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Radio frequency identification (RFID) provides a useful tool for the prescreening or detection of goods and containers moving across the border and for controlling the trade of illicit materials and preventing or mitigating the effects of terrorism. Although anti-terrorism measures are important in today’s dangerous world, RFID tools, if misused, may violate the WTO trade rules. Whenever goods or container control measures using RFID are proposed, their contents, objectives, and rationale must be published, and WTO members must be notified through the WTO Secretariat and allowed to make comments. WTO members should not take such measures that are designed or applied in a discriminatory manner and those measures must be adopted only under necessary situations and to the extent necessary. These measures must reduce the incidence and complexity of import and export formalities, and there should not be substantial penalties for minor breaches of the requirements under the measures. If the measures require country-of-origin information in RFID tags, they must apply in the same way to like products, and they must not cause unnecessary inconveniences or unreasonable cost. If the measures deal with containers in international transit, they must be reasonable, consider the conditions of the traffic, and guarantee transit through the most convenient routes for international transit.

A container control measure designed to restrict the flow of fissionable materials or their derivative materials, traffic in arms, ammunition, and implements of war, or traffic in military supply goods and materials may be justified, even if it violates some of the GATT rules. In addition, a measure established in time of war or other emergency in international relations or based on the United Nations Charter and designed to maintain international peace and security can also be justified. As a last resort, WTO members may request a waiver from GATT and TBT Agreement obligations for container control measures that include RFID.

Superpowers must be careful not to use RFID to practice power politics and create regulations to deal with national security and anti-terrorism issues that do not conform to international law. The key question is how to maintain a balance between the two inalienable values of free trade and national security in this era of globalization, harmonization, and terrorism .

The purpose of this paper is to debate on how to achieve, in countries that have invested in the North American model of the regulatory state, the greatest efficiency in creating norms for the organization of public and private activities in order to guarantee the autonomy and technical impartiality required for the proper functioning of regulatory agencies.

This paper describes the development of the legal framework regarding regulatory agencies in Brazil. The research was based on bibliographical data, media reports, and the Brazilian Supreme Court decisions.

The regulation dissemination through regulatory agencies in Brazil has given rise to a series of controversies concerning the limits of their performance and the extent of their technical discretion. According to the findings, it is concluded that these independent agencies should be guided by the following four pillars: (1) the legal rule of fixed-term in office; (2) the principle of lesser control intensity (deference) of the agency acts; (3) the prohibition of contingency of agencies’ budgetary resources; and (4) the prohibition of agency powers suppression. Otherwise, the institutional capacity of agencies will be diminished and their neutral action in technical matters will be compromised.

This paper shows how enhanced autonomy and technical impartiality can be useful for better regulatory governance in other countries, preventing them from suffering from the same problems that have occurred in Brazil.

In this study, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for evaluating airworthiness factors were presented. The purpose of this study is to develop an acceptable rationale for operational activities in civil and military aviation and for design, production and maintenance activities in the aviation industry that can be used in-flight safety programs and evaluations.

In aviation, while the initial and continuing airworthiness of aircraft is related to technical airworthiness, identifying and minimizing risks for avoiding losses and damages are related to operational airworthiness. Thus, the airworthiness factors in civil and military aviation were evaluated under these two categories as the technical and operational airworthiness factors by the analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process. Three technical and five operational airworthiness criteria for civil aviation, three technical and nine operational airworthiness criteria for military aviation were defined, evaluated, prioritized and compared in terms of flight safety.

The most important technical factor is the “airworthiness status of the aircraft” both in civil (81.9%) and military (77.6%) aviation, which means that aircraft should initially be designed for safety. The most significant operational factors are the “air traffic control system” in civil (30.9%) and “threat” in the military (26.6%) aviation. The differences within factor weights may stem from the design requirements and acceptable safety levels (frequency of occurrences 1 in 10⁷ in military and 1 in 10⁹ in civil aircraft design) of civil and military aircraft with the mission achievement requirements in civil and military aviation operations. The damage acceptance criteria for civil and military aircraft are different. The operation risks are accepted in the military and acceptance of specific tasks and the risk levels can vary with aircraft purpose and type.

This study provides an acceptable rationale for safety programs and evaluations in aviation activities. The results of this study can be used in real-world airworthiness applications and safety management by the aviation industry and furthermore, critical factor weights should be considered both in civil and military aviation operations and flights. The safety levels of airlines with respect to our airworthiness factor weights or the safety level of military operations can be computed.

This is the first study considering technical and operational airworthiness factors as an MCDM problem. Originality and value of this paper are defining critical airworthiness factors for civil and military aviation, ranking these factors, revealing the most important ones and using MCDM methods for the evaluations of airworthiness factors for the first time. In civil aviation flight safety is the basic tenet of airworthiness activities in risk analysis, on the other hand in military aviation high levels of risks are to be avoided in peace training or operational tasks. However, even high risks have to be accepted during the war, if the operational requirements impose, as mission achievement is vital. The paper is one of a kind on airworthiness evaluations for flight safety.

Outlines the implications of the EC Directive on Construction Products brought into operation in June 1981, with special attention to its implications for design practitioners. Refers to essential requirements for safety, health, etc., the status of Eurocodes, European Standards and the EC Conformity Mark, European Technical Approvals and the effects of different national traditions in building regulation. Discusses the short‐and‐long term implications for those working in the private sector and on public work.

The purpose of this paper is to address a gap in the comparative research literature on vocational education and training (VET) and skill formation systems. It examines the impact of international technical standardisation and regulation on the design, organisation and delivery of apprenticeships in the aeronautical and aerospace sectors in England and Germany.

The research design was informed by insights from economics, workplace and work-based learning and comparative education. Academic experts in the fields of aerospace and aeronautical standardisation and regulation, VET, human resource development and business organisation were consulted. The generic occupation of “aircraft mechanic” was selected as being the closest match for comparison. Interviews and non-participant observation in workplaces and training centres were carried out involving three companies in England and four in Germany.

Findings show that there is considerable convergence across the pedagogical approaches to apprenticeships in England and Germany related to fostering the capacity to take responsibility for the quality of one’s work, to work in and lead teams, and to respond to and work with customers. Increasing international regulation and technical standardisation underpins a shared language about learning through practice in technologically advanced workplaces.

This paper is original because it turns the lens of inquiry to workplace processes to reveal the level of convergence in training philosophies and practices in an internationally highly regulated sector. It shows how international technical standardisation and regulation is leading to pedagogical innovation. The findings have implications for VET and apprenticeship policy at the national and international level.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a tool for the international comparative analysis of regulatory regimes in the field of building regulation.

On the basis of a heuristic model drawn from regulatory literature, a typology of building regulatory regimes is introduced. Each type is illustrated with a number of real‐life examples from North America, Europe, and Australia.

Governments worldwide have introduced building regulatory regimes with a variety of designs. On an abstract level, these designs are shown to have a comparable pattern. This pattern is utilised to draw up a typology of regime‐designs that can be placed on a sliding scale, with a “pure public regime” at the one end and a “pure private regime” at the other. Intermediate regimes display characteristics of both.

The comparative analysis of different regimes assists policy makers by demonstrating which combinations of regulatory characteristics can provide the best results in particular instances. The typology introduced by the paper assists this process by providing a tool for systematic analysis of complex real‐life cases.

June 15, 1967 Building — Safety regulations — Technical breach — Regulation requiring top of ladder to be lashed before used — Access to top of ladder by staircase — Scaling of ladder by workman to lash it — Fall of ladder Whether workman solely to blame No instruction to use staircase — Whether workman would have obeyed such instruction — Liability of employers — Oil storage tank — Whether a “building” — Building (Safety, Health and Welfare) Regulations, 1948 (S.I. 1948, No. 1145), regs. 4, 29(4).

April 29, 1969 Building — Safety regulations — Technical breach — Regulation requiring top of ladder to be lashed before use — Staircase giving access to top of ladder — Scaling of ladder by workman to lash it — No instruction to use staircase — Fall of ladder causing injury to workman — Liability of employers — Whether workman wholly to blame — Whether oil storage tank a “building” — Applicability of safety regulations — Building (Safety, Health and Welfare) Regulations, 1948 (S.I. 1948, No. 1145), regs. 4, 29(4).

The paper seeks to define the nature of the policy problems in Dutch building control.

The authors use Dunn's four‐phase methodology for public policy analysis, consisting of problem sensing, problem search, problem definition, and problem specification. Both a literature review and a field study into the operation of local building control authorities were undertaken. The field study incorporates characteristics of a survey, with methodology developed by Fowler.

Dutch building control legislation has been subject to many changes over the 100 years or so that it has been in force as it has responded to society's changing priorities. Throughout this period building regulation has become more detailed and more uniform across the country. Nevertheless, almost no legal changes have been made to the enforcement system. Responsibility for building control still lies with the municipalities and implementation is still not established by national legislation or policy document. Ongoing attempts to deregulate and standardise the legislative framework should therefore not stop at changing the regulations. Changes in the supervision system might offer an alternative route to improving the quality of the (technical) building control and clarifying the tasks and responsibilities of building control staff.

The analysis focuses on problems in building control and does not consider design and construction problems.

The field study contains important lessons for building control practitioners and policymakers regarding current deficiencies in the implementation of building control legislation.

The paper provides a model for the analysis, and comparative study, of building control systems in other jurisdictions.

This article highlights the main principles and provisions contained in the WTO’s product quality related agreements, i.e. the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) which apply, to a large extent, to quality concepts and practices in relation to the design, production, packaging, transportation and distribution of goods in international trade (exports and imports) such as standards, technical regulations (mandatory standards) and quality assurance procedures (testing, inspection, certification, accreditation). From this angle, quality professionals should be aware of the main principles and provisions embodied in the agreements so that their decisions and advice provided are consistent with the international trade rules which govern world trade and facilitate the accessibility of products to international markets.