mechanism are the generation of X-ray and gamma-ray backgrounds and the existence of Cosmic Voids. However recently, a statistical mechanics kind of challenge to the classical (not the quantum) version of the zero-point acceleration mechanism has been posed (de la Pena and Cetto, The Quantum Dice, 1996). Here we briefly examine the consequences of this challenge and a prospective resolution.Comment: 7 pages, no figure

A common geometric data-base approach for computer-aided manufacturing of wind-tunnel models and theoretical aerodynamic analysis

A more automated process to produce wind tunnel models using existing facilities is discussed. A process was sought to more rapidly determine the aerodynamic characteristics of advanced aircraft configurations. Such aerodynamic characteristics are determined from theoretical analyses and wind tunnel tests of the configurations. Computers are used to perform the theoretical analyses, and a computer aided manufacturing system is used to fabricate the wind tunnel models. In the past a separate set of input data describing the aircraft geometry had to be generated for each process. This process establishes a common data base by enabling the computer aided manufacturing system to use, via a software interface, the geometric input data generated for the theoretical analysis. Thus, only one set of geometric data needs to be generated. Tests reveal that the process can reduce by several weeks the time needed to produce a wind tunnel model component. In addition, this process increases the similarity of the wind tunnel model to the mathematical model used by the theoretical aerodynamic analysis programs. Specifically, the wind tunnel model can be machined to within 0.008 in. of the original mathematical model. However, the software interface is highly complex and cumbersome to operate, making it unsuitable for routine use. The procurement of an independent computer aided design/computer aided manufacturing system with the capability to support both the theoretical analysis and the manufacturing tasks was recommended

Distinguishing the “Truly National” From the “Truly Local”: Customary Allocation, Commercial Activity, and Collective Action

This Essay makes two claims about different methods of defining the expanse and limits of the Commerce Clause. My first claim is that approaches that privilege traditional subjects of state regulation are unworkable and undesirable. These approaches are unworkable in light of the frequency with which the federal government and the states regulate the same subject matter in our world of largely overlapping federal and state legislative jurisdiction. The approaches are undesirable because the question of customary allocation is unrelated to the principal reason why Congress possesses the power to regulate interstate commerce: solving collective action problems involving multiple states. These problems are evident in the way that some federal judges invoked regulatory custom in litigation over the constitutionality of the minimum coverage provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The areas of health insurance and health care are not of exclusive state concern, and it is impossible to lose—or to win—a competition requiring skillful lawyers or judges to describe them as more state than federal, or more federal than state. Nor is it most important what the answer is. More promising are the approaches that view congressional authority as turning on either commercial activity or collective action problems facing the states. My second claim is that these two approaches have advantages and disadvantages, and that the choice between them exemplifies the more general tension between applying rules and applying their background justifications. I have previously defended a collective action approach to Article I, Section 8. My primary purpose in this Essay is to clarify the jurisprudential stakes in adopting one method or the other and to identify the problems that advocates of each approach must address

The Effect of Magnetic Variability on Stellar Angular Momentum Loss II: The Sun, 61 Cygni A, ϵ\epsilon Eridani, ξ\xi Bootis A and τ\tau Bootis A

The magnetic fields of low-mass stars are observed to be variable on decadal timescales, ranging in behaviour from cyclic to stochastic. The changing strength and geometry of the magnetic field should modify the efficiency of angular momentum loss by stellar winds, but this has not been well quantified. In Finley et al. (2018) we investigated the variability of the Sun, and calculated the time-varying angular momentum loss rate in the solar wind. In this work, we focus on four low-mass stars that have all had their surface magnetic fields mapped for multiple epochs. Using mass loss rates determined from astrospheric Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption, in conjunction with scaling relations from the MHD simulations of Finley & Matt (2018), we calculate the torque applied to each star by their magnetised stellar winds. The variability of the braking torque can be significant. For example, the largest torque for $\epsilon$ Eri is twice its decadal averaged value. This variation is comparable to that observed in the solar wind, when sparsely sampled. On average, the torques in our sample range from 0.5-1.5 times their average value. We compare these results to the torques of Matt et al. (2015), which use observed stellar rotation rates to infer the long-time averaged torque on stars. We find that our stellar wind torques are systematically lower than the long-time average values, by a factor of ~3-30. Stellar wind variability appears unable to resolve this discrepancy, implying that there remain some problems with observed wind parameters, stellar wind models, or the long-term evolution models, which have yet to be understood.Comment: 15 pages + 8 figures, accepted for publication to Ap

The ambivalent shadow of the pre-Wilsonian rise of international law

The generation of American international lawyers who founded the American Society of International Law in 1906 and nurtured the soil for what has been retrospectively called a “moralistic legalistic approach to international relations” remains little studied. A survey of the rise of international legal literature in the U.S. from the mid-19th century to the eve of the Great War serves as a backdrop to the examination of the boosting effect on international law of the Spanish American War in 1898. An examination of the Insular Cases before the US Supreme Court is then accompanied by the analysis of a number of influential factors behind the pre-war rise of international law in the U.S. The work concludes with an examination of the rise of natural law doctrines in international law during the interwar period and the critiques addressed.by the realist founders of the field of “international relations” to the “moralistic legalistic approach to international relation

"Sub-Hertz" Dielectric Spectroscopy

Dielectric spectroscopy measurements below 1 Hz are often dominated by “conduction-like” effects. For this reason, they often appear to be dismissed as being of little interest. In this paper two “sub-hertz” responses are considered that give insights into the insulating sys-tems concerned. The first system is that of cross-linked polyethylene, taken from a power cable system. Measurements at temperatures between 60°C and close to melting at 100°C show a change in characteristic from a percolation process to a “true” DC conduction at close to the melting point. Using DC conductivities, it appears to be possible to show whether the cable has been subjected to thermo-electric ageing. This might give insights into where the conduction and hence the ageing in the XLPE is occurring. The second system is an epoxy composite. By considering the sub-hertz response, it is possible to demonstrate the effect of the interface between the filler and the epoxy matrix. In this system, ageing, resulting in delamination between the glass fiber filler and the epoxy, is clearly detected by sub-hertz dielectric spectroscopy. This process is likely to be facilitated by the presence of water, which is known to lead to mechanical failure in such systems, and which can also be detected by "sub-hertz" dielectric spectroscopy. The implications for nano-dielectrics are then briefly considered

Hypervelocity particle capture: Some considerations regarding suitable target media

Hypervelocity particles colliding with passive capture media will be traversed by shock waves; depending on the stress amplitude, the particle may remain solid or it may melt or vaporize. Any capture mechanism considered for cosmic dust collection in low Earth-orbit must be designed such that sample alteration and hence loss of scientific information is minimized. Capture of pristine particles is fundamentally difficult, because the specific heat of melting and even vaporization is exceeded upon impact at typical, geocentric encounter velocities. From the results of calculated and observed melting behaviors it is concluded that shock stresses in excess of 50 GPA should be avoided during hypervelocity particle capture on board Space Station and that stresses 20 GPa, even at 15 km/s collision velocities, should constitute desirable instrument design goals. Some principal characteristics of the capture medium that may satisfy these requirements are identified