The question with which this chapter grapples is the following: What kind of a concept is coherence and what is its content? The chapter begins by a general introduction on concepts. Three different concept types are identified: criterial concepts, natural-kind concepts, and interpretative concepts. As coherence is clearly not a natural-kind concept, the chapter analyses coherence as a potential candidate concept of the criterial kind. It identifies three elements often associated with, and deemed necessary for, the existence of coherence in a legal setting, namely: consistency, correctness, and comprehensiveness. Incidentally, these are also key concerns regarding the existing ISDS regime as expressed by state delegations and scholars. The section ultimately concludes that none of the three elements is necessary for coherence to exist in non-ideal practical situations. Based on this examination, the chapter then shifts perspectives and characterises coherence as a concept of the interpretative kind. In so doing, the chapter makes a preliminary case for the existence of a dual, substantive and methodological, dimension of the interpretative concept of coherence

The law of the sea is a great laboratory for observing the fabric of international law through the interactions between a variety of judicial bodies with jurisdiction to interpret and apply the same legal rules and principles. At first, the plurality of judicial fora available under UNCLOS has created concerns of fragmentation and of competition and forum shopping. These have proved so far unwarranted, since the tribunals generally deliver a uniform interpretation of the applicable law or tend at least toward harmonization. Tribunals have aimed to achieve clarity and consistency of the case law as well as transparency and predictability of the delimitation process. The concept of acquis judiciaire has been used to designate this mechanism of gradual building of a uniform law through the reiteration and cross-referral to existing judicial decisions. It is both a concept and a regulatory tool. It underlies a wilful search of harmonization and shows that judges are essential actors for ensuring the coherence of the international legal system.

The correlation test is a standard procedure for deciding if two variables are linearly related. This chapter discusses a test for independence that avoids the linearity assumption. The basic idea is the following. If two variables are dependent, then changing the value of one them, say c, changes the distribution of the other. Therefore, if samples are collected for fixed value of c, and additional samples are collected for a different value of c, and so on for different values of c, then a dependence implies that the distributions for different c’s should differ. It follows that deciding that some aspect of the distributions depend on c is equivalent to deciding that the variables are dependent. A special case of this approach is the t-test, which tests if two populations have identical means. Generalizing this test to more than two populations leads to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), which is the topic of this chapter. ANOVA is a method for testing if two or more populations have the same means. In weather and climate studies, ANOVA is used most often to quantify the predictability of an ensemble forecast, hence this framing is discussed extensively in this chapter.

The previous chapter discussed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), a procedure for deciding if populations have identical scalar means. This chapter discusses the generalization of this test to vector means, which is called Multivariate Analysis of Variance, or MANOVA. MANOVA can detect predictability of random vectors and decompose a random vector into an sum of components ordered such that the first maximizes predictability, the second maximizes predictability subject to being uncorrelated with the first, and so on. This decomposition is called Predictable Component Analysis (PrCA) or signal-to-noise maximizing EOF analysis. A slight modification of this procedure can decompose forecast skill. The connection between PrCA, Canonical Correlation Analysis, and Multivariate Regression is reviewed. In typical climate studies, the dimension of the random vector exceeds the number of samples, leading to an ill-posed problem. The standard approach to this problem is to apply PrCA on a small number of principal components. The problem of selecting the number of principal components can be framed as a model selection problem in regression.

In his treatises De divinatione and De fato, Cicero discusses the possibility of the prediction of future events. His understanding of divination in these philosophical works differs significantly from accepted Roman practice. Thus, De divinatione should not be read as a handbook on Roman divination. Rather, it should be read alongside De fato as an exhortation to act in the service of the res publica after the death of Caesar. Rather than denying outright that divination is real, Cicero seeks to refute the more superstitious divinatory practices current in Rome, all of which he attaches to the individual rather than to the political community to which he has dedicated his life. Among these superstitious views are the belief that humanity is subject to impersonal fate and therefore that human responsibility is curtailed. In writing for a Roman audience, Cicero denies both the notion that men cannot be responsible for their own actions, thus rejecting the idea of fate, as well as the existence of divination in the context of a deterministic worldview.

The theory is here generalized to include marked point processes (MPP) on the real line with ageneral mark space. We define and interpret MPP differentials and integrals The compensator and intensity of an MPP is discussed carefully. We present the relevant predictability concept for MPP integrands, andthe connection between MPP integrals and martingales is discussed in detail.

This chapter establishes the benefits of considering progressive property 'in action' through a renewed doctrinal focus, including through paying greater attention to comparative examples, and shows why Irish constitutional property law is a particularly illuminating case-study of the mediation of property rights and social justice through constitutional law. It advocates an approach to constitutional property law that attends to the existence and causes of doctrinal incoherence and inconsistency and is problem-focussed and locally oriented. It further advocates attending closely to the immanent, partial influence of property theory in legal doctrine in order to better understand outcomes and patterns in constitutional property law. It identifies doctrinal analysis as a key means of enriching progressive property scholarship and better equipping it to respond to critiques focused on the destabilising effects of unpredictable contextual decision-making by judges. Laying the foundations for the Irish case-study that follows, it sets out the Irish Constitution's property rights clauses and explains some core principles of Irish constitutional law.

The notion of abuse of right as an autonomous principle of international law continues to exercise a facile appeal. Yet international economic arbitrations have failed to yield a lex mercatoria capable of providing comprehensive rules of decision; this is not where a coherent principle of abuse of rights will emerge. A different proposal is to establish abuse of rights as a general principle derived from international law itself (rather than by the distillation of general principles common to national laws). This too founders on the observation that acontextual abstractions do not yield meaningful criteria amenable to predictable application, and that in any event international disputes may, and have been, resolved in other ways. The modern international environment is abrim with concurrent rights that must be accommodated by negotiation or by properly enacted lex specialis without resorting to the provocative declaration of any of them to be abusive in its exercise.

Each Contracting Party shall accord to investments of investors of the other Contracting Party fair and equitable treatment.

Chapter 5 investigates more stable forms of ordering the security arena. They are characterized by clearly voiced claims, hierarchized actor relations, and structured processes of security provision. Such ordering is commonly expected by the state but state practices often fall short of its narratives of stable ordering. Other actors also turn to stable ordering when they believe they are able to gain larger stakes in the arena. Actors can even resort to force when they have the means to press their claims. Stable ordering can create predictable security but it can also create organized insecurity.

We investigate how lower courts respond to a change in the legal rule by an appellate court. We create a dataset comprising 525 cases from the Tax Court of Canada over the period 1997 to 2017 that determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor for tax purposes. We look at how this lower court responds to a 2006 decision by the Federal Court of Appeals introducing a new factor in a multi-factor test to be applied by the lower court. We find only limited evidence that this change in the legal rule has any impact upon the outcomes of lower court cases.