Compromise Agreements Research Articles

Concepts and Features of Administrative Contracts through the Prism of Regulatory Provisions and Judicial Practice in Ukraine

Background: The article provides information on how the definition of an administrative contract was developed in Ukraine. Initially this concept was enshrined in the Code of Administrative Proceedings of Ukraine (hereinafter - the Code). Before the adoption of the Code, that is, until 2005, this phenomenon had been studied fragmentarily in the legal literature. We can name only a few authors who made attempts to investigate the issues of defining an administrative contract in order to identify its features and types comprehensively. Theoretical approaches to the definition and classification of administrative contracts are presented, and their main characteristics are outlined. It is noted that the subject structure of these contracts determines that in connection with the fulfilment of their conditions, each of the parties achieves the desired goal: the representative of the government strives for socially significant results, and the individual - for the satisfaction of private interests. The definition of an administrative contract fixed in the Code of Administrative Proceedings of Ukraine was analysed and it was concluded that it is suitable for the purposes of applying the procedural law. The article also examines the issue of whether compromise agreements belong to the category of administrative agreements. Methods: At the beginning of the study, theoretical approaches to defining administrative contracts and the identification of their features and classification are presented and differences in the positions of Ukrainian researchers studying the relevant issues are outlined. Subsequently, the legislative definition of the administrative contract is analysed and it is determined whether it is based on the theoretical developments presented above. The court decisions interpreting the normative provisions establishing the features and types of administrative contracts are summarised and we discovered whether Ukrainian judges turn to research sources in order to make such an interpretation and substantiate their positions. Consistent study of the theoretical developments, normative documents, and practical cases of applying the rules concerning administrative contracts allowed us to reach certain conclusions, which will be useful both to research scholars in the field and representatives of authorities who apply the specified rules. Results and Conclusions: Examples of court decisions are given, which consider the features of administrative contracts in the context of determining the judicial jurisdiction of disputes arising as a result of their conclusion, execution or termination. The position stated in these decisions is supported, according to which the contract cannot be considered administrative if it is concluded in accordance with the rules of civil or economic legislation. Disagreement was expressed with the statement that in the case of concluding an administrative contract, one of its parties, namely a subject of power, must necessarily perform management functions in relation to the other party, and arguments are given to support such disagreement. The need to define an administrative contract, establish the grounds and general procedure for its conclusion, execution and termination are substantiated in the Law of Ukraine “On Administrative Procedure”.

Повесть Д. В. Григоровича «Неудавшаяся жизнь»: к вопросу о прагматике беллетристического текста

In the early 1850s, political processes made the fiction of the journal “Otechestvennye Zapiski” change towards a compromise and numerous agreements between the author, the publisher, and the censor. One example is the story “Failures” (later “Failed life”) by Dmitry Grigorovich, which combines the techniques and ideas of the stories of Nikolai Gogol (“Portrait”) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (“Poor people,” “Weak heart,” “White nights”). In Russian literary criticism, this story is regarded as secondary and imitative, studied mainly in the context of other stories about artists projected onto the everyday life of the drawing classes of the Academy of Arts. This paper shows that while being the key view, such an interpretation cannot be the only one. When discovering a new talent, his ascent and death, one can see the scenario realized by many contemporaries of Grigorovich, notably by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Later, Grigorovich revised the story by changing idioms and narration style to give it a new title: “Failed life.” The revision pragmatics is obvious: “Failures” are more local, marking an episode or a chain of a person’s life (or a set of situations in the fiction plot). “Failed Life” echoes a global catastrophe, with its traces clearly seen in the text of “Literary memoirs” and the writer’s later epistolary. This paper has been prepared for the 200th anniversary of Grigorovich, whose literary heritage still requires commentary and research reflection. The appendix provides a letter from Dmitry Grigorovich addressed to Andrew Kraevsky, the publisher of “Otechestvennye zapiski”.

Germany’s Nuclear Energy Refusal Policy: from Conflict to Compromise

The article is devoted to the analysis of the political process of Germany’s abandonment of nuclear energy. The results of a comparative analysis of government decisions taken over the course of one decade, but different in nature and having different consequences for the nuclear industry are presented in the paper. Special attention is paid to the issue of interaction between the government and energy companies in the context of the decisions of 2002 and 2011. It is shown that the abandonment of atomic energy in 2002 was a compromise solution, taking into account both the political desire of society to stop the operation of the nuclear power plant, and the economic interests of energy concerns. The author analyzes the consequences of the unilateral decision of the FRG government in 2011, infringing on the interests of the nuclear lobby, which led to many years of litigation that ended in favor of energy concerns. A review of the final compromise agreements between the companies and the government governing the issue of fair compensation for the early shutdown of nuclear power plants was carried out. Based on a comparative analysis of the two decisions on Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear energy and their consequences, it is concluded that, when entire industries are closed for political reasons, consultations with the involvement of all interested parties are necessary to work out an acceptable compromise.

Enabling Global Climate Markets to have More Impact: Networked Emissions Trading Using Disruptive Technologies

Fundamental behavioural change, including in the way many if not most economic activities are conducted, is necessary if dangerous anthropogenic climate change is to be avoided by holding global mean temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels in accordance with the Paris Agreement. Carbon pricing is integral to bringing about this behavioural change and embedding a price or cost for carbon in economic activities is essential. An initial step to achieve this would be to build a global, or even international, carbon market through which a stable carbon price or price range could be established. Given the ever increasing urgency of the need for concrete and effective action, yet the ever decreasing timeframe in which to do so, the Earth’s atmosphere cannot afford the luxury of many further years to reach acceptable, negotiated, compromise agreements that may or may not, ultimately, make any real difference to anthropogenic impact on the climate: innovative approaches and thinking are needed now. This article posits three illustrations: first, that individual domestic carbon markets be networked rather than linked and how this can happen without delay; second, distributed ledger technology exists to make systems work better and more efficiently and needs to be applied: central bankers have a role to play here by expediting the development and operational implementation of central bank digital currencies that will enable realisation of the full benefits that disruptive technologies can bring to a global carbon market; and third, as the role of Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance demonstrates, central bankers can have a bigger role to play: they need to apply the immense influence at their disposal as custodians of the global financial system, grasp the nettle, and help embed a price for carbon in economic activities.

What constitutes fair shared decision-making in global health research collaborations?

Funders (located primarily in high-income countries) and high-income country researchers have historically dominated decision-making within global health research collaborations: from setting agendas and research design to determining how data are collected and analysed and what happens with findings and outputs. The ethical principle of shared decision-making has been proposed as a way to help address these imbalances within collaborations and to reduce semicolonial and exploitative forms of global health research. It is important to be clear about what shared decision-making means in order to ensure that it is not done in a tokenistic, shallow way. Thus far, the principle's content has not been examined and articulated in detail. This paper aims to start the process of delineating a concept of fair shared decision-making as a minimum standard for global health research. Using two hypothetical case examples, the paper will demonstrate that global health research practice is often inconsistent with ideal shared decision-making. In such instances, it can be difficult to decide whether shared decision-making within collaborations is fair. The paper describes how the two cases do not meet criteria for unfair or non-ideal shared decision-making, despite having potentially morally troubling features. The nuances of these examples of research practice help to generate clearer ideas about how to judge fairness in shared decision-making. The paper concludes by presenting ideas about when soft power can be fairly employed between high-income-country and low- and middle-income-country partners and what fair compromise agreements may look like in shared decision-making.

Ukrainian Constitutional Politics: Neopatrimonialism, Rent-seeking, and Regime Change

The dominant Ukrainian actors use constitutional policy as an instrument to expand and strengthen their political influence and also as a method to codify compromise agreements (political pacts) for stabilizing their dominance. What are the sources of these unique dynamics? To a significant degree they result from the neopatrimonial structure of the political and economic systems and the prevalence of informal institutions (institutions that are not written down or considered official) over formal institutions.

The visibility and invisibility of performance management in schools

This article presents findings from a study of performance management in 10 schools, five primary and five secondary. The aim was to gain a snapshot of how headteachers are interpreting and implementing the reforms to the performance and capability procedures for teachers introduced in September 2013. The findings suggest that the evaluation of teachers is conducted within a context of normalised visibility with evidence of competence collected via observations, learning walks, electronic data, organisational and architectural structures. However, this normalised visibility is contrasted with the normalised invisibility of the actual processes of judgement such as appraisal. Invisibility also frames the management of incompetence, with poorly performing teachers routinely offered ‘compromise agreements’ to avoid the official capability procedures. The article concludes by highlighting the limits of the panoptic metaphor in a consideration of teacher evaluation and discusses an alternative metaphor, that of glass, with which to view the performance management of teachers.

GMC bans doctors from signing contracts containing “gagging” clauses

Doctors should boycott “gagging” clauses in agreements with employers or contracting bodies that try to stop them raising concerns about patients’ safety or quality of care, new guidance from the General Medical Council recommends. Mirror guidance for doctors in management roles will put them under a corresponding duty not to propose or condone contracts or agreements containing such clauses. Gagging clauses still appear, despite NHS guidance as far back as 1999 that all trusts should “prohibit confidentiality ‘gagging’ clauses in contracts of employment and compromise agreements which seek to prevent the disclosure of information in the public interest.” The House of Commons health select committee …

Compromise agreements should not be used to gag whistleblowers, say MPs

Compromise agreements should not be used to gag whistleblowers, say MPs

Human Nature in Rural Tuscany: An Early Modern History (review)

Reviewed by: Human Nature in Rural Tuscany: An Early Modern History Christopher F. Black Human Nature in Rural Tuscany: An Early Modern History. By Gregory Hanlon. [ Italian and Italian American Studies.] (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2007. Pp. xxvi, 218. $74.95. ISBN 978-1-403-97764-9.) The odd title masks an important and interesting study of "the minutia of daily life lived almost four centuries ago" (p. xi) in the feudal fief of Montefollonico. The title signals a reaction to certain anthropological attitudes and behavioral studies that Gregory Hanlon sees affecting historical studies. He rejects various concepts of "culture" and seeing "peasants" as "other." He accepts universal building blocks of human life such as hierarchy and governance, cooperation and competition, reproduction, and invention and adaptation (and these govern the sequential structure of the book). He looks for "good reasons that people in contexts different from our own had for acting in ways that seem foreign to us" (p. xii), so explaining regularities and variations in these central aspects of human existence. Montefollonico is an attractive ridge-top community positioned between the Chiana and Orcia valleys, looking to Montepulciano and Pienza, towns on which it depended as part of the Sienese province of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the seventeenth century. Then the walled community ( castello) had about 350 inhabitants, with about 500 people in the seventy sharecropping farms below. Notably Hanlon came across a rich cache of documents that allows us to see how a feudal fief operated, and how its inhabitants lived and worked in the seventeenth century. He argues that the Coppoli fief holders operated a benign feudalism, with the castelloled by poor nobles, and with an effective local legal system. The sharecropping, mezzadria, and mixed-farming benefited both sides; and the rural economy made some beneficial adaptations under health and economic crises, with expanding vineyards, glass-making and silk production, and repopulation fostered by the Coppoli. The main confraternity was the largest landowner and a key feature in the castello's life, including charity. Hanlon has well utilized rich secular and ecclesiastical court records, baptismal and status animarumrecords, 268 (or 269) marriage contracts, sixty-five wills (male and female), and eight family compromise agreements ( lodo), arbitrated by notables and priests. His analysis is good on marital strategies; godparenthood; different family structures in the castelloand on the farms; the comparative richness of material possessions, especially clothes; and literate businessmen and artisans. Wills show the power of widows, if they did not remarry, and that unmarried males helped nephews. Hanlon controversially argues, from male and female birth records, for a high level of female infanticide under crises. The records show a physically and verbally abusive society, with sexual abuse and weapon-carrying, especially among youths, and much litigation over property damage, although much might be settled out of court, with "peacemaking"—hence the "Cooperation" theme. Not-guilty verdicts were common, with "tit-for-tat" concepts being well understood; cross-questioning might be rough, but torture was rare. The Coppoli were ready [End Page 824]with pardons. Some violent youths mellowed into solid citizens. Women were ready to air their concerns to officials, including complaints about priests. Clerical standards of behavior were deemed low (bishops often noting the resort to prostitutes). The community chose its parish priests of San Bartolomeo. Some families like the Barbieri combined extreme youth violence and clerical careers, at home and away. Giuliano Vettori moved from youthful group violence to parish priest, when he thrice attempted to murder rivals, and was accused in the inquisition court of invoking the devil to help his sexual exploits. Some rather cryptic, less documented discussion of "The Church Triumphant" points to an expansion of confraternities, to the Madonna elbowing-out devotional competition, and to some missionary and educational improvements (although outside schoolteachers could be poorly treated). Hanlon has produced a rich study of a small community (by Italian standards), with some enviable records to deploy, although more quotation would have been welcome. Christopher F. Black University of Glasgow Copyright © 2009 The Catholic University of America Press

Genetically Modified Food Standards as Trade Barriers: Harmonization, Compromise, and Sub-Global Agreements

GMOs have brought new concerns into an already challenged world trading system. This paper considers the jointly enodogenous formation of GMO-related standards and sub-global trading agreements. Standards are understood as tolerance levels for GMOs. Sub-global trading agreements may be either formal agreements between countries sanctioned by the WTO, or they may be implicit agreements, e.g. a developing country accepting the U.S. standards.We develop a theoretical model of standard formation and agreement formation. In autarky, national standards reflect the preferences of domestic consumers. The possibility of gains from trade encourages countries to modify their standards to facilitate trade with other countries having similar standards. Whether or not a country engages in trade depends on the magnitude and nature of the gains from trade--e.g. economies of scale, greater variety for consumers, etc.--and the degree of standard modification required for trade. If the gains from trade are sufficient, countries will compromise or harmonize standards to achieve these gains. In the case of countries of similar size (bargaining power), compromise may be feasible. In the case of countries of different size, harmonization of the smaller country's standard to that of the larger country may be more likely. The case of the European Union's de facto prohibition on trade in GMOs is represented as a case in which the gains from trade are insufficient to catalyze a compromise position. Analogously, the North American refusal to restrict or prohibit GMOs indicates that the gains from trade with Europe are insufficient to compensate for this change in standard. In the absence of a common global standard, countries with similar preferences cluster into smaller clubs to capture at least some gains from trade.

Mediation: incomplete information bargaining with filtered communication

We analyze a continuous-time bilateral double auction in the presence of two-sided incomplete information and a smallest money unit. A distinguishing feature of our model is that intermediate concessions are not observable by the adversary: they are only communicated to a passive auctioneer. An alternative interpretation is that of mediated bargaining. Perfect Bayesian Equilibria are characterized. We show that an equilibrium using only the extreme agreements always exists and display the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of equilibra which yield intermediate agreements. For the symmetric case with uniform-type distribution we numerically calculate the equilibria. We find that the equilibrium which does not use compromise agreements is the least efficient, however the social welfare of the rest of the equilibria is decreasing in the number of compromise agreements used.

Personality Traits and Peace Negotiations: Integrative Complexity and Attitudes toward the Middle East Peace Process

Much of the literature on negotiation focuses on the effect that various personality factors, characterizing the parties or mediators involved in the process, have on negotiation outcomes. Nevertheless, there hardly can be found a study, which examines these factors with psychometrically reliable and valid tools. The present study uses psychodiagnostic projective method for measuring the personality trait known as integrative complexity, which is considered as a basic factor that connects cognitive traits to attitudes toward conflict resolution. In a sample of 26 Israeli students this trait, assessed by two Rorschach measures - the blend responses and the frequency of organizational activity - has been revealed as a personality characteristic that might explain seeking compromise agreements in negotiation. Individuals low in integrative complexity tend to rely on highly competitive and less cooperative tactics much more than highly integrative complex individuals. Projective measures for integrative complexity, assessed in this study, are suggested to test people as they are assigned to teams charged with important tasks involving complex group decisions and negotiation. In future studies of complex group decisions this psychodiagnostic approach might be used as a part of the support systems in the process of group negotiation.

Russia on the way to the World Trade Organization

Russia entered into negotiations aimed at securing its membership of the World Trade Organization in July 1995. This article examines the problems thatface the country as it tries to meet the conditions of membership while grappling with economic transition and political instability at home. It looks at the general question of transition to a liberal international economy and at the particular dfficulties associated with trade in goods and services and with the protection of intellectual property rights. While acknowledging the long-term benefits offered by 14TO membership, the author emphasizes the particular difficulties Russiafaces in the short term and makes the casefor compromise agreements to enable Russia to join the organization without paying an unacceptably high pricefor the privilege.

Value Differences and Conflict Resolution

Effects of familiarity and liking on negotiating perceptions and behaviors are explored in two experiments, one focusing on prenegotiation expectations and perceptions (experiment 1), the other on negotiation processes and outcomes (experiment 2). Both experiments were embedded in the context of a simulation of conflict between groups resembling the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus. Results obtained in the two experiments showed different effects for the familiarity and liking variables: Analytically distinct effects for these variables on prenegotiation perceptions contrasted with the combined effects on negotiating behavior and postnegotiation perceptions. In experiment 1, liking influenced expected movement from initial positions, perceptions of the opponent, and types of strategies prepared for the negotiation; familiarity had its primary impact on perceptions of the situation as being conducive to agreement. Results of experiment 2 showed that reducing either liking or familiarity served to reduce willingness to reach compromise agreements, whether actual or desired. These results suggest that the positive effects obtained for a facilitation condition reported in an earlier study by Druckman, Broome, and Korper (1988) may have been due to the combination of familiarity and liking produced by the experimental manipulation. Implications of the results obtained in both experiments are discussed in terms of changing expectations and uncertainty reduction. Further analyses of negotiating process dynamics would elucidate the difference between reaching agreements in the short run and developing relationships between groups over the long term.

Social perception in negotiation

Many negotiations provide opportunities for integrative agreements in which parties can maximize joint gains without competing for resources in a direct win-lose fashion. However, negotiators often settle for suboptimal compromise agreements rather than search for mutually beneficial, or integrative, agreements. We hypothesized that misperceptions of the other party's interests are a primary cause of suboptimal outcomes. Two studies examined the role of social perception in negotiation and the relationship between judgment accuracy and negotiation performance. Results indicated that: most negotiators enter negotiation expecting the other party's interests to be completely opposed to their own; negotiators learn about the potential for joint gain during negotiation; most learning occurs within the first few minutes of interaction; accurate perception of the other party's interests leads to better negotiation performance; negotiators who learn about the other party's interests in the early stages of negotiation earn higher payoffs than do those who learn during the later stages of negotiation; a substantial number of negotiators fail to realize when they have interests that are completely compatible with those of the other party and settle for suboptimal agreements; and the two types of judgment error, Fixed Sum Error and Incompatibility Error, appear to be unrelated, distinct judgment errors. We discuss the role of social judgment in negotiation and the generalizability of the results to real world negotiations.

The Windy Gap Project Scada System

The Windy Gap Project consists of a diversion dam on the Colorado River, a 600 cfs (17m3S-1) pumping plant, and 30,000 ft (914.4 m) of 108‐in. (2.7‐m) diameter pipeline. The purpose of the project is to divert and transport water from the Colorado River Basin to the Colorado‐Big Thompson (C‐BT) system fqr storage and delivery to users in the South Platte River Basin. Sophisticated compromise agreements were developed to meet the legal, political, social, institutional, and environmental requirements to build the project; as a result, the operations control strategy is complex and practically impossible to operate by conventional supervisory control systems. A state‐of‐the‐art computer based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system was developed to operate the Windy Gap Project. The SCADA system.is an anticipatory closed loop control system which requires a minimum of human interaction and operates in a real time environment. The basic objective of the SCADA system is to maximize the amount ...

Taxation of Compromise Agreements as Sale or Exchange of Capital Assets

Taxation of Compromise Agreements as Sale or Exchange of Capital Assets