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.

Despite their growing importance in the world economy, little has been written on the buying and selling of services. While the rules governing trade in services have mushroomed in recent years, many key terms are still remain vague and ill defined.
This monograph sets out and defines the basic legal terms and issues raised by international trade in services and provides a comprehensive account of how they are regulated both multilaterally and through the major economic integration agreements.
Four of the most important sectors for trade in services -- telecommunications, government procurement, financial services, and transportation services -- are singled out for special in-depth treatment, making this a guide for all those working in areas dealing with international trade.

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.

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.

In order to meet the increasing economic and environmental challenges faced by the European farming industry, the EU has advocated a new 'European Model of Agriculture' which will provide a competitive and diverse agricultural sector that is environmentally responsible, and addresses issues of food quality and animal welfare.

Implementing such a range of policies requires the EU to pass a large amount of legislation. This book sets out to analyse whether the legislative framework for this model can deliver these policy objectives.

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.

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.

This book provides the first in-depth and empirically grounded analysis of the foundations and evolution of the four Latin American and Caribbean regional economic courts: the Central American Court of Justice (CACJ), the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ), and the Mercosur Permanent Review Court (MPRC). While these Courts were established to build common markets and to enforce trade liberalisation, they have often developed bodies of jurisprudence in domains not directly associated with regional economic integration. The CCJ has been most successful in the area of human and fundamental rights; the CACJ has addressed issues related to the enforcement of the rule of law in national legal arenas and longstanding border disputes between the countries of the region; and the ATJ is an island of effective adjudication on intellectual property issues. The particular trajectories of these four Courts suggest that there is no universal formula for success. Challenging the mainstream account, this book argues that the Courts' operational path is not necessarily a function of their formally delegated competences or the will of the Member States. Rather, local socio-political contextual factors play a far more decisive role in influencing the direction of regional economic courts during and after their establishment.

This examination of the law in action of WTO dispute settlement takes a developing-country perspective. Providing a bottom-up assessment of the challenges, experiences and strategies of individual developing countries, it assesses what these countries have done and can do to build the capacity to deploy and shape the WTO legal system, as well as the daunting challenges that they face. Chapters address developing countries of varying size and wealth, including China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya and Bangladesh. Building from empirical work by leading academics and practitioners, this book provides a much needed understanding of how the WTO dispute settlement system actually operates behind the scenes for developing countries.

The OECD Convention on Bribery established an international standard for compliance with anti-corruption rules, and has subsequently been adopted by the thirty-four OECD members and six non-member countries. As a result of the Convention and national implementation laws, companies and managers now risk tough sanctions if they are caught bribing foreign officials. The UK Bribery Act 2010 is only one example of this development. The second edition of this, the only commentary on the Convention, provides law practitioners, company lawyers and academic researchers with comprehensive guidance on the OECD standards. It includes case examples as well as the FCPA Resource Guide 2012 and the 2009 OECD Recommendation for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials with Annexes I and II.

This book is the first comprehensive study of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization. Political economy FDI research has long focused on how host-country politics influence the supply of FDI, or how firms choose to invest. By contrast, this book focuses on the politics of FDI demand: the sources of citizens' preferences for FDI inflows and countries' foreign ownership restrictions. Professor Sonal S. Pandya's theory of FDI regulation identifies how FDI redistributes income within host countries, raises local wages, and creates competition for local firms. Policy makers regulate FDI inflows to facilitate local firms' access to these highly productive assets and the income they generate. Empirical tests also emphasize the central role of multinational cooperations' productive assets in shaping the politics of FDI. These tests feature an original dataset of annual country-industry foreign ownership regulations that spans more than one hundred countries during the period 1970 2000, the first dataset of FDI regulation of this detail and scope. This book highlights the economic and political foundations of global economic integration and supplies the tools to understand the growing economic conflicts between advanced economics and large emerging markets such as China and India.

African regional trade integration has grown exponentially in the last decade. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the legal framework within which it is being pursued. It will fill a huge knowledge gap and serve as an invaluable teaching and research tool for policy makers in the public and private sectors, teachers, researchers and students of African trade and beyond. The author argues that African Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) are best understood as flexible legal regimes particularly given their commitment to variable geometry and multiple memberships. He analyzes the progress made toward trade liberalization in each region, how the RTAs are financed, their trade remedy and judicial regimes, and how well they measure up to Article XXIV of GATT. The book also covers monetary unions as well as intra-African regional integration, and examines free trade agreements with non-African regions including the Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union.

Numerous international legal regimes now seek to address the global depletion of fish stocks, and increasingly their activities overlap. The relevant laws were developed at different times by different groups of states. They are motivated by divergent economic approaches, influenced by disparate non-state actors, and implemented by separate institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Margaret Young shows how these and other factors affect the interaction between regimes. Her empirical and doctrinal analysis moves beyond the discussion of conflicting norms that has dominated the fragmentation debate. Case-studies include the negotiation of new rules on fisheries subsidies, the restriction of trade in endangered marine species and the adjudication of fisheries import bans. She explores how regimes should interact, in fisheries governance and beyond, to offer insights into the practice and legitimacy of regime interaction in international law.

A breach of fair and equitable treatment is alleged in almost every investor-state dispute. It has therefore become a controversial norm, which touches many questions at the heart of general international law. In this book, Roland Klager sheds light on these controversies by exploring the deeper doctrinal foundations of fair and equitable treatment and reviewing its contentious relationship with the international minimum standard. The norm is also discussed in light of the fragmentation of international law, theories of international justice and rational balancing, and the idea of constitutionalism in international law. In this vein, a shift in the way of addressing fair and equitable treatment is proposed by focusing on the process of justificatory reasoning.

The European Union is one of the most outward-oriented economies in the world, and free trade is one of its founding principles. As such, instruments intended to ensure that international trade is conducted on a level playing field have been part of the EU's policy toolbox since the beginning of European integration. Adapting to the current changes in international trade, these instruments have since undergone major reforms. This work provides an overview of the EU's legal framework on the use of its trade defence instruments, in particular measures under the Trade Barriers Regulation, the Basic Anti-Dumping Regulation and the Basic-Anti Subsidy Regulation. The book shares valuable insights into how EU institutions currently apply these instruments and places their application in the broader political context in which international trade takes place, which has been shaped e.g. by developments related to the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU and the ongoing blockade of the WTO Appellate Body.

In today's financial markets, investors no longer hold securities physically. Instead, securities such as shares or bonds are mostly held through intermediaries and transferred by way of book-entries on securities accounts. However, there are remarkable conceptual differences between the various jurisdictions with regard to the legal treatment of intermediated securities. It is widely agreed that this patchwork creates considerable legal risks, especially in cross-border situations. Two initiatives are in place to reduce these risks. In 2009, the UNIDROIT Convention on Substantive Rules for Intermediated Securities (the 'Geneva Securities Convention') was adopted, aimed at harmonisation on the international level. The EU Commission is also running a legislative project, to achieve harmonisation at the regional level. This book compares both initiatives and analyses their impact on the securities laws of selected European jurisdictions.

Economic development is the most important agenda in the international trading system today, as demonstrated by the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) adopted in the current multilateral trade negotiations of the World Trade Organization (the Doha Round). This book provides a relevant discussion of major international trade law issues from the perspective of development in the following areas: general issues on international trade law and economic development; and specific law and development issues in World Trade Organization, Free Trade Agreement and regional initiatives. This book offers an unparalleled breadth of coverage on the topic and diversity of authorship, as seventeen leading scholars contribute chapters from nine major developed and developing countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, China (including Hong Kong), South Korea, Australia, Singapore and Israel.

This work provides detailed coverage of the current state of international treaty law in respect of copyright issues relating to the Internet and E-commerce. The centre-piece of the book is an article-by-article analysis of the two key World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) treaties tackling the subject: the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, both negotiated primarily as a response to technological developments such as the Internet. It also includes detailed comparative material showing how the WIPO treaties are being implemented elsewhere in the world, and in particular how the EU, Japan and the US are responding to these key issues. This includes analysis of the key EU Directive on Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society, which is intended to roll out protection across Europe for copyright holders operating in the digital arena.

With a focus on how trade, foreign investment, commercial arbitration and financial regulation rules affect impoverished individuals, Poverty and the International Economic Legal System examines the relationship between the legal rules of the international economic law system and states' obligations to reduce poverty. The contributors include leading practitioners, practice-oriented scholars and legal theorists, who discuss the human aspects of global economic activity without resorting to either overly dogmatic human rights approaches or technocratic economic views. The essays extend beyond development discussions by encouraging further efforts to study, improve and develop legal mechanisms for the benefit of the world's poor and challenging traditionally de-personified legal areas to engage with their real-world impacts.

The IBA Rules are the most common feature of international arbitration around the world, yet so far little work has been done exploring the Rules themselves. In this practical guide, Peter Ashford combines a detailed discussion of the Rules and the commentary from the Drafting Committee with a tabular view of the interaction between the Rules and those of the main arbitration institutions. Written by a respected and experienced arbitration practitioner, the guide conveniently brings into one place materials that will assist in the practical application of the IBA Rules. This contribution to an under-covered area of international arbitration provides an invaluable handbook for arbitration practitioners in law firms, chambers, and general or in-house counsel in large corporations.

Algorithms are ubiquitous in our daily lives. They affect the way we shop, interact, and make exchanges on the marketplace. In this regard, algorithms can also shape competition on the marketplace. Companies employ algorithms as technologically innovative tools in an effort to edge out competitors. Antitrust agencies have increasingly recognized the competitive benefits, but also competitive risks that algorithms entail. Over the last few years, many algorithm-driven companies in the digital economy have been investigated, prosecuted and fined, mostly for allegedly unfair algorithm design. Legislative proposals aim at regulating the way algorithms shape competition. Consequently, a so-called "algorithmic antitrust" theory and practice have also emerged. This book provides a more innovation-driven perspective on the way antitrust agencies should approach algorithmic antitrust. To date, the analysis of algorithmic antitrust has predominantly been shaped by pessimistic approaches to the risks of algorithms on the competitive environment. With the benefit of the lessons learned over the last few years, this book assesses whether these risks have actually materialized and whether antitrust laws need to be adapted accordingly. Effective algorithmic antitrust requires to adequately assess the pro- and anti-competitive effects of algorithms on the basis of concrete evidence and innovation-related concerns. With a particular emphasis on the European perspective, this book brings together experts and scrutinizes on the implications of algorithmic antitrust for regulation and innovation.