Co-published by Oxford University Press and the International Law Institute, and prepared by the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State, the Digest of United States Practice in International Law presents an annual compilation of documents and commentary highlighting significant developments in public and private international law, and is an invaluable resource for practitioners and scholars in the field. Each edition compiles excerpts from documents such as treaties, diplomatic notes and correspondence, legal opinion letters, judicial decisions, Senate committee reports and press releases. All of the documents which are excerpted in the Digest are selected by members of the Legal Adviser's Office of the U.A. Department of State, based on their judgments about the significance of the issues, their potential relevance to future situations, and their likely interest to practitioners and scholars. In almost every case, the commentary to each excerpt is accompanied by a citation to the full text.

In this study, Caroline Henckels examines how investment tribunals have balanced the competing interests of host states and foreign investors in determining state liability in disputes concerning the exercise of public power. Analyzing the concepts of proportionality and deference in investment tribunals' decision-making in comparative perspective, the book proposes a new methodology for investment tribunals to adopt in regulatory disputes, which combines proportionality analysis with an institutionally sensitive approach to the standard of review. Henckels argues that adopting a modified form of proportionality analysis would provide a means for tribunals to decide cases in a more consistent and coherent manner leading to greater certainty for both states and investors, and that affording due deference to host states in the determination of liability would address the concern that the decisions of investment tribunals unjustifiably impact on the regulatory autonomy of states.

This companion to Transnational Commercial Law: Text, Cases and Materials contains up-to-date primary materials for students without linking commentary. This compilation of instruments covers areas such as treaty law, contracts, electronic commerce, international sales, agency and distribution, international credit transfers and bank payment undertakings, international secured transactions, cross-border insolvency, securities settlement and securities collateral, conflict of laws, civil procedure, and commercial arbitration

We could not have a global economy without a system to resolve commercial disputes across borders, but the international regime that performs this key role bears little resemblance to other institutions underpinning the global economy. A hybrid of private arbitral institutions, international treaties, and domestic laws and courts, the regime for commercial dispute resolution shows that effective transborder institutions can take a variety of forms. This book offers the first comprehensive social scientific account of this surprisingly effective regime. It maps and explains its evolution since the Industrial Revolution, both at the global level and in the United States, Argentina, and China. The book shows how both political economy approaches and socio-legal theories have shaped institutional outcomes. While economic interests have been the chief determinants, legal processes have played a key role in shaping the form institutions take. The regime for commercial dispute resolution therefore remains between interests and law.

The recent explosion of investment treaty arbitration marks a major transformation of both international and public law, above all because of the manner in which states have delegated core powers of the courts to private arbitrators. This book outlines investment treaty arbitration as a public law system and demonstrates how the system goes beyond all other forms of international adjudication in giving arbitrators a comprehensive jurisdiction to determine the legality of sovereign acts and to award public funds to businesses that sustain loss as a result of government regulation. The analysis also reveals some startling consequences of transplanting rules of commercial arbitration into the regulatory sphere. For instance, the system allows public law to be interpreted by arbitrators in private as a matter of course, with limited scope for judicial review. Further, arbitrators can award compensation to investors in ways that go beyond domestic systems of state liability, and these awards may then be enforced in as many as 165 countries, making them more widely enforceable than any other adjudicative decision in public law. The system's mixture of private arbitration and public law undermines accountability and openness in judicial decision-making. But, most importantly, it poses a unique and fundamental challenge - hitherto neglected by other commentators - to the principle of judicial independence. To address this, this book argues that the system be replaced with an international investment court, properly constituted according to public law principles, and made up of tenured judges.

There is considerable variation in the nature, scope and institutional forms of legal protection for valuable geographical brands such as Champagne, Colombian coffee and Darjeeling tea. While regional products are increasingly important for producers, consumers and policy makers, the international legal regime under the TRIPS Agreement remains unclear. Adopting a historical approach, Dev Gangjee explores the rules regulating these valuable geographical designations within international intellectual property law. He traces the emergence of geographical indications as a distinct category while investigating the key distinguishing feature of the link between regional products and their places of origin. The research addresses long-standing puzzles, such as the multiplicity of regimes operating in this area; the recognition of the link between product and place and its current articulation in the TRIPS definition; the varying scope of protection; and the extent to which geographical indications ought to be treated as a category distinct from trade marks.

Drawing upon Fernando Pierola-Castro's extensive experience as a WTO practitioner, this book is a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of safeguard measures. With each chapter exploring a different provision of the agreement, it explores the relevant rules and procedures that govern safeguard investigations, the imposition of measures, the question of consultations and rebalancing and the multilateral transparency requirements of notification. Grounded in relevant case law, this book emphasises practice, logistics and risk management. Without focussing on the practice of any particular jurisdiction, it offers a general framework that can be applied to several domestic laws. It is a practical manual with the view of assisting in day-to-day problems in the handling of safeguard matters.

This collection explores the theme of fragmentation within international economic law as the world emerges from the 2008 global financial crisis, the subsequent recession and the European sovereign debt crisis which began in early 2010. The post-crisis 'moment' itself forms a contemporary backdrop to the book's focus on fragmentation as it traces the evolution of the international economic system from the original Bretton Woods design in the aftermath of the Second World War to the present time. The volume covers issues concerning monetary cooperation, trade and finance, trade and its linkages, international investment law, intellectual property protection and climate change. By connecting a broad, cross-disciplinary survey of international economic law with contemporary debate over international norm and authority fragmentation, the book demonstrates that this has been essentially a fragmented and multi-focal system of international economic regulation.

ASEAN has undertaken the complex task of creating a single economic entity for Southeast Asia by 2015 in the form of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), but without regulators or supranational institutions, its implementation has been an inconsistent process. Through comparisons with the EU and NAFTA, this book illustrates the shortcomings of the current system, enabling readers to understand both the potential of regional economic development in ASEAN and its foundational and institutional deficiencies. The authors' analysis of trade in goods and services, investment, and dispute resolution in the AEC indicates that without strong regional institutions, strong dispute resolution or a set of norms, full and effective implementation of the AEC is unlikely to result. The book offers clear solutions for the ASEAN institutions to help the AEC reach its full potential. Written by two leading practitioners, this insightful book will interest policymakers, students and researchers.

From Treaty-Making to Treaty-Breaking is the first high-level analysis of ASEAN's external trade agreements with non-ASEAN states. It clearly sets out the intended, and unintended, consequences of ASEAN's prevailing method of treaty making, with suggested guidelines for the future. The book begins by asking whether ASEAN trade agreements follow worldwide trends in the substantive content of such agreements. It raises questions such as: to what extent is it possible to continue concluding trade agreements through individual member states?; what are the legal consequences - from negotiation and conclusion (treaty-making) through to possible breach of the agreements (treaty-breaking)?; should ASEAN resort to mixed treaty-making? This study does not seek to give a definitive answer to these questions, rather it opens up the topic to readers by suggesting different possible models for ASEAN trade agreements. This thought-provoking book will appeal to anyone interested in trade negotiations and trade agreements, particularly in Asia.

ASEAN economic cooperation and integration have come a long way since the organisation's early days, when cooperation was more political and diplomatic than economic in nature. ASEAN now constitutes the most ambitious organisation of regional cooperation and integration in the developing world. This book investigates the economics of various ASEAN and ASEAN-centric economic integration initiatives, focusing in particular on the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). In addition to assessing the potential effects of the AEC on the economies of the ten ASEAN member states via changes in trade, foreign direct investment and economic structure, this book underscores the implementation challenges ASEAN faces as it completes the AEC project. It also considers the AEC in the context of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This comprehensive study is written for academic researchers and students, as well as for policy makers in ASEAN as they chart the future policy path of the region.

The law of marine insurance constitutes a major branch of the law of international trade and shipping law which is of considerable international importance. This new edition gives a clear, updated account of English marine insurance law, combining detailed analysis of modern statute and case law with a clear comprehension of practice and commerce in the shipping world. The discussion embraces not only the constantly evolving case law, but also standard forms and clauses (including the 2003 International Hull Clauses), and the rules of mutual insurance associations. Coverage includes all relevant areas of general insurance contract law as well as all issues of specifically marine insurance law. The entire text of the second edition has been considered afresh and includes significant new or additional material in particular relating to: historical background, insurable interest, policy formation, the doctrine of utmost good faith, premiums, policy interpretation, excluded losses, third party rights, losses, claims, aversion and minimisation of loss, insurers' contribution rights, and composite policies. Presenting a revised structure with the practitioner in mind, this new edition includes a new chapter on interpretation and rectification of insurance contracts.

From the nation-building of Alexander Hamilton to the trade wars of Donald Trump, trade policy has been a key instrument of American power and wealth. The open trading system that the United States sponsored after the Second World War serves US interests by promoting cooperation and prosperity, but also allows the allies to become more independent and China to rise. The case studies in Trade and American Leadership examine how the value of preferential trade programs is undercut by the multilateral liberalization that the United States promoted for generations, and how trade sanctions tend either to be too economically costly to impose or too modest to matter. These problems are exacerbated by a domestic political system in which the gains from trade are unevenly distributed, power is fragmented, and strategies are easily undermined. Trade and American Leadership places special emphasis on today's challenges, and the rising danger of economic nationalism.

For centuries, international trade has been seen as essential to the wealth and power of nations. More recently we have started to understand its problematic role as an engine of distributive justice. In this compelling book Frank J. Garcia proposes a new way to evaluate, construct and manage international trade - one that is based on norms of economic justice, comparative advantage and national interest. Garcia examines three ways to conceptualize the problem of trade and global justice, drawn from Rawlsian liberalism, communitarianism and consent theory. These approaches illustrate specific issues of importance to the way global justice has been theorized, offering a pluralistic mode of arguing for global justice and highlighting the unique modes of discourse we employ when engaging with global justice and their implications for conceptualizing and arguing the problem. Garcia suggests a new direction for trade agreements built around truly consensual trade negotiations and the kind of international economic system they would structure.

Labour law and social policy have long provided an arena within which key debates over the depth and pace of European integration have taken place. Increasingly, as the European Union's employment policy has matured, employment and economic policy discourses have come to displace discourses around social policy and social law, a displacement which has occurred in tandem with a shift from legislative harmonisation to the use of 'soft law' and governance by means of guidelines. This book charts the evolution of the European Employment Strategy and the new forms of governance to which it has given rise, in particular the 'open method of coordination'. It offers an interdisciplinary exploration of European social law and employment policy, scrutinizing the law and economics of labour market regulation in the European context and responding to the economic critique of traditional notions of social protection. Through a detailed examination of the legal and economic underpinnings of the European Employment Strategy, the author outlines the implications of this strategy for labour law, social protection and industrial relations within the EU. Using the open method of coordination in the European Employment Strategy as a case study, the book also provides a timely contribution to the growing literature on 'new governance' in the EU. This innovative form of governance has the potential to forge a middle course through the regulatory choices facing the EU: the choice over the appropriate level of regulation in the EU, whether national or supranational; that over the legitimate role for the state in regulating or deregulating the labour market; and ultimately, the choice between centralised harmonization and regulatory competition.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement covers the vast majority of international commerce in goods and services. The Agreement covers not only measures that directly affect trade, such as import tariffs and import quotas, but potentially almost any type of internal measure with an impact on trade. Thus WTO legal texts are by necessity expressed in vague terms, and in need of continuous interpretation. The overarching aim of the project Legal and Economic Principles of World Trade Law, led by the American Law Institute, is to contribute to the analysis of WTO law in not only law but also economics. This volume reports work done thus far to identify improvements to the interpretation of the Agreement. It starts with two background studies, the first of which summarizes the study The Genesis of the GATT, published by Cambridge University Press in 2008, which highlights the negotiating history of what became the GATT 1947-1948; the second study, coauthored by Gene M. Grossman and Henrik Horn, is an introduction to the economics of trade agreements. These are followed by two main studies. The first, authored by Kyle Bagwell, Robert W. Staiger, and Alan O. Sykes, discusses legal and economic aspects of the GATT regulation of border policy instruments, such as import tariffs and import quotas. The second, written by Gene M. Grossman, Henrik Horn, and Petros C. Mavroidis, focuses on the core provision for the regulation of domestic policy instruments the National Treatment principles in Art. III GATT."

As highlighted by Pascal Lamy, the former head of the WTO, world trade traditionally involves state-to-state contracts and is based on an anachronistic 'monolocation' production/trade model. It therefore struggles to handle new patterns of trade such as global value chains, which are based on a 'multilocation' model. Although it continues to provide world trade on a general level with a powerful heuristic, the traditional 'rationalist' approach inevitably leaves certain descriptive and normative blind spots. Descriptively, it fails to explain important ideational factors, such as culture and norms, which can effectively guide the behaviour of trading nations with or without material factors such as interests and utilities. Normatively, the innate positivism of the traditional model makes it oblivious to the moral imperatives of the current world trading system, such as development. This book emphatically redresses these blind spots by reconstructing the WTO as a world trade community from a social perspective.

This book traces the changing meanings of free trade over the past century through three sugar treaties and their concomitant institutions. The 1902 Brussels Convention is an example of how free trade buttressed the British Empire. The 1937 International Sugar Agreement is a story of how a group of Cubans renegotiated their state's colonial relationship with the US through free trade doctrine and the League of Nations. In addition, the study of the 1977 International Sugar Agreement maps the world of international trade law through a plethora of institutions such as the ITO, UNCTAD, GATT and international commodity agreements - all against the backdrop of competing Third World agendas. Through a legal study of free trade ideas, interests and institutions, this book highlights how the line between the state and market, domestic and international, and public and private is always a matter of contest.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the most important effort undertaken to lay down a plurilateral legal framework for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. With the view to learn more about the origins of this treaty, the process leading to its conclusion and its implications for law making in this field, The ACTA and the Plurilateral Enforcement Agenda: Genesis and Aftermath analyses in great depth both the context and the content of the agreements. In order to attain this objective, a large and diverse group of experts - renowned scholars, policy makers, civil society and industry actors - who represent different perspectives on the necessary balance between intellectual property enforcement and other economic and social interests have been gathered together. This book is the most comprehensive analysis of ACTA, and of its relation with ongoing initiatives to improve enforcement of intellectual property and norms pertaining to a range of international legal regimes, conducted so far.

After ten years the Doha Development Round is effectively dead. Although some have suggested that Doha's demise threatens the continued existence of the GATT/WTO system, even with some risks of increasing protectionism, the United States, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, China and India, among others, have too much to lose to make abandoning the WTO a rational option. There are alternatives to a comprehensive package of new or amended multilateral agreements, including existing and future 'plurilateral' trade agreements, new or revised regional trade agreements covering both goods and services, and liberalized national trade laws and regulations in the WTO member nations. This book discusses these alternatives, which although less than ideal, may provide an impetus for continuing trade liberalization both among willing members and in some instances worldwide.

This book is an ideal sourcebook for students and practitioners who are interested in international business transactions and want to gain familiarity with the law and practice of international trade law, policies and ethics.

It contains eleven chapters, which deal extensively with the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, The UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, Incoterms 2000, Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air, Letters of Credit law, the World Trade Organization, international intellectual property law, anti-dumping and countervailing laws and international commercial arbitration law.

Each chapter examines an important aspect of international trade and business by describing and analyzing the relevant law, policies and ethical issues, posing tutorial problems or providing sample examination questions and lists of references and incorporating extracts from relevant international documents and conventions.

Signatory States have the right to take action in order to maintain their financial stability, stimulate economic development or further their non-economic interests (such as health, the environment and food security). However, such measures can potentially conflict with the rights of foreign investors. Regulators and policy makers must take States' international commitments toward foreign investors into account when making decisions. They must also avoid resorting to protectionism in drafting new treaties. With this tension in mind, this book offers a balanced reappraisal of bilateral treaties and regional agreements on foreign investments. The sensitive issues are examined in the light of the case law of arbitral investment tribunals and other international courts, and the analysis highlights how cross-fertilisation between trade and investment can assist in resolving conflicts.

This book will take the reader through the past, the present, and into the future of the flagship institution of the international customs community: the World Customs Organization (WCO). The purpose is to present to the reader, in a comprehensive, orderly, and synthetic manner, the enormous contributions that this prestigious and recognized institution has been making to the secure growth of global international trade. In the development of the text, special consideration has been given to the relevant instruments in day-to-day customs work, which constitute the bases of the WCO (the Harmonized System Convention, the Revised Kyoto Convention, and the SAFE Framework of Standards, among many others), as well as those issues that are currently of specific interest to the global customs community (cross-border e-commerce, trade facilitation, and authorized economic operator, to mention but a few), trying to reconcile the various practical aspects of customs operations with their theoretical underpinnings. In the final part, the book turns to the future of customs, analyzing the most pressing challenges presented by technological advances, including the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and blockchain. In short, this book will be of great interest to all foreign trade operators, mainly to customs officials, customs brokers, carriers and international forwarding agents, managers of importing and exporting companies, as well as all those (professionals and students) who wish to deepen their knowledge of the exciting world of customs and international trade.

Economic diplomacy is changing. The multilateral organizations that dominated the last half of the twentieth century no longer monopolize economic affairs. Instead, countries are resorting to more modest 'minilateral' strategies like trade alliances, informal 'soft law' agreements, and financial engineering to manage the global economy. Like traditional modes of economic statecraft, these tools are aimed at both liberalizing and supervising international financial policy in a world of diverse national interests. But unlike before, they are specifically tailored to navigating a post-American (and post-Western) world where economic power is more diffuse than ever before. This book explains how these strategies work and reveals how this new diplomatic toolbox will reshape how countries do business with one another for decades to come.

Domestic regulation of services sectors has a significant impact on services trade liberalization, which is why General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) disciplines are negotiated in the WTO. With the help of analyses and case-studies from academics, regulators and trade experts, this book explores the scope and limits of WTO legal principles to promote domestic regulatory reform. Case-studies discuss country-specific challenges and experiences of regulating important service sectors, such as finance, telecommunications, distribution, legal, education, health, postal and logistics services, as well as the role of regulatory impact assessments. The findings will interest trade officials, policy-makers, regulators, think tanks and businesses concerned with the implications of domestic regulation on access to services markets, and with the opportunities for formulating trade disciplines in this area. It is also a useful resource for academics and students researching regulatory approaches and practices in services sectors.