ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN JOINT IMPLEMENTATION PROJECTS UNDER THE KYOTO PROTOCOL - A Brief Study of Possible Disputes and Remedies Available to Private Participants in International Carbon Emission Reduction Projects

The Kyoto Protocol has not only created carbon emission reduction obligations for industrialized countries, but also opportunities for the private sector to participate in its "flexible mechanisms". One of these mechanisms is Joint Implementation, which allows private legal entities to engage in international emission reduction projects that generate tradable emission rights. Private parties can act as verifiers of the emission reductions achieved by such projects, or as buyers of the generated emission rights (which can be used for compliance under the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme). During the Joint Implementation project cycle, these private parties can become involved in several types of disputes with various counterparties. This paper explores the legal remedies available to such private parties. Long-term private sector investment and contribution to the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol are more likely to occur in a stable regulatory environment, which requires a certain degree of legal protection. This includes proper access to justice in case disputes arise.carbon, climate change, global warming, Kyoto Protocol, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Copenhagen Accord, EU Emissions Trading Scheme, Directive 2003/87/EC, Directive 2004/101/EC, flexible mechanisms, market mechanisms, International Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation, Clean Development Mechanism, human rights, access to justice, immunity from jurisdiction, private party remedies

Stress-Energy Tensor and Ultraviolet Behaviour in Massive Integrable Quantum Field Theories

The short distance behaviour of massive integrable quantum field theories is analyzed in terms of the form factor approach. We show that the on-shell dynamics is compatible with different definitions of the stress-energy tensor $T_{\mu\nu}(x)$ of the theory. In terms of form factors, this is equivalent to having a possible non-zero matrix element $F_1$ of the trace of $T_{\mu\nu}$ on one-particle state. Each choice of $F_1$ induces a different scaling behaviour of the massive theory in the ultraviolet limit.Comment: 32 pages LATEX file (Three figures not included in the text) ISAS/EP/93/6

"Nonlinear" covariance matrix and portfolio theory for non-Gaussian multivariate distributions

This paper offers a precise analytical characterization of the distribution of returns for a portfolio constituted of assets whose returns are described by an arbitrary joint multivariate distribution. In this goal, we introduce a non-linear transformation that maps the returns onto gaussian variables whose covariance matrix provides a new measure of dependence between the non-normal returns, generalizing the covariance matrix into a non-linear fractional covariance matrix. This nonlinear covariance matrix is chiseled to the specific fat tail structure of the underlying marginal distributions, thus ensuring stability and good-conditionning. The portfolio distribution is obtained as the solution of a mapping to a so-called phi-q field theory in particle physics, of which we offer an extensive treatment using Feynman diagrammatic techniques and large deviation theory, that we illustrate in details for multivariate Weibull distributions. The main result of our theory is that minimizing the portfolio variance (i.e. the relatively ``small'' risks) may often increase the large risks, as measured by higher normalized cumulants. Extensive empirical tests are presented on the foreign exchange market that validate satisfactorily the theory. For ``fat tail'' distributions, we show that an adequete prediction of the risks of a portfolio relies much more on the correct description of the tail structure rather than on their correlations.Comment: Latex, 76 page

Transient Astrophysical Pulses and Quantum Gravity

Searches for transient astrophysical pulses could open an exciting new window into the fundamental physics of quantum gravity. In particular, an evaporating primordial black hole in the presence of an extra dimension can produce a detectable transient pulse. Observations of such a phenomenon can in principle explore the electroweak energy scale, indicating that astrophysical probes of quantum gravity can successfully complement the exciting new physics expected to be discovered in the near future at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 7 pages, This essay received an honorable mention in the Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition, 200

Submission to the United Nations Secretary General's High Level Panel on Access to Medicines

Much of the current debate on health care goals, medical innovation and trade rules focuses on the misalignment between the need to provide incentives to innovation – mainly through a tight intellectual property (IPR) regime – and the resulting negative consequences in terms of access to medicines. While this clash is certainly crucial, this contribution focuses on a different aspect of the misalignment between innovation and access, concerning essential drugs and generics rather than brand new, innovative drugs. This contribution argues that the promotion of domestic drug production and innovative capabilities in low and middle income countries, and notably on the Sub-Saharan African subcontinent, can may constitute an important step towards achieving significant improvements in public health – as a human right that includes access to essential medicines. We provide background and evidence for this argument. We then draw out policy implications, arguing that increased policy coherence between health policies for medicines access and public health, and industrial and trade policies for Africa-based pharmaceutical production and innovation, are both feasible and beneficial, generating synergies between improved medicines access and local industrial innovation

Phenology-based land cover classification using Landsat 8 time series

This article describes the methodology and results of a new JRC phenology-based classification algorithm able to generate accurate land cover maps in a fully automatic manner from Landsat 8 (L8) remote sensed data available since 12th April 2013 at no charge throughout the USGS website. A preliminary study aiming to bypass the single date classification inaccuracy (mainly due to seasonality) using long term MODIS time series as a “driver” to fill gaps between high resolution data, has been carried out. The high global acquisition frequency (~16 days) and distribution policy are making Landsat 8 product extremely suitable for near real time land cover mapping and monitoring. Five national parks in east Africa have been selected as study areas (Mahale Mountains, Mana Pools, West Lunga, Gorongosa, Tsimanampetsotsa); they are covering diverse eco-regions and vegetation types, from evergreen to deciduous. A buffer of 20 km around each park has been considered as well. Selected single date images were first preprocessed in order to convert raw DN values to top of atmosphere (TOA) reflectance and minimizes spectral differences caused by different acquisition time, sun elevation, sun-earth distance, and after processed by the algorithm to generate a thematic raster map with land cover classes. Is worth noting that the single date classification accuracy is closely related to the acquisition date of the image, the status of the vegetation and weather conditions such as cloud and shadows often present in tropical regions; here the need of developing a phenology based algorithm that considers the vegetation evolution and generates a more accurate land cover map including evergreen and deciduous discrimination on the basis of “frequency” rules. Land cover maps have been created for all parks and an exhaustive accuracy assessment has been carried out on Mahale Mountains and Tsimanampetsotsa. The combined overall accuracy of 82.8% demonstrates the high potentiality of this method and makes it usable at either local or regional scale.JRC.H.3-Forest Resources and Climat