The conflict that can arise when rules on competition law and the right to bargain collectively intersect has been a live issue amongst those interested in employment relations in Ireland for more than two decades now, as a series of conflicts has arisen in this space. When collective bargaining rights and competition law clash, the parties involved have generally swerved the issue through a mixture of negotiated ‘solutions’, and, more recently, a controversial legislative measure. Increasingly, however the issue is becoming one that requires to be addressed head on. This chapter examines how the Irish ‘voluntarist’, common law, system of employment relations has responded when competition law and collective representation rights are at odds. It will focus, particularly, on some paradigmatic disputes and reflects on how Irish law generally views the restriction on ‘economic freedom’ inherent in collective representation rights.

This chapter analyses the evolution of International Labour Organization (ILO) standards governing who is entitled to claim collective labour rights. It argues that the personal scope of such rights extends beyond ‘the standard employment relationship’, with implications for the scope of competition law. The first part analyses treatment of freedom of association and collective bargaining in constitutional and other declaratory ILO instruments, identifying the broad protectorate of these entitlements, reflecting the desire to promote equality and resist commodification of labour. These constitutional norms have been further reinforced by proposals for a universal labour guarantee and acknowledgement of the role of collective voice in promoting sustainability. The second part examines fundamental ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining, Recommendation No. 198 on the employment relationship and the findings of ILO supervisory bodies which apply these standards in a manner consistent with established constitutional norms. While supervisory bodies encourage states to consult with social partners to modify existing collective bargaining systems to reflect the needs of ‘self-employed workers’, this should be understood less as a concession to managerial prerogative, but more as promotion of reform protecting the vulnerable in a changing world of work.

What is the proper relationship between competition and labour law? In the UK since at least 1906 every real ‘person’ has had ‘freedom of association’ and is free to take collective action in a ‘trade dispute’, whether an employee, or self-employed. This principle was necessary for fair competition, fair working time, and fair wages. It forms a cornerstone of labour relations. The UK’s experience informed US antitrust law, the International Labour Organisation, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ‘Everyone’ in international law has the right to ‘just and favourable remuneration’, to join unions for ‘the promotion’ of their ‘social interests’, and the ‘right to strike’. UK and international law equally influenced EU law. Like all EU members states, since World War Two the UK has never used competition rules to suppress unions. This chapter explains the law on combinations, conspiracy and restraint of trade. Modern competition law, focused on undertakings, developed to break private monopoly power of unaccountable corporations, not to suppress fair wages and voice at work. Cases of collective action from self-employed barristers, to drivers and book dealers illustrate this. Competition law’s proper focus is unaccountable corporate power, to build a plural, more democratic economy.

In Canada, as elsewhere, the norms of capitalist legality include an aversion to permitting collective action by sellers of commodities to increase their price. Labour law, however, is built on the norm of freedom of association and the right of commodified workers to combine for the purpose of improving the terms of their labour contracts. This gives rise to a recurring regulatory dilemma. In Canada, this conflict has been resolved by granting workers a legal immunity from liability under competition law for engaging in approved collective action to improve or defend their terms and conditions of work. However, the zone of toleration is contestable at three margins, explored in this chapter. First, is the margin between those workers who are covered by the exemption and those who are not; second between the sale of labour power and the sale of the commodities it produces; and the third is between the means that covered workers can lawfully use to make their combinations effective and those that take them out of the zone of toleration. The chapter explores the history of the construction of the zone of toleration and the conflicts over its margins, which are currently stable.

Chapter 13 focuses more specifically on supermarket power and explore how efficiency and fairness become interdependent discourses in supermarket-supplier relations. Concentration in large grocery retail, in conjunction with associated growth in private labels and retailer control over shelf space, have generated a substantial power imbalance between big supermarket chains and the businesses that supply them. Supermarkets are said to be exploiting the imbalance to their own advantage, spawning a growing chorus of complaints from suppliers and from their representative organisations and political supporters. It has also garnered intense media, political and regulatory attention across a range of jurisdictions. This Chapter uses the analytical technique of problematisation to demonstrate how the “problem” concerning supermarket-supplier relations involves two distinct discourses relating to competition, on the one hand, and fairness, on the other. It highlights both potential tensions and interdependencies between these discourses and explores how they have been salient in both framing the aforementioned problem in public and policy debates and shaping regulatory responses. In particular, it critically examines the emergence of codes of conduct as a response to this problem drawing primarily on experience in Australia and to some extent, by way of comparison, the United Kingdom.

This chapter reviews the first six years of implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a major Chinese foreign policy initiative introduced in 2013. The authors explain how China’s transition from benefactor to banker, in con- junction with its push for expanded influence on the global stage, led to the adoption of the BRI. They then consider whether and why China might choose to ‘multilateralize’ the BRI. The authors conclude that if Beijing wants to multilateralize the BRI, it will need to either comply with—or help redesign— international development finance rules and standards. At the same time, the establishment of an inclusive and revitalized development finance regime does not rest solely on the shoulders of Beijing. If OECD-DAC and multilateral donors and creditors wish to avert a crisis of confidence and relevance, they will need to rewrite international development finance rules and norms in ways that accommodate Beijing’s interests and more effectively account for the preferences of low-income and middle-income countries.

Attempts to modernize and speed up the FDA’s premarketing clearance and classification process for medical devices have included both new device classifications and ways of filing abbreviated applications. The FDA’s “De Novo” classification and Breakthrough Devices program allow applicants to create entirely new medical device types, with special controls and technological characteristics, including specifications on hardware and software. To encourage innovation and competition, the 21st Century Cures Act allows De Novo devices to serve as “predicates” for subsequent follow-on medical devices through the 510(k) application process, if such follow-on devices use the same controls and possess “the same” technological characteristics as the “predicate” device. This lends itself to a potentially anticompetitive strategy mediated by the interaction between IP and the 510(k) application requirements: successful De Novo applicants could use their portfolios to prevent follow-on applicants from making use of similar characteristics – potentially stymying an entire class of follow-on devices in the process. This strategy could threaten a greater diversity of new devices; may encourage an “up” classification of devices; and incentivizes technical characteristics and special controls of De Novo devices where general ones may suffice. This chapter concludes by proposing future evidence-based research in the area.

The WTO must have new rules that meets the needs of the new commercial economy that has arisen since the establishment of the WTO. New trade rules for the twenty-first century are necessary for digital trade, trade-related aspects of intellectual property, competition, and investment facilitation.

In insular Southeast Asia Presbytis and Trachypithecus langurs show a complex distribution pattern whereby in certain areas only one species is present, in other areas two or three species of the same genus live sympatrically, and in yet other areas two, three or even four species of the two genera co-exist. Given their morphological similarity it is intriguing to unravel the ecological differences that allow these species to live side by side. Presbytis langurs are more confined to wet forests than Trachypithecus langurs; their range includes drier regions, high mountains and small islands. In terms of diet (young, old leaves, fruits, seeds) or activity budgets there is a large variation within species and no clear difference between co-occuring species emerges. Home range sizes for Presbytis langurs (~35 ha) is larger than those for Trachypithecus langurs (~20 ha), but day ranges appear to be more similar (~500 to 1,500 m). The variation in group sizes and composition (especially the number of adult males) differs in that Presbytis langurs typically live in smaller groups (~5 to 12 individuals), mostly with one adult male, than Trachypithecus langurs groups (frequently over 20 individuals) that frequently have two or more adult males present.

For folivores, socio-ecological models predict scramble competition and egalitarian dominance relationships with female dispersal, but female Asian colobines do not all nicely fit these predictions. Alternative explanations concern an absence of competition, and the Folivore Paradox, where group size is limited by social factors such as infanticide. Relevant data are scarce, but our review shows that colobine foraging costs increase with group size, yet female fitness may increase or decrease. Dominance relationships vary from despotic to egalitarian, and are individualistic. The lack of female nepotism in despotic species (or populations) still requires explanation. Female dispersal is found in egalitarian and some despotic species, yet costs may be low if females migrate into a group with familiar females. Asian colobine social organization seems to follow one of two patterns. First, in seasonal species, food limits group size, while infanticide does not; these groups may experience contest competition. Second, in a-seasonal species groups are uni-male, the infanticide risk is high and infanticide, not food, may limit group size. This proposal requires further testing and may also apply to uni-male frugivores. This overview of the socio-ecological patterns in Asian colobines highlights that ecological and social selection pressures in interaction determine primate social organization.

Given the destruction that humans are bringing to the natural habitat of colobine monkeys, it is important to understand the factors affecting colobine population dynamics so that effective conservation programs can be planned and put into action. Here we consider the effects of food quality and availability, competition, predation, and disease in determining colobus abundance. We find there is little evidence that natural disasters, predation, or disease play a strong role in regulating colobine numbers, but they can cause dramatic declines in populations at specific points in time and space. Given the difficulty of determining niche overlap and competition, no conclusion can be made regarding the role of interspecific competition in limiting colobine abundance. It seems most likely that colobines are limited by the availability of quality food, but the exact nature of that limitation remains unclear.

Deciphering the seasonality of predation is a key question in prehistory to understand spatiotemporal human strategies to overcome fluctuating ecological and environmental pressure. In NW Europe, despite periodic rough environmental conditions, the Belgian Ardennes were regularly occupied by humans in the Late Pleistocene, using numerous natural shelters of the karstic valleys and the ungulate biomass reservoir. However, humans competed with several large predators, in particular cave hyaenas. In this multi-taxon, multi-site cementochronological study, we tested season-at-death of different prey accumulated by either hyaenas or hominins during the second half of MIS 3 in the Belgian Ardennes. In conjunction with a classic seasonal study on ungulate species, this study's specificity is that carnivore (hyaena) dental cementum was tested on 19 teeth from three anthropogenic and hyaena-accumulated assemblages. Despite a low proportion of interpretable data, this attempt shows that cave hyaena can yield seasonal information and can successfully be analyzed to explore top predators' differential spatial strategies.

This chapter considers the role antitrust law can play in safeguarding repair markets and, along with them, the interests of competitors and consumers. While IP law may grants device makers power over their products, antitrust and competition law are designed to impose limits on exclusionary behavior. As a result, they serve as potential bulwarks against tactics that would impede repair. Despite significant doctrinal and policy hurdles to enforcement, antitrust law can help discipline firms that attempt to capture markets for the repair of vehicles, electronics, and appliances that account for hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue.

This chapter presents the fundamental theoretical principles underlying our research. It starts with the theoretical foundations of examining word-formation creativity, in particular, the system of onomasiological types, and the conception of the competition between two contradictory tendencies that can be identified (not only) in the field of word-formation, namely, semantic transparency and economy of expression. This is reflected in two scales of semantic transparency and economy of expression, including their underlying principles. The principle of Creativity within and beyond Productivity Constraints is justified. This is followed by presenting the theoretical foundations underlying our research into interpretation creativity, that is, a theory of meaning predictability reflected in an integrated onomasiological model of complex words. Attention is paid to the parameters used for the evaluation of interpretation creativity. They include Predictability Rate, Objectified Predictability Rate, the average number of readings proposed by a cohort member, and hapax legomena.

Our research pursues an answer to the question of the influence of the general creative potential upon the creative performance in coining and interpreting new complex words. This chapter presents fundamental views, theories, and principles of the concept of creativity and because creative potential has been studied and evaluated by various psychological methods, we provide a general overview of various aspects of approaches to creativity from the psychological point of view. Attention is devoted to various methods used for the study and evaluation of creativity. Special focus is on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking because it is crucial to our research. This is followed by a critical overview of various approaches to the concept of linguistic creativity, and more specifically, to word-formation and word-interpretation creativity. This chapter introduces our approach that relies on (i) an onomasiological theory of word-formation (ii) an onomasiological theory of meaning predictability, and (iii) a theory of competition in word-formation and word-interpretation.