Thesis advisor: Julie H. Mortimer / Three self-contained essays explore government regulation in the airline industry, and how such policies affect competition. The first essay explores the proposed merger between US Airways and American Airlines in 2013, approved by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) under the condition that 104 airport slots (“landing rights”) at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, DC, be divested to low cost carriers. To investigate the efficacy of the slot divestment, I estimate demand and cost parameters along with bounds on the shadow price of an airline slot, and simulate counterfactual post-merger prices and quantities with and without the regulatory divestment. I find that the merger and associated divestment together increased consumer surplus for markets involving Reagan Airport by roughly 25%. This increase in consumer welfare happened because the median price fell and the quantity of passengers increased. I show that the marginal value of a slot to an airline is decreasing in total slots, validating the DOJ’s decision to divest slots from the largest incumbent (US Airways, whose marginal value was $153 per flight) to new entrants with high valuation (like Southwest, $852). Beyond providing a key input to merger analyses, my approach can also aid in analyzing voluntary exchanges of airline slots, which are subject to DOJ approval due to their perceived anti-competitive effects. The second essay investigates the impact of airport slots on competition in general. Congestion is managed in high-density airports by capping the number of flights permitted in any given hour and allocating the rights (or slots) to a takeoff or landing among airlines. Airlines must use their slots at least 80% of the time to keep them for the next season. This rule creates a perverse incentive for airlines to hold on to underutilized slots by operating unprofitable flights instead of forfeiting these slots to a rival. Using exogenous removal of slot control at the Newark Airport in 2016, we investigate the lengths at which airlines go to meet the minimum requirements that let them keep the slots while violating what a neutral observer might call the “spirit” of the regulation. In my third essay, I assess the effectiveness of the gross upward pricing pressure index (GUPPI) in predicting price changes of the 2013 merger between US Airways and American Airlines. I compute GUPPI using only publicly available data, and find that it is close to the observed average increase in price. However, unlike most markets, flights to/from Reagan Airport experience a price drop, likely due to mandated structural remedies; the GUPPI predicts a price increase at Reagan Airport, whereas a full merger simulation correctly predicts a price reduction. I argue that the divergence between GUPPI and, if appropriate, the more accurate predictions of the merger simulation is due to the weaker assumptions made under the simulation. This underscores the fact that while GUPPI, with its restrictive assumptions and low computational burden, can be a good primary screening tool, it does not negate the necessity of employing a more rigorous secondary tool (such as a merger simulation) when assessing mergers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

The right to an effective remedy is a fundamental principle of international human rights law, crucial for the protection of individuals, especially for asylum seekers who have faced human rights violations in their countries of origin. Due to the importance of this right, it was included in art. 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), however, this article did not provide a clear definition of what is an effective remedy. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), as the judicial body responsible for the application of the ECHR, discussed the right to an effective remedy in many cases in which the applicants claimed that their right to an effective remedy has been violated. The Court did not provide a specific definition rather it provided requirements for a remedy to be effective which will be discussed in this thesis. As the ECHR is applied to "everyone" as provided in article 1 of the Convention, asylum seekers can claim the violations of their right to an effective remedy before the ECtHR. This can provide a significant guarantee in the protection system for asylum seekers in different ways.   Art. 13 of the ECHR stipulated the national authorities are the main responsible for providing the right to an effective remedy. In case the national authorities failed in providing such remedy, hence the role of the ECtHR comes to provide such remedy which is known as the principle of subsidiarity. Also, as asylum seekers are the more vulnerable groups for forcible refoulement, it became important to discuss if the right to an effective remedy can be protect them against such refoulement.   This thesis aims to investigate the right to an effective remedy as evolved by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. It analysis the interpretation of this right by the ECtHR to explain its requirements, type, and scope of application, Also, it focuses on the principle of subsidiarity and how it can be applied in this regard. Finally, it discussed the implementation of the right to an effective remedy in conjunction with the principle of non-refoulement to explain the scope of protection that can be guaranteed for asylum seekers against forcible refoulement.

Le droit à un recours effectif constitue une disposition clé de la Convention européenne des droits de l'homme. En vertu de l'article 13 de la Convention, toute personne ayant un "grief défendable" tiré d'une violation des droits conventionnels, doit bénéficier d'un recours effectif devant une autorité nationale. Le droit à un recours effectif vient ainsi consolider la protection des droits conventionnels au niveau interne. Par conséquent, il établit avant tout une garantie supplémentaire qui renforce l'effectivité des droits substantiels. Dans le même temps, l'article 13 contient à la fois un droit subjectif procédural dont la violation peut être constatée par la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme, ainsi qu'une obligation étatique découlant de l'obligation générale de protection des droits de l'homme. Il est ainsi l'expression du principe de subsidiarité et permet aux Etats parties de remédier eux-mêmes aux violations des droits conventionnels. Dans un souci d'efficacité, le juge européen a enrichi de plus en plus le contenu du droit à un recours effectif, qui semble se transformer en droit à un recours juridictionnel effectif. / The right to an effective remedy is one of the key-provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. On the basis of the Article 13 of the Convention, everyone who has an “arguable claim” that one of his Convention rights has been violated, shall have an effective remedy before a national authority. The right to an effective remedy therefore enforces the protection of the Convention rights on domestic level. In this way, it principally establishes an additional guarantee that reinforces the effectiveness of the substantive rights. At the same time, the Article 13 contains an individual procedural right, the violation of which can be found by the European Court of Human Rights. Furthermore, it contains an obligation of the States giving direct expression to their general obligation to protect human rights. The Article 13 is therefore the expression of the principle of subsidiary and it allows the Contracting parties to remedy directly the violations of the Convention rights. Attentive to the effectiveness of the Convention, the European Court has gradually enhanced the content of the right to an effective remedy, resulting in what appears to be a transformation into a right to an effective judicial remedy.

A tese tem por objeto central a proposta de novas modalidades de antecipação da tutela sem o requisito da urgência. No primeiro capítulo é examinado o conceito de tutela jurisdicional diferenciada, em comparação com a antecipação da tutela. O segundo capítulo cuida da análise das principais técnicas de sumarização do procedimento, para concluir que as principais técnicas nessa seara são informadas por precedentes ou súmulas. O terceiro capítulo aborda o panorama atual da antecipação da tutela e sua comparação com a tutela cautelar, ambas concebidas como medidas pautadas pela sumarização da cognição. O quarto capítulo contém a abordagem das principais técnicas de sumarização da cognição que prescindem do elemento urgência, para concluir que tais técnicas são úteis para tutelar determinado direito material, porém não se adequam como novas modalidades de antecipação da tutela sem o requisito da urgência. No quinto capítulo são definidos os principais fundamentos da antecipação da tutela sem o requisito da urgência. O capítulo sexto desenvolve premissas voltadas a acomodar a possibilidade de antecipação da tutela fundada em precedente ou súmula, partindo da importância de valorizar e uniformizar a aplicação de precedentes. A manutenção de uniformidade de entendimentos sobre a mesma matéria proporciona segurança jurídica, previsibilidade, isonomia e estabilidade ao sistema. Mediante o confronto de técnicas de sumarização do procedimento já existentes e adoção de critério de racionalização de precedentes, é proposta a antecipação da tutela fundada em precedente ou súmula. O capítulo sétimo discorre sobre a cognição sumária exercida quando do exame da antecipação da tutela fundada em precedente ou súmula, devendo os elementos identificadores ser confrontados, ao comparar a súmula ou precedente com o caso concreto, a fim de conceder ou não a antecipação. No capítulo oitavo é comentada a Proposta de Novo CPC, em comparação com as propostas desta tese. / This thesis main objective is to propose new modalities of provisional remedy without urgency requirement. The first chapter examines the concept of differentiated court order, compared to provisional remedy. The second chapter deals with the analysis of the main procedure summarizing techniques, in order to conclude that the main techniques related to this subject are informed by precedents or summulas. The third chapter approaches the overview of the provisional remedy and its comparison with the injunction, both conceived as cognition summarization means. The fourth chapter presents an approach of the main cognition summarization techniques that ignore the urgency element, to conclude that such techniques are useful to protect certain substantive right, but not suitable as new modalities of provisional remedy without urgency requirement. In the fifth chapter are defined the main foundations of provisional remedy without urgency requirement. The sixth chapter develops assumptions to accommodate the possibility of provisional remedy based on precedent or summula, from the value and importance of uniform application of precedent. Maintaining uniformity of understanding on the same subject provides legal certainty, predictability, equality and stability to the system. Upon confrontation of existing summarization techniques and adoption of criteria for precedents rationalization, it is proposed the provisional remedy based on precedent or summula. The seventh chapter discusses the summary cognition exercised when considering the provisional remedy based on precedent or summula, where the designation elements must be confronted by comparing the summula or precedent to the case, in order to grant or not the anticipation. In the eighth chapter is commented the Proposed New CPC, compared with the proposals of this thesis.

This thesis takes a corporate political strategy perspective of antidumping and countervailing duty cases to understand why some firms are more successful at the prosecution of these trade remedy measures. Trade remedy measures are long standing tools of US trade policy and their use has continued to grow globally amongst member countries of the World Trade Organisation. Between 1980 and 2007 a total of 1606 of these trade remedy cases were investigated by the Department of Commerce and International Trade Commission, an average of 41 antidumping and 17 countervailing duty cases a year, with a value of around US$ 63 billion or 0.3% of all US imports. Thirty-seven percent of the cases by number and 54% by value resulted in duties being imposed on the subject imports. This study uses archival material for five recent trade remedy investigations and forty-five semistructured interviews with business interests, trade attorneys and economic consultants that have experience of prosecuting these cases to understand why some firms may be more successful than others at achieving their preferred policy outcome. The imposition of duties is found to be only the simplest measure of success for US firms that file a case and does not capture the range of potential outcomes for foreign firms that face the duties. Successful prosecution of a trade case has been found to be firm specific, as the DOC determination of individual firm duty rates significantly affects what the outcome of case means for each firm in the US and foreign industries. The successful prosecution of US trade remedy cases is argued to be an informational corporate political strategy that is affected by statutory and administrative biases in the execution of the agency investigations, and creates the potential for indirect rent-seeking bias in the outcomes of cases. This informational corporate political strategy is based on three capabilities that firms need to develop, the capability to gather information, the capability to build and shape the administrative record at the agencies to reflect a firm’s policy preferences and the capability to align business practices with the US trade remedy institutions. These three capabilities are enabled by the bundling of corporate political expertise resources, organisational resources, financial resources and reputational resources. Some of these resources are internal to the firms, including staff, money and information, while other resources are external, such as the trade attorneys and economic consultants.

The Application for an appeal review in civil court proceedings is an exceptional remedy, which may brought against final decisions of the Court of appeal. Through the application for an appeal review the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic not only corrects the defects of legal decisions of courts of appeal, but at the same time it keeps an eye on the unification of the decision-making practice of the courts of appeal. The legal regulation of the application for an appeal review is contained in particular in the Code of civil procedure, as amended, and its minor styling techniques can be found also in the Act on the special legal proceedings, and in the Act on courts and judges. Due to quite complicated legislation and high procedural demands that are placed on the application for an appeal review, is this extraordinary legal remedy a frequent subject of the decisions of the Supreme and the Constitutional Court, whose conclusions are in many decisions fundamentally distinguishing. These contradictions in such conclusions often makes legal regulation of an application for an appeal review even less transparent. The Code of civil procedure lays down the fundamental prerequisites to the admissibility of the application for an appeal review and its requirements. In the preparation of the application...

In terms of the ¡§basic principles¡¨ of the Free Independent Travelers program(FIT), we need to notice that it is the very first and fresh contact in the cross-straits with the friendliest cooperation. With the change that given by FIT to rebuild the mutual trust between two nations, instead of labeling the ¡§evil nature¡¨ on the people from mainland, the government should remove the discriminative norms and regulations from FIT immediately. In the perspectives of the Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of UN, the right for people to have the freedom of mobility should be safeguarded. Internally, the authority should be delegated to local governments to enhance the potential benefit from few private and affluent enterprises and Taiwan-based business in China to the local economy with a greater profit. From the aspect of ¡§organization,¡¨ shortening the administrative process is the priority to reduce unnecessary red tape. Ma¡¦s administration attempts to establish offices in different fields in the cross-straits by ¡§building blocks¡¨; however, a more ¡§comprehensive¡¨ service organization is more needed based due to the reality. If this kind of organization can be set up in the important cities in China, FIT applicants can apply the grogram, including ¡§application, submission and receiving certifications¡¨ by a single window. It can not only reduce the cost and the possibility to be exploited for applicants, but it also can force the government to eliminate transferring the unnecessary risk of the possibility for Chinese travelers¡¦ staying illegally to the tourism industry in Taiwan. In relation to ¡§authority,¡¨ the policy should incline to ¡§soft law¡¨ for promoting FIT with ¡§management¡¨ rather than ¡§protecting with strictness.¡¨ If there is a conflict between authority and basic principles, related administrative problems may be even harder to be processed, let alone putting effectiveness of organizations into full play. Regarding to ¡§remedy,¡¨ a comprehensive arbitration mechanism, or an integrated system of mediation for dispute and remedy, is a must for FIT. From the premise of a mutual consensus to make it work effectively, instead of post-incident remedy, pursuing the quality of travelling by ¡§risk management¡¨ is more important. After all, the remedy in current society is so limited that it only covers the mediation for the dispute of product consumption and purchasing. In terms of ¡§supervision,¡¨ related source of law should be made by ¡§legislative sector,¡¨ so that an ¡§internal controlling¡¨ mechanism can be set up while part of the legal system is unable to be intervened by non-executive power, including president¡¦s power. Moreover, the set up of this mechanism should imitate the evaluation for universities. Professional scholars should be invited to do the evaluation, and by way of selecting random case or lot drawing, the power of the president can be redressed. Based on the divisions of responsibilities between administrative and legislative sectors, the ¡§interior controlling¡¨ role that the Congress plays, still, should not infringe the executive power of legislative sector. Nevertheless, it should reinforce practical supervision and identify what the object should be. From the aspect of ¡§exterior controlling,¡¨ an unofficial and professional organization should be established, so as to assist the integration of a comprehensive plan and supervision assessment. The pressure that media puts on the government is limited, not to mention correcting exterior supervision instantly; however, if the assessment can be submitted to Legislative Yuan from time to time, it might leave pressure to the administrative sector, so that the problems can be redressed.

Patent is a significant sign of modernizing a country. Protecting patents has been a problem since the Patent Law was conducted in 1949. At initial stage, inventors were unwilling to register patent because that they thought their inventions would not be protected by the Patent system. Until now, there are about 80,000 applications every year. It is clear that the patent system has developed more completely. However, it produced new proplems with us. For instance, the percentage of patent licensing is too law; the examining procedure is too long. Therefore, the patent system still need to be revised. In this research, the author reviewed the patent law and mechanisms on the basis of the five frameworks of administrative law, including Basic Principle, Administrative Organization, Administrative Competence, Administrative Remedy and Administrative Supervision, and literature review. For the purpose of improving Patent system, the researcher suggested that the Patent system should be revised.

This research uses the five major frameworks of Administrative Law to cover the current challenges the Chinese government faces and proposes recommendations on the legal system. First, in the area of the ¡§basic principle,¡¨ I cover the history of the organizational structure, which helps us understand the current problems existing in China. I also discuss how we can make adjustments to the system, reconcile politically and through regulations. Second, lessons from the developed countries also serve as a comparison when I discuss ¡§law compliance,¡¨ ¡§procedural justice¡¨ as well as ¡§citizen participation.¡¨ The aforementioned form the basic principles of this research. Furthermore, when discussing the administrative organization, I propose replacing the traditional rigid organization with the ¡§project based organization¡¨ and the ¡§learning organization.¡¨ ¡§Accountability¡¨ should be promoted to adjust civil servants¡¦ mentalities. Government budget should protect citizens¡¦ fundamental rights and show commitment to fulfilling international obligations in response to the ¡§globalization.¡¨ In the topic of ¡§Administrative Competence¡¨, any administrative implementations should go through the administrative investigations to understand where the problem is and to set the ¡§administrative plan¡¨ accordingly. Based on the principle of ¡§law compliance,¡¨ a sound legislation makes the legislative activities of the government more predictable. Besides the traditional ¡§administrative punishment,¡¨ the legislature can choose more equal administrative measures such as ¡§administrative contract,¡¨ ¡§administrative guidance,¡¨ and ¡§administrative reward¡¨ to replace the less equal measures in the past. This research also discusses ¡§administration first,¡¨ ¡§pilot,¡¨ and ¡§counterpart support¡¨, all of which are unique to China¡¦s legal system. The speedy mechanism with attributes of pragmatism and border-crossing assistance will be beneficial to China¡¦s coping with the challenges coming from the ¡§globalization.¡¨ When discussing ¡§Administrative Remedy,¡¨ this research suggests protecting diversity in opinions, simplifying the administrative reconsideration process, giving civil servants accountability, expanding administrative proceedings, reducing improper interference from people, expanding state compensation, solidifying the legal procedure for a sound interpretation of the Constitution, normalizing the referendum mechanism. These measures should help China cope with the growing administrative power in the era of globalization, and enhance the principle of ¡§wherever there is right, there is remedy.¡¨ Finally, of administrative supervision, we can ensure that the administrative power will remain uncorrupted and that the government will be more efficient and effictive through audit and internal oversight systems, supervision mechanisms from both the legislative and the supervisory power, the public opinion network, and the media. We can understand the challenges China government is facing by analyzing the aforementioned ¡§basic principles,¡¨ ¡§administration organization,¡¨ ¡§administrative authority,¡¨ "administrative remedies" and "administrative supervision." The recommendations in this research can be a reference for China or any other countries when they try to solve the globalization challenges.

After ¡§911 Attack¡¨ in 2001, every place in the world suffered destructive attack by terrorists one after another. It caused not only heavy casualties but also a shock to the international society. Religious fanaticism and technology misuse has made terror actions be serious threat to world stability and peace. United Nations Security Council not only critically condemned terror brutalities but also appealed to every member for urgent cooperation to prevent terrorist attack together and punish those who sponsor, plan, prepare for, and support terrorists; legislation sanction against terror actions has become the common consensus of the international society. Viewing the current achievements of countering terrorism, applying military strikes invariably still cannot completely solve this problem effectively. It must trace its source through knowing what problems happened in the society and how to make the most proper adjustment to cruxes of problems by means of double examination, ¡§Efficiency¡¨ and ¡§Rationality,¡¨ plus negotiation of every aspect of politics to enact the law, which conforms to principles of economy. There were a few actions of international terrorists in our country in the past, but we must have the attitude of playing the percentages and draft policies and complete laws in advance to response. At present, our country plans to finish the draft of ¡§Counter-terrorism Act,¡¨ providing the legal foundation of punishing terror actions and plan to set up a chartered counter-terrorism institute by the government to respond to significant terrorist attack. The research of our legal system of counter-terrorism is to discuss how to reach the balance between maintaining national security and protecting human rights by following the basic theory of administrative laws¡Ðprinciple, organization, authority, remedy, and supervision as the foundation of the thesis, and citing professor DENG, Syue-liang¡¦s academic quotation theory. In the light of every research structure, the research made correct description of crucial meaning of the system and explored the merits and demerits in the course of applying the legal system with objective explanation of its administrative measures and personal cognition, and brought up suggestions for follow-up researchers as reference.