Trade Rules of State Enterprises: a Lawmaking Perspective

State Enterprises are important actors in global trade, yet their regulation is a highly contentious issue that presently troubles the WTO and U.S.-China trade talks. This article proposes a typological framework of the multinational, regional, and bilateral trade rules concerning state enterprises. It compares their similarities and divergences from a lawmaking perspective, analyzing how lawmakers mix and match legal elements of ownership, control, purpose, authorization, function, activity, and industry of state enterprises with diverse policy ends. It reveals that some elements regulate behaviors while others pay more regulatory attention to the firm’s identity. These action-oriented and actor-focused approaches provide different lawmaking options. This typological study summarizes the existing doctrinal analysis of a particular provision under the same framework. It also provides a list of available lawmaking elements for regulators to pin down their policy differences towards state enterprises in international trade, enabling future lawmaking amidst the current geopolitical struggles on these entities

Malongitubus: a possible pterobranch hemichordate from the early Cambrian of South China

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Malongitubus kuangshanensis Hu, 2005 from the early Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte of China is redescribed as a pterobranch and provides the best evidence to demonstrate that hemichordates were present as early as Cambrian Stage 3. Interpretation of this taxon as a hemichordate is based on the morphology of the branched colony and the presence of resistant inner threads consistent with the remains of an internal stolon system. The presence of fusellar rings in the colonial tubes cannot be unambiguously proven for Malongitubus, probably due to early decay and later diagenetic replacement of the thin organic material of the tubarium, although weak annulations are still discernible in parts of the tubes. The description of M. kuangshanensis is revised according to new observations of previously reported specimens and recently collected additional new material. Malongitubus appears similar in most features to Dalyia racemata Walcott, 1919 from the Cambrian Stage 5 Burgess Shale, but can be distinguished by the existence of disc-like thickenings at the bases of tubarium branching points in the latter species. Both species occur in rare mass-occurrence layers with preserved fragmentary individuals of different decay stages, with stolon remains preserved as the most durable structures. Benthic pterobranchs may have occurred in some early Cambrian shallow marine communities in dense accumulations and provided firm substrates and shelter for other benthic metazoans as secondary tierers

Body length of bony fishes was not a selective factor during the biggest mass extinction of all time

The Permo-Triassic mass extinction devastated life on land and in the sea, but it is not clear why some species survived and others went extinct. One explanation is that lineage loss during mass extinctions is a random process in which luck determines which species survive. Alternatively, a phylogenetic signal in extinction may indicate a selection process operating on phenotypic traits. Large body size has often emerged as an extinction risk factor in studies of modern extinction risk, but this is not so commonly the case for mass extinctions in deep time. Here, we explore the evolution of non-teleostean Actinopterygii (bony fishes) from the Devonian to the present day, and we concentrate on the Permo-Triassic mass extinction. We apply a variety of time-scaling metrics to date the phylogeny, and show that diversity peaked in the latest Permian and declined severely during the Early Triassic. In line with previous evidence, we find the phylogenetic signal of extinction increases across the mass extinction boundary: extinction of species in the earliest Triassic is more clustered across phylogeny compared to the more randomly distributed extinction signal in the late Permian. However, body length plays no role in differential survival or extinction of taxa across the boundary. In the case of fishes, size did not determine which species survived and which went extinct, but phylogenetic signal indicates that the mass extinction was not a random field of bullets

Establishment of the Luoping Biota National Geopark in Yunnan, China

Geoparks in China have been a great success story, with 284 national geoparks and 41 of them accorded UNESCO international status, the highest number for any country in the world. We track the progress of one of the geoparks, Luoping Biota National Geopark in Yunnan Province, from initial plans after its discovery as a key site for the exceptional preservation of Middle Triassic marine fossils in 2007, to acceptance as a National Geopark in 2011. Geoparks combine great scientific importance with accessibility and attraction for tourists. The scientific importance of Luoping is in the fossils, thousands of specimens of marine invertebrates, fishes and reptiles, together with rare elements from land (e.g. insects, plants), representing an important phase in the Mesozoic Marine Revolution, when life was recovering from devastation at the end of the Permian, and 8 million years later, had developed stable ecosystems with a new structure, dominated by predatory fishes and reptiles. The touristic importance of the Luoping Biota Geopark has already been demonstrated by rapid development of facilities and high visitor numbers

A new millipede (Diplopoda, Helminthomorpha) from the Middle Triassic Luoping biota of Yunnan, Southwest China

AbstractA new helminthomorph millipede,Sinosoma luopingensenew genus new species, from the Triassic Luoping biota of China, has 39 body segments, metazonites with lateral swellings that bear a pair of posterolateral pits (?insertion pits for spine bases), and sternites that are unfused to the pleurotergites. This millipede shares a number of characters with nematophoran diplopods, but lacks the prominent dorsal suture characteristic of that order. Other “millipede” material from the biota is more problematic. Millipedes are a rare part of the Luoping biota, which is composed mainly of marine and near-shore organisms. Occurrences of fossil millipedes are exceedingly rare in Triassic rocks worldwide, comprising specimens from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and consisting of juliform millipedes and millipedes that are either nematophorans or forms very similar to nematophorans.</jats:p

Exceptional appendage and soft-tissue preservation in a Middle Triassic horseshoe crab from SW China

Abstract Horseshoe crabs are classic “living fossils”, supposedly slowly evolving, conservative taxa, with a long fossil record back to the Ordovician. The evolution of their exoskeleton is well documented by fossils, but appendage and soft-tissue preservation is extremely rare. Here we analyse details of appendage and soft-tissue preservation in Yunnanolimulus luopingensis, a Middle Triassic (ca. 244 million years old) horseshoe crab from Yunnan Province, SW China. The remarkable preservation of anatomical details including the chelicerae, five pairs of walking appendages, opisthosomal appendages with book gills, muscles, and fine setae permits comparison with extant horseshoe crabs. The close anatomical similarity between the Middle Triassic horseshoe crabs and their recent analogues documents anatomical conservatism for over 240 million years, suggesting persistence of lifestyle. The occurrence of Carcinoscorpius-type claspers on the first and second walking legs in male individuals of Y. luopingensis indicates that simple chelate claspers in males are plesiomorphic for horseshoe crabs, and the bulbous claspers in Tachypleus and Limulus are derived