Punishment goals of crime victims

Research on subjective punishment goals has focused on the perspective of third-party observers of criminal offenses and neglected the perspective of victims. This study investigates punishment goals among 174 adult crime victims (rape and nonsexual assault) for each participant’s real criminal case. Scales measuring support for punishment goals are constructed by factor analysis of an 18-item list. Results show that 5 highly supported goals can be distinguished: retaliation, recognition of victim status, confirmation of societal values, victim security, and societal security. Analysis of relations between punishment goal scales and personal variables, situational variables, and demanded punishment severity corroborates the view that the punishment goals revealed can be classified according to the two independent dichotomies of moral versus instrumental goals, and micro versus macro goals.

Addressing climate change under preferential trade agreements: Towards alignment of carbon standards under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

With its wide coverage of economic spheres and the variety of trade and investment measures currently under negotiation, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership opens windows of opportunity for advancing action on climate change. We examine possible avenues and international trade law implications for an alignment of carbon-related standards between the EU and the US. We compare EU and US carbon emissions standards for cars and argue that negotiators should strive for a mutual recognition of their equivalence for a transitional period, while pursuing the goal of full harmonization at the level of the highest standards of two parties at some date in the future. This could be a way to balance between economic and environmental interests and harness economic incentives for the benefit of climate.

Toward alignment of carbon standards under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

With its wide coverage of economic spheres and the variety of trade and investment measures currently under negotiation, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) opens windows of opportunity for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The paper examines the possible avenues and the WTO law implications for the alignment of emissions standards between the European Union (EU) and United States of America (US). Looking particularly at the automobile sector, it argues that TTIP negotiators should strive for the mutual recognition of equivalence of EU and US car emissions standards, while pursuing full harmonisation in the long term. It concludes that the preferential trade agreement (PTA) status of TTIP would not be able to exempt measures taken for regulatory convergence from compliance with applicable WTO rules, particularly the rules of the WTO’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). Furthermore, the EU and the US would not be able to ignore requests for the recognition of equivalence of third countries’ standards and would need to provide the grounds upon which they assess third countries’ standards as not adequately fulfilling the objectives of their own regulations and therefore rejecting them.