Main Objectives Of The Dispute Settlement System - Free Essay Example

One of the main objectives of the Dispute Settlement System of the WTO is to provide security and predictability of the multilateral trading system which operates under considerable complex and uncertain economic conditions. A member of the WTO is legally bound to perform its treaty obligation for the effective and efficient functioning of the multilateral trading system that designed to ensure higher welfare gain if all the members comply with the principle of trade liberalization which is also the core element of the WTO. Nevertheless, as with the conventional game theory approach there is always incentives for one to violate, to maximize individual gain if others comply. Moreover all the governments have to deal with a complex set of overlapping interests as well as often unfavorable pressure groups within its constituency. A member found to be in violation of its WTO obligations, after the injured member(s) took the case to the DSU panel; the remedial measure would be either compensation or suspension of concession which is substantially equivalent to the level of violation or nullification or impairment (DSU Article 22). The loosing violator get reasonable time to withdraw its WTO inconsistent measures; if it failed or refused to do so, the injured party allowed to apply the sanctions only equivalent to the ongoing violation. Now the debate is whether these compensatory natures of the curative rules of the Dispute Settlement system of the WTO really designed to ensure enforcement of the members obligation to conform to the rules or simply leaving the parties (surely rich and powerful actors) buy out the violation, if they willing to do so. WTO Dispute Settlement System -a promoter of efficient breach Schwartz and Skyes (2002:293-305) have explained that WTO dispute settlement provisions are deliberately designed to enable members to renegotiate and modify their treaty obligations through compensation or withdrawal of concessions and thus adjust to the complex and unanticipated economic environment. They argued that the WTO provisions do not comply with the enforcement goal of economic theory of contract remedies that compliance yield greater benefits; rather encourage efficient breach another goal of the contract remedies. According to their view, this notion of the WTO rules perfectly resembles liability rule approach and the DSU provisions are not mainly intended to deter violation but to allow the loosing defendant to buy out the violation at a price mutually agreed or set by an arbitrator. They cited the EC-Hormones case in support of their opinion that by declining punitive sanctions the arbitrators admitted this compensatory nature of DSU sanctions. They suggested that pu nitive sanctions could solve the compliance problem. WTO Dispute Settlement System -a protector of states sovereignty On the other hand, John Jackson (2004:109-125) differed that neither renegotiation of compensation nor efficient breach is fundamental to the WTO DSU operational procedures; although he admitted that those provisions might be used for the settlement of certain disputes. He applied all the three methods of treaty interpretation of customary international law and Vienna Convention on the law of Treaties 1969 and argued that the text of the DSU convincingly upholds the goal of security and predictability and primarily aimed at compliance; suspension of concessions is a fallback measure only. He opined that International Law works quite differently in comparison to the private contract laws while recognized the relative inefficiency of International Law regime in terms of enforcement. Jackson ruled out the buy out theory pointing it as totally contradictory with the basic principle of security and predictability and claimed that it could instigate the exit of the small and developing c ountries from the system. On the notion of greater penalty for non compliance he reminded the basic principle of sovereignty of states that could be undermined by any penalizing approaches of a International Judicial body. Liability Law-vs.-Property Law This debate between liability-law and property-law continues for the last 10 years and has a considerable importance in the functioning of the WTO and more precisely in the DSU operational procedures. However, both sides portrayed a partial picture of the DSU system from quite different perspectives. While Jackson overemphasized on the textual interpretation of the treaty based on Pacta sunt servanda and overlooked the power politics behind the system. Schwartz and Skyes overstressed on the enforcement and compliance issues from private contract law perspective and ignored the principle of sovereignty of states. Both the schools of thought have unique advantages and limitations and empirically well supported by a number of WTO disputes. As they analyzed two different aspects of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, they could be complementary to each other to design a more appropriate and effective remedial system. Taking a particular position in the debate If I have been asked to take one side of the debate I will go with Jackson arguments. Yes conventional wisdom holds that property rule which requires a punitive level of suspension of concessions could ensure greater compliance. But according to economic theory trade sanction normally results in welfare losses. So a punitive sanction which is higher then the violation and which persist indefinitely will result in greater welfare losses. As the fundamental goal of the multilateral trading system is to ensure economic welfare, one should not advocate any shorts of enforcement mechanism that ultimately reduces global welfare. Again the buy out option to encourage efficient breach should not be practiced as it undermines the credibility and fairness of any judicial system. Though it is evident that in certain disputes the loosing violators refused to withdraw inconsistent treaty measures and thus ignored to comply with the Appellate Body report and preferred suspension of concessions w hich signals their willingness to buy out the violation. But governments require policy space in their trade policy instruments to satisfy large number of interest groups in their constituencies. Nonetheless, nobody can underestimate the principle of sovereignty of states in their decision making process. Especially when a school of thought already claimed that [T]he WTO suffers from an imbalance between the efficient judicial and its ineffective political branches (Tijmes-Lhl, 2009:417-437). This group of scholars argued that the expansive law making nature of the WTO dispute settlement system undermining its legislative decision making process which is an explicit threat to the sovereignty of the member states. This could be even more costly if the members become more reluctant in making further commitment which is somehow explicit in the current deadlock in Doha round. Recommendations An effective solution to the problem would be designing a balanced mechanism which guarantee more compliance and enforcement and thereby ensure more security and predictability in one hand, and uphold the sovereignty and equality of member states on the other. For this one can think of a system that provides more balance in the existing market access entitlement and also includes other types of entitlements such as intellectual property rights, environment etc.(Guzman, 2010) and thus reform the WTO dispute settlement system to a more result oriented and better functioning Judicial body.

Psychology Assignment Bilingualism And Cognitive Ability - 2475 Words

Psychology Assignment: Bilingualism And Cognitive Ability (Essay Sample) Content: Bilingualism and Cognitive AbilityStudents nameUniversityBilingualism and Cognitive AbilityLanguage is the basic tool that connects humans and enables them to easily interact with each other. Every individual must understand at least one language to easily communicate with others. However, Marian Shook (2012) argue that other possess abilities to master more than one language thus making them bilingual. Bilinguals can use one or more languages in communication. Arguments on the ability to be bilingual have been based on the ability to be equally fluent in both languages while others have argued that so long as an individual can speak and hear more than one language then they are bilingualCITATION Gol04 \l 1033 (Gollan Acenas, 2004). Most bilinguals start at early childhood while others may get exposure earlier on in life to develop these bilingual abilities. Studies have been carried out to understand the role of bilingualism in cognitive abilities of an individual . Researchers have attempted to draw both positive and negative effects of bilingualism in cognitive abilities. This essay discusses the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive abilities by analyzing the role of bilingualism in cognitive development.Cognitive abilities relate to mental activities of the brain like thinking, remembering, learning and using language. It is thus defined as the ability for individuals to perform various mental activities that are associated with learning and problem-solving. This may include verbal, spatial and processing speed ability that allow learning of a new skill or language. These abilities are controlled by specific neuronal networks that enable using of the brain CITATION Sta09 \l 1033 (Stanovich, 2009). Cognition is based on sustained attention, response inhibition, speed of information processing, cognitive flexibility and control, multiple simultaneous attention, working memory, category formation and pattern recognition. This brai n activities are sued to carry out different brain activities that vary from simple to complex activities. Research has shown that there are reported differences between bilinguals and monolinguals are based on language controls that the two have.Bilingualism or sometimes called multilingualism is the ability to speak several languages at the same time. The world enjoys a larger population of multilinguals sine most people understand more than one language. The needs of globalization have led to increased abilities and the number of people who speak more than one language. There are differences between second language acquisition and bilingualism. In research bilingualism related to the ability to learn more than one language naturally rather than through artificial process. Second language learning is an artificial process used to acquire a new language in a classroom settingCITATION VMa03 \l 1033 (Marian Spivey, 2003). This is related to the education system. On the other hand, bilingualism is associated with the natural socialization process of acquiring language and communication patterns. For example, a child born in a family whose parents speak different languages may learn both languages through socialization. The processed of learning the language is acquired rather than the classroom induced methods. Therefore, studies in bilingualism have focused on understanding how children acquire more than one language in their socialization process.In acquiring bilingual abilities, there are two different kinds of language proficiency that are used; Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). BICS are communication skills that exist on the surface of the individuals cognition which are used in listening and speaking typically used for general communication. On the other hand, CALP is the basic ability of children to cope with different academic demands at school. BICS is common in native language fluency while CALP is used in general learning and second language acquisition patternsCITATION GLu11 \l 1033 (Luk, Bialystok, Craik, CL, 2011). The relationship between the conceptual languages acquired in one languages is useful in comprehending the second language. Several experiments have been carried out like the serial position, word superiority, brown Peterson and the memory span.Researchers argue that bilinguals enjoy higher brain activities since when they are using one language, the other language is still active in the brain. Prior MacWhinney (2010) suggest that the brain language guesses words between the two languages when the user is speaking thus making the brain active all the time. Bilinguals enjoy such abilities since their brain is not limited to a single language that they are using. This makes the speaker to suffer from confusion between the two languages thus requiring the need for relative balance between the two languages using execution functionsCITATION GGa10 \l 1033 (Garbin, et al., 2010). This is thus the regulation of cognitive abilities requiring attention and inhibition. This means that competing languages in the brain of the bilingual person lead to the use of these control mechanisms every time they speak. This leads to strengthened brain regions that apply the control mechanisms which improves cognition.Studies suggest that bilingual advantages in executive function are not limited to the brains language network. According to Luk, Bialystok, Craik, CL (2011) bilingual people show increased activation in the brain region associated with cognitive skills like attention and inhibition. For example, bilinguals are proven to be better than monolinguals in encoding the fundamental frequency of sounds in the presence of background noise. So, in a noisy restaurant, it will be easier for a bilingual person than for a monolingual person to encode what the other person is saying. Moreover, it appears that bilingual experience not only cha nges the way neurological structures process information, but may also alter the neurological structures themselves. Higher proficiency in a second language as well as earlier acquisition of that language, correlates with higher gray matter volume in the left inferior parietal cortex. This is the part of the brain where language switching is managed.Controlled brain activities and improved cognition lead to better abilities to work better in conflict management situations. For example, in a classic Stroop task the cognitive system is required to employ additional resources that are used to ignore irrelevant words and focus on the relevant ones. This is a brain ability based on high cognitive abilities that can be sued to recognize different and conflicting statements in such tests. Mindt, et al., (2008) adds that due to the nature of the bilingual brain, conflict management within the brain is the order of the day making such people to easily respond to such problems. This is based on the need to control and manage two jointly activated languages and thus enhancing other cognitive controls of the brain. The ability to master the two languages and differentiate between them when speaking is a cognitive advantage that bilinguals have as compared to monolinguals. Enhanced perpetual attentiveness in the language are based on a developed brain with better cognitive abilities.The ability of bilinguals to exercise executive control by bilinguals is based on the use of limited resources in the brain to control the language. This is a set of cognitive skills that allow inhibition, switching attention, and working memory. This ability appears in the life of young children in increased academic performance and success CITATION Mar121 \l 1033 (Marian Shook, 2012). This executive control of the brain at an early age leads to developed brain activity and increased memory that allows the brain to function better. This is based on joint activation of language in inhibitin g one language and allowing the other to function. This allows bilinguals to perform better in tasks that require keen attention and thus the reason why they perform better in school. Executive control needs increased mental energy based on the need for the brain to make the right choices CITATION VMa03 \l 1033 (Marian Spivey, 2003). This is necessitated by the continuous transfer of abstract concepts from one language to another. Unlike monolinguals, bilinguals use this ability as a way of keeping their brains engaged and ready to carry out any task. Improved learning in bilinguals is associated with improved cognitive and sensory processing in the brain that improves learning. The ability to focus and learn a new language improves information capture in the brain allowing people to easily learn new knowledge.Studies on the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive abilities show that the advantages are not limited to brain language network only. This is because there is i ncreased activation of the brain region that is associated with cognitive skills like inhibition and attention. According to CITATION Par16 \l 1033 (Paradowski Bator, 2016)this has been reported in the changes of the neurological structures process of information. This is seen in increased grey matter due to abilities to concentrate and achieve proficiency in both languages. The neuronal roots of bilingual advantage extend beyond to the subcortical brain area of the brain that is traditionally associated with sensory processing of the brain. For example, when monolingual and bilingual individuals listen to the same content without any intervening disturbance like noise, they show similar outcomes. However, when the same music is played with noise in the background, bilinguals reported larger neuronal responses in their brain as compared to monolinguals. This is related to the ability of the bilingual...