The well-known question whether regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the multilateral trading system (MTS) are “strangers, friends, or foes” (Bhagwati and Panagariya, 1996) has gained new importance with the widespread proliferation of RTAs in recent years. Based on an extensive data set which covers most of world trade over the past 60 years and about 240 regional trade agreements, we analyze ...

In this paper, we first describe the characteristics of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that are the basis of the framework of the multilateral trading system. We then provide an overview of concepts of fairness in trade agreements. Thereafter, we offer a critique of the efficiency criterion in assessing multilateral trade agreements, taking issue with T.N. Srinivasan’s (2006) analysis and t...

In this paper, we first describe the characteristics of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that are the basis of the framework of the multilateral trading system. We then provide an overview of concepts of fairness in trade agreements. Thereafter, we offer a critique of the efficiency criterion in assessing multilateral trade agreements, taking issue with T.N. Srinivasan’s (2006) analysis and t...

Are negotiators who rely on justice principles in the process of bargaining and drafting agreements more—or rather less—effective than others? This article examines whether adherence to principles of procedural and distributive justice in negotiations contributes to more effective results, with a focus on international environmental negotiations. Effectiveness is defined in terms of the extent ...

I examine if and how a superpower can use its asymmetric power to achieve favorable outcomes in multilateral bargaining between states that have conflicting interests and veto power. Using a game-theoretic framework, I show that the ability to act outside, either unilaterally or with an ally, helps the superpower to reach agreements that would be vetoed in the absence of the outside option. The...

Security requirement of White-Box Cryptography (WBC) is that it should protect secret key from white-box security model permits an adversary who is able to entirely control execution of the cryptographic algorithm and its environment. It has already been demonstrated that most of the primitive is vulnerable to algebraic attacks in the white-box security perspective. In recently, a new Different...

One of the most robust phenomena in the experimental literature on multilateral bargaining is the failure of proposers to extract equilibrium rents. However, all previous experiments have overlooked the fact that outside the lab committee members are allowed to and do engage in sometimes intense communication processes prior to voting on a proposal. We conduct an experimental test of the Baron-...

Often our goal is not to prevent information flowing ‘down’ a hierarchy but to prevent it flowing ‘across’ between departments. Relevant applications range from healthcare to national intelligence, and include most applications where the privacy of individual customers’, citizens’ or patients’ data is at stake. They account for a significant proportion of information processing systems but thei...

At the height of the Cold War, most analysis of security cooperation focused on bilateral USSoviet arms control. Today, more of the focus has shifted to multilateral agreements; this makes it important to determine the circumstances under which compliance with these agreements can be assured. This viewpoint sketches out some ideas about the factors that foster and impede compliance, and uses th...

By using mathematical reasoning, this paper demonstrates the treatment principle: “Virtual disease is to fill his mother but real disease is to rush down his son” and “Strong inhibition of the same time, support the weak” based on “Yin Yang Wu Xing” Theory in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). We defined two kinds of opposite relations and one kind of equivalence relation, introduced the conce...