Third-party Participation Research Articles

As diversas faces do acompanhamento de crianças hospitalizadas

This article approaches the technical implications and follow-up policies for hospitalized children in a large-size hospital of Rio de Janeiro in the past two decades. For this purpose, it resumes previous studies considering the following aspects: the hospitalization conditions for children and their accompanying persons at the public service; the analysis of the functions performed by the accompanying persons; the working conditions, which health professionals are subject to and the general conditions of the public service operations. It concludes that the follow-up implications are not restricted to the guarantee of child’s protection and care, but that they interfere strongly in the institutional dynamics. Participation of third parties in (the) medical assistance (conduction of) to hospitalized children in public and private health units generates direct consequences on the service quality, and also on structures of established power.

Explaining uniformity in rule design: The role of citizen participation in enforcement

Uniform rules incur high aggregate compliance costs when agents are sufficiently heterogeneous. Despite this, uniformity remains a common feature in regulation. Focusing on the monitoring stage of enforcement, this paper highlights an underappreciated benefit of uniform rules. Uniformity of regulation can enhance the productivity of monitoring. We illustrate the general mechanism by showing that in the presence of members of the public that are willing and able to report violations to the regulator at a cost to themselves, uniform rules allow substituting third-party participation for costly own monitoring. However, socially desirable acts may have to be punished to generate deterrence for undesirable acts. Individualizing monitoring and enforcement and citizens acting on welfare considerations do not improve on the outcome.

Managing ethnic conflicts

PurposeThis themed issue seeks to gather together several papers on the topic of managing ethnic conflicts. This introduction summarizes these papers.Design/methodology/approachThis introduction gives an overview of the purpose of the themed issue and then summarizes each of the articles. It also provides recommendations for future research.FindingsThe papers and research recommendations involve theoretical, methodological, and statistical issues. A key to understanding success in publishing research in this area is that researchers should use theories, methods, and statistics that match.Originality/valueThis unique themed issue illustrates how ethnic issues are important in understanding conflict management. These articles illustrate how it is particularly important to understand the differences in conflict styles and also the means and methods of participation of constituents and third parties in the field of ethnic conflict management.

Special Issue Announcement

This unique special issue illustrates how ethnic issues are important in understanding conflict management. These articles illustrate how it is particularly important to understand the differences in conflict styles and also the means and methods of participation of constituents and third parties in the field of ethnic conflict management. One of the goals of the International Journal of Conflict Management is to encourage research from a wide range of scholars from many different countries (Posthuma, 2005). This special issue achieves this goal by gathering papers from different countries and cultures that deal with managing ethnic conflicts. The five studies in this issue examine various topics, including differences in conflict styles, participation of different constituencies and stakeholders in conflict resolution, and the influence of different forms of communication on conflict intervention preferences. These papers represent a diverse set of countries, ethnic groups, and a wide range of research methods. Countries represented in this special issue include France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, and the United States, whilst a range of ethnic groups are discussed, including Arabs, Christians, Hindus, Israelis, Muslims, and Palestinians. The research methods include experiments, qualitative interviews, and surveys.

Amicus Curiae in International Investment Arbitration: The Implications of an Increase in Third-Party Participation

Amicus Curiae in International Investment Arbitration: The Implications of an Increase in Third-Party Participation

Truly Public Apologies: Third-Party Participation in Rwandan Apologetic Rhetoric

Rwanda offers one of the most unique and important cases for understanding the role of apologetic discourse in reconciling communities torn apart by violence and genocide. To help overcome the hatred that led to the 1994 Tutsi genocide, the Rwandan government instituted the gacaca court system, which calls for perpetrators to repent and apologize. This article provides a foundation for understanding apologetic exchanges in Rwanda's gacaca trials and broadens the current theories of apologetic rhetoric by describing the roles (and implications) of third-party participants in Rwandan apologies.

Electoral volatility, competition and third-party candidacies in US gubernatorial elections

Third-party participation in plurality elections should be rare, given the low probability of electoral success. In the United States, the entrenched two-party system makes third-party candidacies especially puzzling. We develop a general theory of these candidacies based on the electoral context, focusing on electoral competition and volatility. When electoral competition is either low or high we expect the number of third-party candidates to be high, due to the opportunities to raise attention to policy issues or affect the election outcome. Moderate levels of competition will produce low levels of third-party candidate participation, as there are fewer prospects of drawing votes or attention. Volatility is expected to have a positive effect, since high volatility signals a de-aligned electorate. We evaluate our claims using US gubernatorial elections, 1977—2005. The results support our claims, suggesting that third-party candidacies are shaped by the degree of electoral volatility and competition.

Norm Enforcement: The Role of Third Parties

To be effective, norm enforcement often requires the participation of unaffected third parties. The logic of third-party intervention has, however, proven elusive because the costs always seem to outweigh the benefits. Using an evolutionary game theoretic approach, we posit that the intervention of unaffected bystanders is a triggered normative response and show that generalized punishment norms survive in one of the two stable equilibria subject to selection drift.

Internally versus Externally Advised Non-Brokerage Real Estate Firms

Although real estate investment trusts have been able to choose an internal advising structure since the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a significant number of real estate investment trusts (REITs) have opted to remain externally advised. Despite the higher management costs associated with retaining a third-party advisor, these REITs have done quite well, on average, over the intervening time period. This article examines the characteristics that lend themselves to third-party advising as an optimal management structure for REITs. It examines the decision from a perspective of profit maximization, seeking to identify significant relations between various REIT characteristics and third-party participation. Results indicate that only a REIT’s status as publicly traded and, correspondingly, the size of the firm, significantly influence the choice of internal versus external advising structure. In addition, after matching by firm type and size, the authors find that externally-advised firms experience higher returns on average assets and average equity. This finding contrasts with previous results using earlier time periods in which externally-advised REITs were shown to underperform their internally-advised counterparts.

Working Paper 6: Managing proceeds of asset recovery

This paper looks at the use of proceeds of asset recovered from Sani Abacha, Vladimir Montesinos, and Ferdinand Marcos and their families. It will also briefly address a much more recent case involving Kazakhstan.
 Repatriation of stolen monies makes available additional resources for development activities. The challenge is to ensure efficient, accountable and transparent use of such assets, given states may lack capacity or political will and that corruption may be prevalent at various levels of government.
 Transparency allows for better utilisation of recovered assets, and better targeting of resources into sectors that have potential to benefit the victims of corruption, who happen to be mostly the poor. Lack of effective follow up mechanisms may lead to the inappropriate allocation of resources into sectors that have little effect on alleviating poverty.
 The cases under review here offer lessons on how to manage repatriation and utilisation of proceeds of asset recovery. Further lessons relate to the participation of third parties and the benefits of making the results of the entire process public.

Internationalized Pro Bono and a New Global Role for Lawyers in the 21st Century: Lessons from Nation-Building in Southern Sudan

From 2004 to 2006, the author led the pro bono representation of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (“SPLM”), assisting the SPLM in drafting and negotiating the National Interim Constitution of Sudan, the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan and the Constitutions of two “transitional” states. The representation was part of an emerging trend in pro bono representations. In small but increasing numbers, private law firms have begun to take on pro bono projects with global significance - assisting governments and civil society in post-conflict countries to deal on an even footing with foreign investors, for instance, or working with international criminal courts to prepare indictments of war criminals. This development within the legal community is connected to changes in the scope and ambition of the “corporate responsibility” initiatives of many multinational corporate clients of the firms leading the internationalization of pro bono services. Private law firms are hardly unique as third-party participants in the highest levels of inter- and intra-sovereign processes. Certainly, it is well known that foreign government assistance, inter-governmental organizations such as the UN or World Bank, and non-governmental organizations play a large role in the social and economic development of poorer countries. Less light has been shed, however, on the role those same entities play in the fundamental sovereign processes of formation, dissolution, war, and peace, and no discussion at all exists regarding the new role of law firms in such weighty international affairs. A close look at the way law firms operate in that rarefied space provides an illuminating contrast to the behavior of other actors.The entry of law firms and multinational corporations into the ‘market’ of global affairs - long the exclusive domain of governments and inter-governmental organizations - offers many advantages to clients in developing and post-conflict countries, but also poses dangers which can and should be mitigated. One of the foremost benefits private law firms offer is their unique ability to ensure - even to guarantee - local ownership of the process and its content due to the strict requirements of the attorney-client relationship. These include attorneys’ obligations to follow the directives of their clients, to keep the confidences of the client and to act independently of any third party. Unlike other players in the field of international aid such as foreign donor governments, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private foundations, private lawyers providing pro bono services do not receive donations, do not have “mandates” other than those dictated by the client (bounded, of course, by ethical regulations), and do not have real or imagined “constituencies” to which they are accountable, other than the client. Yet the enforceability of the ethical code that gives rise to those advantages is questionable in a transnational representation. A lack of regulation raises questions about legitimacy and accountability, and may suggest a specter of legal imperialism. A practical approach to mitigating those disadvantages can be gleaned from the novel work of an increasing number of scholars writing within the Global Administrative Law (“GAL”) paradigm. GAL scholars have analyzed the myriad ways in which disparate national administrative standards have been synchronized, though not necessarily harmonized, in various contexts (e.g., environmental concerns, accounting standards). A key concept in GAL scholarship is that of transnational networks - patterns of regular and purposive relations (and institutions) among like regulatory bodies working across borders dividing countries and demarcating the “domestic” from the “international.” The article will draw on this and other concepts and principles identified by GAL scholars proposing ways to bring a measure of accountability to transnational pro bono activities (indeed to transnational lawyering, generally) that respect the domestically self-regulated legal profession and which cannot (and should not) be harmonized across jurisdictions. Rather, the article suggests that regulation of global pro bono service should graduate from “accidental distributed administration” to “deliberate transnational network administration.” Without some attention paid to the way law firms operate in this arena, there is a risk that the ethical obligations of attorneys will become little more than a cover for advancing Western corporate interests.

Business Participation in Third-party Controlled E-marketplace: An Exploratory Model

Previous research on the factors that influence a business's participation in third-party e-markets identified a set of motivational and ability related factors. This paper explores further the question of the determinants of third-party e-market participation using a multiple case study research design. Data were collected from three companies in China. Our findings suggest that motivation and ability related factors might play both an enabling and inhibiting role in e-market adoption. However, we also found that these factors are limited to offer a complete understanding of participation in third-party operated e-markets. In particular, in the context of emerging economies and emerging e-markets where both contextual factors and the offerings of market-makers are crucial to an enterprise's decision to join and stay in e-market, the explanatory power of motivation and ability factors tend to be limited. The paper proposes an extended motivation-ability model to understand the drivers and inhibitors of participating in third-party operated e-markets. It further discusses the implications of the results of the study for both market and business decision makers.

Patent-Related Barriers to Market Entry for Generic Medicines in the European Union: A Review of Weaknesses in the Current European Patent System and their Impact on Market Access of Generic Medicines

Patents are effective tools for promoting innovation in the pharmaceutical sector. Originator companies should be able to recoup their R&D investments during the term of the basic patent/SPC on an active pharmaceutical substance. Generic competition should be available immediately after expiry of that term. The chances of market entry for generic medicines companies in all markets the day following expiry of the main basic patent in all European Union markets is, however, not possible or, at best, is extremely difficult. Due to a diminishing number of newly registered products and contracting product pipelines, originator companies may be tempted to unjustly prolong the patent monopoly of existing products. The result is known as the ‘evergreening’ of a basic patent with the help of follow-on patents to keep generic competitors off the market. These follow-on patents are often weak or trivial and, upon careful examination, it is clear that they should never have been granted. Patent quality is therefore of the utmost importance. The European patent system should only reward true inventions and should discourage patent applications for ordinary innovation. An important way of reducing the incidence of poor quality follow-on patents is to remedy certain structural deficiencies and weaknesses in the current examination procedure. Priority must be given to ensuring that the European Patent Office (EPO) has the resources it needs to continue to improve the quality of patent examiners, along with their training and remuneration, and to increase the number of more experienced senior examiners in order to give every patent application the deliberate, expert review it deserves. This would lead to a more stringent application of the patentability requirements and fewer trivial patents. Applicants should be more rigorously required to provide patent applications of the highest quality accompanied by all relevant information at the start of the examination process. Similarly, they should be under obligation to disclose all information known to them that is material to the patentability of their invention. Furthermore, better third-party participation would also help to avoid inappropriate follow-on patents from being granted. When such patents are granted, an immediate review should be possible to avoid the assertion of ultimately invalid patents to hinder generic competition. This would require an acceleration of the current opposition proceedings that today can take many years. The structure established under the European Patent Convention only provides for a common and single European patent application and granting system by the EPO. A European patent is not a unitary patent, but essentially a bundle of national patents. As a result, questions of patent infringement and validity are governed by various national laws and are handled by the national courts operating under different procedural rules. This purely national litigation system results in a complex arena of multiple patent litigation involving high costs, forum shopping and diverging, even contradictory, court decisions. The lack of a central judiciary composed of experienced patent judges is regarded as one of the major defects in the current patent system. An effective solution would be the creation of a central European patent court that would deal with questions of invalidity and infringement at a pan-European level. Until this has been achieved, specialised national patent courts should be created with technically skilled judges with powers to reach a decision within an acceptable timeframe. Furthermore, the standard for obtaining an interim injunction should be returned to its roots as an equitable remedy since injunctions today are often used simply as a litigious tactic. This change would require a litigant to establish the existence of irreparable harm that cannot be compensated by monetary damages before a court would take the far-reaching step of enjoining a product. Finally, measures should be taken to ensure that originator companies do not use other means to unjustly prolong their monopoly by, for example, introducing a system of patent linkage, obtaining improperly granted SPCs, deploying inaccurate marketing campaigns for promoting ‘new’ products with no substantial added therapeutic value as innovative products, etc.

Third-party Participation in WTO Dispute Settlement Proceedings for Training Purposes

Third-party Participation in WTO Dispute Settlement Proceedings for Training Purposes

Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600

Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600

Third Party Participation in Investment‐Environment Disputes: Recent Developments

This article outlines recent developments in investor–State dispute settlement related to the participation of third parties in arbitration. A particular focus is given to third party participation in disputes with a clear public interest based on the relevance of the cases to the protection of the environment, or sustainable development more generally. The benefits and drawbacks of third party participation and the relationship of participation to broader issues of transparency are also briefly discussed.

Prepaid Card Models: A Study in Diversity

On January 13, 2005, the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sponsored a workshop led by Gary Palmer, chief operating officer and co-founder of WildCard Systems, to examine the developing market for prepaid card products. Palmer described several distinct types of prepaid card value propositions, each with its own set of operational needs and customer servicing requirements. In addition, Palmer described new roles that exist in prepaid card programs that are not present in traditional credit and debit card programs. He emphasized that the variety of these programs' requirements and the breadth of thirdparty participants create complexities not only in the servicing of these accounts but also in the economics of these programs and the regulation of this payments category.

Danger Beyond Dyads: Third-Party Participants in Militarized Interstate Disputes

Stuart Bremer often reminded us that third parties—directly or indirectly—affect the initiation, evolution, and termination of conflict. He encouraged scholars to research the phenomenon of joining behavior further and personally investigated it. Questions about joining behavior are indeed deeply intertwined with a variety of theories of conflict. However, existing records on third-party interventions are limited to states' military involvement in conflict. The limitations imposed by the data can lead researchers to biased or incomplete conclusions about many international phenomena. We heed Bremer's encouragement and present here the results of an effort to collect new evidence on nonneutral (partisan) interventions in militarized interstate disputes for the 1946—2001 period. The data we present differ from existing records in that: (1) they provide information on both third parties' military and nonmilitary activities; (2) they broaden the notion of what constitutes a third party by including coalitions of states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); (3) they expand the investigation framework by recording interventions that occur before and after a militarized dispute. We test the usefulness of the data by exploring the issue of major powers' interventions in conflicts, as Yamamoto and Bremer did in their 1980 “Wider Wars and Restless Nights” article. We offer strong support for Yamamoto and Bremer's finding that major powers drag one another into ongoing conflicts and show how the data may help us raise and answer new and more complex hypotheses about third parties and the dynamics of joining behavior.

The technical and interpersonal aspects of telemedicine: effects on doctor-patient communication.

The influence of telemedicine on the nature and content of doctor-patient communication stems from both its technical and its interpersonal aspects. While the technical aspects are concerned with the communication technologies used and the clinical processes enabled by those technologies, the interpersonal aspects are concerned with relationships between system personnel, providers and patients, and the way in which those relationships are organized. On the one hand, this paper posits that the influence of the technical environment stems from depersonalization of the doctor-patient relationship, participatory enhancements and impediments, and sensory and non-verbal limitations. On the other hand, it posits that the influence of the interpersonal environment stems from third-party participation, social and professional distancing, and underdeveloped norms and standards. A combined positivist and interpretivist evaluation strategy would enable researchers to make better-informed connections between telemedicine, medical encounter behaviour and health outcomes.

The sick patients of Dr. Tissot (1728-1797)

Samuel Auguste Tissot (1728-1797) was a Swiss physician from Lausanne, who enjoyed a great reputation in his lifetime, thanks to his publications and professional expertise. His personal records contain many pieces of correspondence and more than a thousand written consultations, which are documents describing the disease of a person, that were sent to a physician in order to solicit advice on diagnosis and treatments. This collection is very interesting in many aspects, notably for giving an insight into the patients' points of view. This perspective, which is often difficult to adopt because of the lack of archival materials, has been presented recently as an essential alternative to the traditional history of medicine. Written consultations allow an original reflection on the perception or expression of sickness and shed new light on the patient-practitioner relationship. They reveal a complex network of mediations, that is, actions undertaken by individuals at any step of the epistolary consultations. This article aims at defining the different kinds or levels of mediations that one can find in the documents in order to understand when and why there are sometimes mediators, and which role they play. Such a study should demonstrate that the experience of sickness is not only the business of a single person, but involves several people. The patient-doctor relationship is not exclusively a binary one, but often includes the active participation of third parties.