This book examines the relationship between regulation and market integration, with a special focus on China. It pursues a Law and Economics and Comparative Law approach (China and EU) to analyze the current obstacles to market integration and domestic economic growth in China. Topics covered at the national level include competition law, public procurement rules and financial regulation. At the regional and local level, this book addresses questions related to administrative monopolies, self-regulation, legal services markets, and environmental law.

Vast amounts of money are said to be laundered through financial intermediaries in the United Kingdom, thereby potentially affecting the integrity of the financial markets. This work offers a critical examination of the criminal anti-money laundering provisions and their impact on financial intermediaries, which may play a facilitating role in the money laundering process. It further considers the efficacy of the criminal law in reducing the incidence of money laundering when used in conjunction with civil liability and financial market regulation. The crucial issues relating to financial intermediaries concern the interaction between procedural norms and equitable or criminal liability, the conflicts between disclosure and client confidentiality, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the procedural aspects of imposing corporate criminal liability. The author analyzes these in detail and considers to what extent the present provisions may need modification, particularly in light of the demands of procedural fairness laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights. Finally, the book considers the impact of the international nature of money laundering on United Kingdom financial intermediaries, in terms of enforcement and the extra-territorial application of laws and disclosure orders.

The purpose of this work is to assess the current regulation of international trade in gambling services. Departing from different national definitions, gamblingA"represents, in this study, all services which involve wagering a stake with monetary value in uncertain events driven (at least partially) by chance, including lotteries, casino and betting transactions. International tradeA" of such services implies that the provider, the beneficiary or the service itself must cross a national border. Therefore, notwithstanding a brief evocation of selected national legal frameworks on five continents, this research has striven to focus on international regulations governing - principally or incidentally -provision of such services. In this context, Internet-provided gambling services were granted special attention. To this purpose, this work has been constructed in an Introduction and two main parts. The Introduction lays the basic frame by exposing the historical, economic and legal background surrounding games of chance in numerous countries on the five continents, which are essentially divided into gambling - restrictiveA" or gambling - liberalA" jurisdictions. It also gives a definition of gamblingA" services in this study, and it endeavors to classify such services in different categories (lotteries, betting, casino-type gambling, other types including media gambling and sales promotion services, examined from a land-basedA" or remoteA" perspective). The First Part (Global Trade in Gambling Services) is dedicated to international instruments regulating trade in services with a global reach. It is further divided in two main subparts, as unequal in importance as the instruments they analyze. The first relates to the prominent General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), signed by 153 countries under the auspices of the World Trade Organization. The second, more modest, examines the services liberalization framework established by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for its 30 member countries. The Second Part (Regional Trade in Gambling Services) scrutinizes gambling trade with a regional vocation. To this purpose, it analyzes the framework of the most successful preferential trade agreements to date, which have created a closer cooperation with respect to services between regional partners. This part is thus further divided in subparts dedicated to the following integrated trade areas: the European Union (EU), the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), the Mercado Comun del Sur (MERCOSUR), and the Association of South East Asian Nations Free Trade Area (ASEAN).

This work analyzes the commercial, legal and financial aspects of the complex process of developing an international energy project for the production and marketing of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The authors describe the essential chains in the commercialization of natural gas as LNG: entrepreneurial aspects; functional LNG facilities; and a linked series of contracts and contractual relationships. The expert contributions show the import and significance of the crucial dependent factors that appear and reappear in all stages of a successful LNG project. Each activity, each facility, each contract must be understood in the context of the overall project development process. By providing an understanding of the whole, this book aims to inform the performance of those who have personal responsibility for only a small part in the development and implementation of an LNG project.

The world of trade is changing rapidly, from the 'rise of the South' to the growth of unconventional projects like fair trade and carbon trading. Beyond Free Trade advances alternative ways for understanding these new dynamics, based on historical, political, or sociological methods that go beyond the limitations of conventional trade economics.

The International Corporate Law Series is dedicated to the publication of scholarly writing on issues in the area of international and comparative corporate law. This volume includes contributions from the following: Dr Adedeji Adekunle of the University of Lagos writing on Nigerian corporate regulation; Professor Stephen Bottomley of the Australian National University writing on corporate governance; Professor John Braithwaite of the Australian National University and Dr Peter Drahos of the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute writing on the globalisation of corporate regulation; Professor Yves Chaput of the Universite de Paris I writing on developments in French corporate law; Rasiah Gengatharen of the University of Western Australia writing on corporate law reform and futures regulation in Australia; Dr John Gillespie of Deakin University writing on the transplantation of company law in Vietnam; Desmond Guobadia writing on developments in Nigerian corporate law; Jean-Phillipe Robe writing on the globalised enterprise within the world economy; Richard Tudway writing on the juridical nature of the corporation; and Professor Junko Ueda writing on recent developments in Japanese corporate law.

Grounding its analysis in the historical evolution of financial regulation, this book addresses a range of public policy issues that concern the design of financial regulation and its enforcement, and contributes several new ideas to the debate in this field. Financial systems have become more competitive across sectors of financial institutions and nations, and direct regulations have been removed in pursuit of efficiency. However, as the risk of institutional failures has increased, de-regulation has had to be followed by re-regulation. In which form should this happen? This book answers this question. First revisiting the issue of "why to regulate", Padoa-Schioppa argues that the need to continue to regulate banks in a special way follows from their key role as liquidity providers. At the same time, his argument recognizes the need for close interplay in the regulation of different financial sectors. The book goes on to discuss "how" regulation should be carried out in the modern environment. It should be market-friendly, but the balance between official intervention and market discipline is difficult to get right. Moreover, in an increasingly international context, financial regulation has to be evenly applied across countries to avoid regulatory arbitrage. The final part of the book turns to issues specifically connected with developments in the European Union. One major issue is the maintenance of financial stability in the Euro area where the financial system is becoming especially integrated. Another major issue is the appropriate role of central banks. As the literature and practice are still very much under development, Padoa-Schioppa analyses the general aspects of the financial stability function of central banks - particularly in relation to the monetary policy and supervision functions - as well as the tools available for the Eurosystem.

The controversial nature of seeking globalised justice through national courts has become starkly apparent in the wake of the Pinochet case in which the Spanish legal system sought to bring to account under international criminal law the former President of Chile,for violations in Chile of human rights of non-Spaniards. Some have reacted to the involvement of Spanish and British judges in sanctioning a former head of state as nothing more than legal imperialism while others have termed it positive globalisation. While the international legal and associated statutory bases for such criminal prosecutions are firm, the same cannot be said of the enterprise of imposing civil liability for the same human-rights-violating conduct that gives rise to criminal responsibility. In this work leading scholars from around the world address the host of complex issues raised by transnational human rights litigation. There has been, to date, little treatment, let alone a comprehensive assessment, of the merits and demerits of US-style transnational human rights litigation by non-American legal scholars and practitioners. The book seeks not so much to fill this gap as to start the process of doing so, with a view to stimulating debate amongst scholars and policy-makers. The book's doctrinal coverage and analytical inquiries will also be extremely relevant to the world of transnational legal practice beyond the specific question of human rights litigation.

This book addresses concerns with the international trade and investment dispute settlement systems from a statist perspective, at a time when multilateralism is deeply questioned by the forces of mega-regionalism and political and economic contestation. In covering recent case law and theoretical discussions, the book's contributors analyze the particularities of statehood and the limitations of the dispute settlement systems to judge sovereign actors as autonomous regulators. From a democratic deficit coupled with a deficit of legitimacy in relation to the questionable professionalism, independence and impartiality of adjudicators to the lack of consistency of decisions challenging essential public policies, trade and investment disputes have proven controversial. These challenges call for a rethinking of why, how and what for, are States judged. Based on a "sovereignty modern" approach, which takes into account the latest evolutions of a globalized trade and investment law struggling to put people's expectations at its core, the book provides a comprehensive framework and truly original perspective linking the various facets of "judicial activity" to the specific yet encompassing character of international law and the rule of law in international society. In doing so, it covers a large variety of issues such as global judicial capacity building and judicial professionalism from an international and domestic comparative angle, trade liberalisation and States' legitimate rights and expectations to protect societal values, the legal challenges of being a State claimant, the uses and misuses of imported legal concepts and principles in multidisciplinary adjudications and, lastly, the need to reunify international law on a (human) rights based approach.

Over the past fifteen years, the optimal enforcement of EU competition law has become a major concern. This book contains a unique collection of articles by lawyers and economists on current issues in the public and private enforcement of competition law. Public enforcement has been strengthened in numerous ways for example, through the introduction of a leniency programme and a substantial increase in fines for competition law violations. At the same time the EU Commission has been promoting private enforcement for example, by developing a legal framework that grants victims of EU antitrust law infringements access to compensation.

The contributions in this book address a range of topics in the area of competition law enforcement, including the role of fines and leniency programmes in public enforcement; access to evidence and the quantification of damages in private enforcement; and the interaction between public and private enforcement of competition law in Europe."

The title of this book reflects the enormous changes that have occurred in the legal regulation of public purchasing in the 1990's. These changes have two main drivers. The first is the implementation of national reform programmes in public procurement, especially in developing countries and those countries making the transition from planned to market economies, which have been encouraged by international institutions such as the World Bank and UNCITRAL. The second is the efforts that have been made to open up government procurement markets to international trade, both through regional agreements and globally through the World Trade Organization. These agreements have required many states to modify their national procurement rules or to introduce regulation in procurement for the first time. This book brings together experts from academia, practice and the international institutions to describe the major global developments that have occurred in public procurement regulation, and to examine some of the key current policy issues. The book covers both the domestic and international perspectives on regulation, and also examines the relationship between them. Topics covered include the UNCITRAL Model Law and its influence on procurement reform; problems of reform in developing and transition economies; World Bank procurement procedures; the implications of information technology for procurement regulation; the challenge of widening participation in global and regional agreements and of making these agreements work; regulating defence procurement; and the use of procurement to promote social and environmental policies.

While there are many aspects to the challenges faced by nations and their people, trade is often one of the key issues faced and exemplifies the difficulty of finding a way through complex policy options. International trade has evolved beyond basic questions of tariffs. International trade laws and regulations affect aspects of life from access to healthy food to the protection of the latest innovations in communications and nanotechnology. An important challenge for all nations in the short term is whether the international trading system is configured to ensure sustainable economic growth that is enjoyed by all people of the world. This challenge is complicated by non-trade aspects haunting many nations' effort to improve the future for their citizens. The timely work contains a variety of essays from individuals who presently or in the past have been trade negotiators, worked in the WTO or its predecessor, are serving in legislatures, represent important constituencies, teach aspects of the WTO system or advise clients in the private sector. The essays are grouped into three sections: looking at the ongoing Doha negotiations and/or describing changes to the WTO system or negotiation approach that are needed/viewed as desirable; examining the direction US trade policy should take moving forward; and critically examining the world food crisis and what role the trading system and individual WTO members can take in helping to resolve the crisis.

International tax practice demands a constantly renewed understanding of tax treaty provisions and how they are applied. Practitioners working with Western European taxation must master the further complexity introduced by the interplay between Community law and national law, especially as it affects the administration of tax law in the various countries. This text is a detailed survey of tax treaty interpretation in the 15 EU states plus Norway. Presented as 16 national reports by authorities from each country, the analysis provided is the result of a conference sponsored by the European Commission and held in Rust, Austria, in January 2001. Each report gives an organized, in-depth summation of the discussion as it related to the country in question, amalgamating the research and commentary brought to the conference by sixty experts in all. "Tax Treaty Interpretation" builds on the 1993 analysis of Klaus Vogel and Rainer Prokisch for the International Fiscal Association (IFA), and takes full account of such developments as the following: court decisions since 1993; the OECD report on partnerships; changes in administrative practice at the national level; and recent Community law affecting taxation and tax practice.

In recent years the People's Republic of China has experienced rapid economic growth, brought about in large measure by dramatic increases in foreign trade and investment. China's adoption of an "open door" policy in the late 1970s also opened up its banking market to foreigners. As a result, there has been a sharp rise in the number of disputes between Chinese sovereign borrowers and foreign banks, making the availability of appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms for foreign banks a critical factor in the expansion of international finance in China. This text recognizes the need for a unique international dispute forum that addresses intricate political and diplomatic considerations and issues of state sovereignty, issues that typically arise from disputes regarding state contracts between national governments and private foreign parties. The work addresses several problematic private and public international law issues in sovereign debt litigation, including the state immunity theory, the act of state doctrine, forum non conveniens, and the difficulty in enforcing foreign judgments. It offers a comprehensive survey of the many choices open to a foreign bank operator in planning a dispute resolution strategy in China, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each process, and examining a series of case studies by way of illustration. The author argues that the autonomy of each party in international arbitration circumvents potential cultural and conceptual difficulties and offers a flexible, mutually acceptable means of conflict resolution which in some circumstances can prove more effective than litigation. Arbitration and the recognition and enforcement of an arbitral award may be recognized as providing a level playing field for international financial transactions between states and foreign private parties, and the non-adversarial nature of the arbitration process makes it particularly appropriate in the Chinese context.

On 1 August 2008 the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law entered into force, introducing a comprehensive framework for competition law to the Chinese market. One set of the new rules pertains to merger control. China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) was nominated as the authority responsible for enforcing merger control in China and has been actively doing so ever since. Recent years have established China as one of the most important merger filing jurisdictions for cross-border mergers alongside the EU and USA. This work evaluates the Chinese merger control law regime and MOFCOM's decision-making practice after more than five years of application. In particular, it assesses which policy goals (competition policy goals or industrial policy considerations) prevail in the written law and its application and provides suggestions for a further improvement of the law - with the aim to develop a transparent merger control regime that promotes long-term economic growth in China.

The People s Republic of China s tax policies and international obligations are as multifaceted and dynamic as they are complex, developing closely with the nation s rise to the world s fastest-growing major economy. Today, after decades of reform and the entry into the World Trade Organization, China has developed regulatory systems that enable it to provide stable administration, including a tax structure. China s main tax reform can be attributed to the enactment of the Enterprise Income Tax Law, which came into effect on January 1, 2008. Chinese tax regulations include direct taxes, indirect taxes, other taxes, and custom duties and from a collection point of view, China s tax administration adopts a very devolved system, with revenue collected and shared between different levels of government in accordance with contracts between the different levels of the tax administration system. With respect to international treaties, China has established a network of bilateral tax treaties and regional free trade agreements. This publication describes in detail China s complex tax system and policies, as well as major bilateral treaties in which China has entered into using country-by-country analysis.

Lorenzo Riccardi is Tax Advisor and Certified Public Accountant specialized in international taxation. He is based in Shanghai, where he focuses on business and tax law, assisting foreign investments in East Asia. He is an auditor and an advisor for several corporate groups and he is partner and Head of Tax of the consulting firm GWA, specializing in emerging markets.

A comparative lega, economic and political analysis of the impact of constitutional law and of international economic law on the foreign trade laws and policies of the major trading countries. The countries covered include the United States, Japan, EC and EFTA countries, plus regional trade organizations such as the EEC and EFTA. Developments such as the Cadana-US Free Trade Agreement are also covered. As the benefits of constitutionalism and liberal trade do not depend on the nationalities of traders, producers and consumers, the contributions criticize the frequent "double standards" of "fair trade laws" and suggest "constitutionalism reforms" of international and domestic foreign trade laws and policies.

The Contract is the core tool of governance in a free market economy. An EU Contract Law Code is now on the political agenda because all three legislative bodies in the EU and most member states favour it in principle. In its communication of July 2001, the Commission proposed three major options: to enhance the existing EC Contract Law by eliminating inconsistencies; introducing a European Code which substitutes national laws; and introducing a European code which only supplements national laws. This book achieves three things: For the first time, European academia is discussing these three options in an extensive and systematic way - with pros and cons, in a transparent and systematic way, along broad lines and often also important details. The book contains the views of all protagonists - from all those who really drafted the models to all those who illustrated the potential of decentralized rule-making and invented the very idea of an Optional Code. And it is the first book in which the optional Code, which is the alternative most likely to come, is thoroughly analysed at all. The book also contains a full map of design possibilities. It is the executive summary of what European academia thinks of the future of European Contract Law and a European Code. It is the Academic Green Paper on European Contract Law.

This book considers the international law applicable to maritime interception operations (MIO) conducted on the high seas and within the context of international peace and security, MIO being a much-used naval operational activity employed within the entire spectrum of today's conflicts. The book deals with the legal aspects flowing from the boarding and searching of foreign-flagged vessels and the possible arrest of persons and confiscation of goods, and analyses the applicable law with regard to maritime interception operations through the legal bases and legal regimes. Considered are MIO undertaken based on, for instance, the UN Collective Security System (maritime embargo operations), self-defence and (ad-hoc) consent, and within the context of legal regimes various views are provided on the right of visit, the use of force and the use of detention. This volume, which has contemporary naval operations as its central focus and structures the analysis as a sub-discipline of the international law of military operations, will be of great interest both to academics, practitioners and policy advisors working or involved in the field of military and naval operations, and to those professionals wanting to learn more about the international law of military operations, naval operations, and the law of the sea and maritime security. Martin Fink is a naval and legal officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy.

The Law of MERCOSUR presents both an overview and in-depth analysis of one of the world's most important and increasingly influential economic organisations. The book comprises both a series of first-hand analyses of MERCOSUR by experts from countries in the MERCOSUR bloc, and also discussions from other parts of the world looking at MERCOSUR as global actor of ever-increasing importance. The book is divided into three main parts: the first analyses the key institutional legal aspects of MERCOSUR, looking at its history, the general theory of economic integration, and basic aspects relating to the functioning of MERCOSUR; the second examines specialised topics, including the regulation of the environment, human rights and the energy market in MERCOSUR; and in the third part the editors offer a translation of core MERCOSUR instruments, with the objective of furthering understanding of the economic bloc. Original in its conception, the book aims to fill a major gap in the English-language literature by offering a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the Law of MERCOSUR, and it is hoped that it will become essential reading for those practitioners and academics who are interested not only in MERCOSUR, but in economic integration generally, in international trade, and in the regional aspects of the phenomenon of globalisation.

'History has a way of repeating itself in financial matters because of a kind of sophisticated stupidity,' John Kenneth Galbraith once wrote. In this superb new book, Ross Buckley suggests that the stupidity identified by Galbraith can be traced to the persistence of an inadequate legal system for the regulation of international finance − a system rooted in the failure of economists and investors to take the legal demands of real-world finance seriously. Everywhere, trade is glorified while finance tends to be taken for granted. Yet financial flows far exceed trade flows, by a factor of over sixty to one; international financial transactions represent a far greater proportion of the practice of most major law firms than do trade transactions; and international finance, when it goes wrong, brings appalling suffering to the poorest citizens of poor countries. In a powerful demonstration of how we can learn from history, Professor Buckley provides deep analyses of some of the devastating financial crises of the last quarter-century. He shows how such factors as the origins and destinations of loans, bank behaviour, bad timing, ignorance of history, trade regimes, capital flight, and corruption coalesce under certain circumstances to trigger a financial crash. He then offers well-thought out legal measures to regulate these factors in a way that can prevent the worst from happening and more adequately protect the interests of vulnerable parties and victims. In the course of the discussion he covers such topics as the following:A* the roles of the Bretton Woods institutions in the globalisation process;A* global capital flows;A* debtor nation policies;A* the effects of the Brady restructurings of the 80s and 90s;A* fixed versus floating exchange rates;A* the social costs of IMF policies;A* debt-for-development exchanges; andA* the national balance sheet problem.Professor Buckley's far-reaching recommendations include details of tax, regulatory, banking, and bankruptcy regimes to be instituted at a global level.As a general introduction to the international financial system and its regulation; as a powerful critique of the current system's imperfections; and most of all as a viable overarching scheme for an international finance law framework soundly based on what history has taught us, International Financial System: Policy and Regulation shows the way to amending a system that repeatedly sacrifices the lives of thousands and compromises the future of millions.

Legal practitioners, academics and energy industry representatives from several European countries contribute towards an appreciation of current and proposed EC energy legislation and policy. Legal and policy issues of EC energy regulation are considered and their practical implications, particularly for the oil and gas industry, highlighted. The increasing role of industry is discussed in the light of current key commercial issues facing the oil and gas industry such as abandonment and the current and future role of novel forms of energy financing. Finally, important considerations in North Sea Joint Operating Agreements and EC gas contracts are analyzed in depth.

This is the first book ever to assess comprehensively the impact of EU international agreements on services of general interest. Services of general interest remain high on the political and legal agenda of the European Union. However, the debates about the impact of EU law on services of general interest usually focus on internal market law such as the free movement of services, competition law, state aid rules and the law of public procurement. The external and international dimensions of the European legal framework for services of general interest are often overlooked. This book addresses the impact of international trade and investment agreements on public services and the role these services play in EU external relations. It shows that the inherent tension between establishing and securing undistorted competition on markets and the logic of public services exists in international economic law in a similar way as in EU internal law. Given the contentiousness of international trade and investment agreements as well as the EU's external policies, the issues discussed in this volume are timely and relevant and contribute to the ongoing debate about the future of services of general interest in the EU with fresh ideas and perspectives. Markus Krajewski is Professor of Public and International Law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.