This book investigates the regime of consumer benchmarks in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and explores to what extent this regime meets each of the goals of the Directive. In particular, it assesses whether the consumer benchmarks are suitable in terms of achieving the three goals of the Directive: achieving a high level of consumer protection, increasing the smooth functioning of the internal market, and improving competition in the market as such. In addition to providing a thorough analysis of the consumer benchmarks and their relationship to the goals of the Directive, at a more practical level, the book provides insight into the working and consequences of the benchmarks that can be used in the evaluation of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and its application by the CJEU. This assessment is important because the Directive, while promising to regulate unfair commercial practices in a way that achieves the Directive's goals, has removed the possibility for Member States to regulate unfair commercial practices themselves.

The Domestic Politics of International Trade considers the issues surrounding intellectual property rights in international trade negotiations in order to examine the challenges posed to domestic policy-makers by the increasingly broad nature of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Throughout the book the author demonstrates the importance of domestic politics in understanding the nature and outcome of international negotiations, particularly as they relate to international economic diplomacy. The book looks in detail at the intellectual property negotiations which formed part of the US-Peru and US-Colombia Free Trade Agreements and analyses the extent to which public health authorities and other parties affected by the increased levels of intellectual property protection were integrated into the negotiation process. The book then juxtaposes these findings with an analysis of the domestic origins of US negotiation objectives in the field of intellectual property, paying particular attention to the role of the private sector in the development of these objectives. Based on a substantial amount of empirical research, including approximately 100 interviews with negotiators, capital based policy-makers, private sector representatives, and civil society organisations in Lima, Bogota and Washington, DC, this book offers a rare account of different stakeholders' perceptions of the FTA negotiation process. Ultimately, the book succeeds in integrating the study of domestic politics with that of international negotiations. This book will be of particular interest to academics as well as practitioners and students in the fields of international law, economic law, intellectual property, political economy, international relations, comparative politics and government.

The great novelty of Netherlands Insolvency Law is that it is the first book in the English language covering the Netherlands insolvency law as a whole. It is a practical book for use by internal and external legal counsel, Dutch and non Dutch companies, students, academics and practitioners alike, presenting not only the principal concepts but also the current state of affairs of the Netherlands in solvency law. The reader is offered not only the black letter law, but also impar tial discussions presenting differing views on particular aspects of the insolvency law. Furthermore, Netherlands Insolvency Law briefly addresses recent develop ments such as the EU Insolvency Regulation and the progress made on the ongo ing total revision of the Netherlands Bankruptcy Act in the "Marktwerking, Deregulering en Wetgevingskwaliteit (MDW)"-project. Declercq has successfully managed to strike such a balance that, on the one hand, the book offers the reader more than an average introduction, while on the other hand, it is not weighed down in a quagmire of technical detail. Declercq's experi ence and international exposure as an insolvency lawyer in one of the most repu table law fmns in the Netherlands has probably contributed in this respect. Netherlands Insolvency Law promises to become a standard textbook to a wide ranging audience. ANTONIUS I. M. vAN MIERLO ProfessorofLaw Erasmus University Rotterdam January 2002 VII TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface V Abbreviations XIII Introduction XVII CHAPTER 1 - THE NETHERLANDS BANKRUPTCY ACT 1."

The interpretation and application of the rules of international and regional trade is becoming an increasingly specialized field. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the core legal concepts characterizing the two most prominent and successful efforts in the regulation of international trade to date. Adopting a comparative method, it analyzes the basic legal instruments employed by the EU and the WTO for the purpose of liberalizing trade in goods among their respective Members. To this end, this study offers a fresh look at the principles underlying the basic rules of international trade law, including the prohibition of border measures, the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality, and the principle of reasonableness.

This book examines the relationship between flexible regional economic integration in the East African Community (EAC), through its application of variable geometry, and the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a continent-wide form of integration. It uses a historical, political, legal and economic analysis of the processes that led to the adoption of flexible regional integration in Africa, with particular regard to the EAC. This takes place in the inescapable context of pan-Africanism, showing how regional integration efforts in Africa are based on pan-Africanist ideals, and how an evolution of these ideals has led to an evolution in the goals of integration. With growing awareness of the weaknesses and impracticality of consensus-based decision-making on a global level, it makes the case for the pursuit of flexibility in multilateral trade, drawing lessons from the experience of the AfCFTA and blocs in other regions. This book is a historical evaluation of regional economic integration efforts in Africa and it follows the path of attempts to integrate the economies on the continent from colonial times to the birth of the AfCFTA. While it is a study in law, it relies heavily on politics, economics and history to weave together a more complete theory of economic integration based on the African experience. Flexible Regional Economic Integration in Africa was awarded the 2020 SIEL-Hart Prize in International Economic Law.

Since the ratification of the Hague Trust Convention by the Netherlands and Italy, the question of whether civil law countries ought to have a trust or a legal institution resembling it has gained importance. The Business and Law Research Centre at the University of Nijmegen founded an international working group of experts in the field of trust law in 1996. This group developed eight principles of European trust law designed to facilitate transactions within European jurisdictions, to enable countries to recognise the potential for the development of new domestic legal concepts and to provide guidance as to how these developments can be framed in different legal and socio-economic contexts. This book provides a detailed analysis of these principles both from a common law and a civil law point of view. In particular, the national reports give an overview of the current law relating to trusts and fiduciary relationships and, in the case of civil law jurisdictions, whether the trust concept can be incorporated in the domestic legal systems on the basis of the eight principles.

This book proposes a different approach to theorising and analysing antitrust issues, working on the premise that at present, antitrust is addressed from top-down and narrow perspectives which in effect limit the attention paid to or exclude issues that could otherwise be considered. This reasoning is motivated by the pursuit of inclusiveness and broadness in the antitrust context. The work contends that traditional top-down antitrust theories are weak because they are incomplete and insufficient in their description and analysis of antitrust issues. Thus, it identifies the need to construct a bottom-up approach. Invariably, such an approach would have to avoid ex ante judgments about the suitability of the normative contents of antitrust laws and theories, lest it fall into the same trap that plagues traditional theories. As a possible solution, the author proposes a procedural account referred to as the person-centred approach (built on theories such as Sen's Capability) and carefully reviews its practicality.

Since 1995 there has been intense debate about whether the WTO Agreement is just. Many observers point to the association of the treaty with intensive interdependence and the disruptive effects of globalization to assert that it is unjust. Nevertheless, justice in sovereign terms is different from justice in human terms. This book puts forward a theory of WTO law to explain the difference and its implications for the international trading system. It details how economic interdependence gives rise to an interdependent view of the relationship between different forms of justice and to interdependent obligations in WTO law. It also suggests how the WTO dispute settlement system might have a residual value as a locus for transformative outcomes despite contemporary concerns about the system's political acceptability. Taken together, such insights may assist in identifying elements of a general theory of law.

One of the most pressing issues confronting the multilateral trade system is the challenge posed by the rapid proliferation of preferential trade agreements. Plenty has been written about why governments might choose to negotiate preferentially or multilaterally, but until now it has been written almost exclusively from the perspective of governments. We know very little about how non-state actors view this issue of 'forum choice', nor how they position themselves to influence choices by governments about whether to emphasize PTAs or the WTO. This book addresses that issue squarely through case studies of trade policy-making and forum choice in eight developing countries: Chile, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, Jordan, Indonesia and Thailand. The case studies are based on original research by the authors, including interviews with state and non-state actors involved in the trade policy-making process in the eight countries of this study.

This book examines the labour standards provisions in a number of Regional and Bilateral Trade Agreements, and assesses the potential of using the relevant clauses in these trade agreements as a benchmark for a multilateral approach. Based on the lessons learned from the Regional model, the book proposes a Global Labour and Trade Framework Agreement (GLTFA) combined with a joint ILO/WTO enforcement mechanism to resolve the contentious issue of the link between the CLS and international trade. The history of the linkage between the Core Labour Standards (CLS) and international trade dates back roughly 150 years, and has recently become one of the most vexing issues facing policy-makers. At the heart of the debate is the question whether or not trade sanctions should be imposed on countries that do not respect the CLS as embodied in multilateral conventions administered by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Concretely, this would entail inserting a social clause in the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, and would trigger the imposition of sanctions on those countries that do not adhere to the CLS.

This new book from MOCOMILA, the Monetary Law Committee of the ILA, is a unique collaboration of the top academic and practitioner monetary and financial lawyers from around the world. It examines current legal issues of international monetary and financial law in the light of the current global financial crisis and consequent reforms of international and domestic financial architecture. The book deals with post-crisis financial regulation and supervision, including that of rating agencies and sovereign wealth funds, and financial crisis resolution with an analysis of bank rescue operations.
Covering matters of current interest such as central banks, international payments, money laundering, and sovereign debt, this book is for banking and financial practitioners, in-house lawyers, central banks and international financial institutions as well as academics in the field of international and financial law.

What does the concept of good faith express? This book is the first to discuss what good faith means in international trade law. As a reference guide for scholars and practitioners it analyses the case law of WTO dispute settlement practice. The book describes how, why and when the concept of good faith links the WTO Agreements with other public international norms. The concept of good faith appears frequently in treaties and customary rules, but is most often considered a general principle of law. WTO law uses the corrolaries of pacta sunt servanda, the prohibition of abus de droit and the protection of legitimate expectation alongside the principle of good faith. An analysis of GATT 1947 and WTO case law reveals that the function of good faith varies. The Panel reports and the Appellate Body decisions make different use of it. The Appellate Body is prepared to apply the principle to WTO provisions only, while Panels use it more freely and substantively; that is, they apply good faith to fill lacunae in any of the WTO covered agreements. Also, adjudicators use the principle differently, depending on whether it relates to the agreements covered by the WTO or the procedural law of WTO dispute settlement. As it applies to the former, good faith is used to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the obligation to liberalise trade, and on the other hand, the right to invoke an exception to trade liberalisation for the protection of the environment, culture, public morals, human life or health. In this way, good faith safeguards the gains of multilateral trade liberalisation against unlawful interests such as disguised protectionism. The book also introduces the novel field of WTO procedural law governing trade dispute litigation. In the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), good faith appears in the standard of review, rules of evidence and fact-finding, standing, duty of prior consultation, right of establishment of a panel, ex officio investigations, withdrawal of notices of appeal, and the raising of objections. In all these areas it ensures that the rules of dispute resolution are not abused. The Appellate Body has even gone so far as to derive a new standard from the principle of good faith that demands that disputes are settled fairly, promptly and effectively. Insights into good faith in WTO law are not only important for trade law professionals. Current applications and future operations of the principle are likely to be of strategic value for answering the increasingly pressing question of how WTO law and other international agreements ought to be reconciled.

This book is the first legal treatment of tied aid and examines in detail the compatibility of tied aid with EU and WTO law. The workings of the aid projects and aid procurement systems of donor countries granting bilateral aid are fully examined through case studies from the UK, Italy, the EU and the US. Tied aid refers to aid granted to developing countries on condition that goods and services for the aid-financed projects are purchased from the donor country only. The recipient country, in order to receive the grant or the loan, has no other choice but to fulfil the condition imposed by the donor. Economists have shown that tying aid undermines the effectiveness of aid. It leads to higher costs paid for the goods and services purchased and the distortion of the nature of the aid. Further, tying frustrates the potential of aid to foster trade between developing countries - in many of these countries public bodies and, in particular, aid-financed projects are major potential outlets for trade between neighbouring states. The importance of tied aid has been pointed out in economic literature but there is surprisingly little written on the legal aspects of tied aid practices and this book seeks to fill this major gap in the literature. The book is of interest to academics in the field of EU and WTO law, NGOs and practitioners working both in the field of public procurement and development policies.

Volume 7 of the EYIEL focusses on critical perspectives of international economic law. Recent protests against free trade agreements such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) remind us that international economic law has always been a politically and legally contested field. This volume collects critical contributions on trade, investment, financial and other subfields of international economic law from scholars who have shaped this debate for many years. The critical contributions to this volume are challenged and sometimes rejected by commentators who have been invited to be "critical with the critics". The result is a unique collection of critical essays accompanied by alternative and competing views on some of the most fundamental topics of international economic law. In its section on regional developments, EYIEL 7 addresses recent megaregional and plurilateral trade and investment agreements and negotiations. Short insights on various aspects of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and its sister TTIP are complemented with comments on other developments, including the African Tripartite FTA und the negotiations on a plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Further sections address recent WTO and investment case law as well as recent developments concerning the IMF, UNCTAD and the WCO. The volume closes with reviews of recent books in international economic law.

When the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) was founded just over a century ago the practice of referring disputes to international tribunals was un usual. Instead, arbitration, with its procedural emphasis on party-autonomy, was seen as the only acceptable way for sovereign states to settle their differences peacefully. War and neutrality, as Professor Shabtai Rosenne explains in his in troduction to this most welcome publication of extracts from the proceedings of the International Peace Conferences, were regarded as inevitable realities of in ternational relations as late as the mid-twentieth century. Moreover, a perma nent tribunal with international jurisdiction would not have stood much chance of either success, or survival, at the end ofthe nineteenth century. The First International Peace Conference in 1899 adopted the 1899 Conven tion for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, the objectives of which were international disarmament and the strengthening of international dispute settlement as an alternative to war. The 1899 Convention alsocreated the PCA in an effort to institutionalize dispute resolution through a third party mechanism."

The study of Law forms a component of many undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Its inclusion does not aim to equip business practitioners with skill and expertise to render professional legal advice unnecessary, but more to provide a legal framework of reference in which both strategic and more immediate business issues can be placed. Equipping managers with a basic understanding of how law impacts upon business activity can help them avoid legal pitfalls in the first place or at least identify potential problems at an early stage, to avoid inconvenience and cost.
International business can present problems that are not present in a purely domestic transaction. Any law component in a management program should embrace it and by doing so the business practitioner can be familiarized with the wider picture in which modern business, aided by technological development, is increasingly practiced.
* Shows the legal dimensions in managerial decisions both nationally and internationally
* Familiarizes the reader with legal issues from a practical business perspective in plain and jargon-free language
* Uses numerous examples to illustrate the legal principles under consideration

This book examines the issue of capacity withdrawals in the electricity wholesale market. Electricity generators can exercise market power in the wholesale market either by withdrawing generation capacity, or by pricing above competitive levels in order to achieve a higher market price and, thereby, increase revenues. After a comprehensive explanation of capacity withdrawal practices and the issues that arise when proceeding under competition law, the book analyses whether an increased state of transparency, as provided for in the REMIT and Regulation 543/2013, could facilitate the efficient functioning of electricity wholesale markets and the investigation of capacity withdrawal practices. It also examines the effect of the prohibition of market manipulation as prescribed in the REMIT in dealing with abusive capacity withdrawals in the electricity wholesale market.

This casebook is an effort to explain infrastructure markets from a unique perspective: regulation. Regulation means the analysis of two main groups of laws, namely internal market and antitrust law. The aim is to find a uniform regulation applicable to infrastructures in the European common market through a direct reading and explanation of judicial opinions. The book is divided into five parts: two general chapters and three thematic chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the main European law principles applicable to infrastructure markets. The second chapter applies the Services of General Interest doctrine to infrastructure markets: The key issue is the separation of the public administrations and the private companies operating infrastructures. The thematic chapters focus on seaports, railways and airports, respectively. The core of the examination is a dual perspective dealing with both the internal market rules and ensuring fair competition.

In short, the 24 selected and representative articles written in English by the author over the past 30-odd years, mainly published in international leading journals and now collected and compiled in this monograph, could be deemed the products of international academic debates. They record, reflect and embody the author s personal views on a number of contemporary basic issues in international economic law & the international economic order. These personal views with Chinese characteristics are deeply rooted in China s specific national situation and the common position of the world-wide weak groups, and are significantly and substantially different and independent from some existing voices from strong western powers, which is why the book bears the title The Voice from China . On the basis of their specific themes and content, the 24 representative articles are divided into six parts: 1) Jurisprudence of Contemporary International Economic Law; 2) Great Debates on Contemporary Economic Sovereignty; 3) China s Strategic Position on Contemporary International Economic Order Issues; 4) Divergences on Contemporary Bilateral Investment Treaty; 5) Contemporary China s Legislation on Sino-Foreign Economic Issues; and 6) Contemporary Chinese Practices on International Economic Disputes (Case Analysis)."

This thesis presents a significant contribution to decentralized resource allocation problems with strategic agents. The study focused on three classes of problems arising in communication networks. (C1). Unicast service provisioning in wired networks. (C2). Multi-rate multicast service provisioning in wired networks. (C3). Power allocation and spectrum sharing in multi-user multi-channel wireless communication systems. Problems in (C1) are market problems; problems in (C2) are a combination of markets and public goods; problems in (C3) are public goods. Dr. Kakhbod developed game forms/mechanisms for unicast and multi-rate multicast service provisioning that possess specific properties. First, the allocations corresponding to all Nash equilibria (NE) of the games induced by the mechanisms are optimal solutions of the corresponding centralized allocation problems, where the objective is the maximization of the sum of the agents' utilities. Second, the strategic agents voluntarily participate in the allocation process. Third, the budget is balanced at the allocations corresponding to all NE of the game induced by the mechanism as well as at all other feasible allocations. For the power allocation and spectrum sharing problem, he developed a game form that possesses the second and third properties as detailed above along with a fourth property: the allocations corresponding to all NE of the game induced by the mechanism are Pareto optimal. The thesis contributes to the state of the art of mechanism design theory. In particular, designing efficient mechanisms for the class of problems that are a combination of markets and public goods, for the first time, have been addressed in this thesis. The exposition, although highly rigorous and technical, is elegant and insightful which makes this thesis work easily accessible to those just entering this field and will also be much appreciated by experts in the field.

The book offers a horizontal legal analysis on the problematic of risk sharing, which arises inevitably in an economic and political integration process, such as in the European Union, and even more so in the euro area. The question is how the burden of adverse economic developments is spread across the integration area, in this case the euro area, whether risk is distributed evenly and what risk sharing mechanisms apply. The book looks at the legal basis and the concrete stage of development of such mechanisms in European law, as well as at divergences among national legal orders and practices as a source for risk asymmetries. Individual contributions refer in particular to the areas of banking, capital markets and unemployment insurance. The point of view adopted in the book is important for everyone who wants to develop a robust understanding of the practical functioning of the complex integration process regulated by EU law.

This book examines the interplay between cooperation on technical barriers to trade (TBT) in free trade agreements and the multilateral framework of the World Trade Organization. In recent years, TBT, especially differences in standards, have attracted increased interest and have been addressed as part of the WTO+ negotiated agenda in trade agreements. Because of a number of political and legal constraints, the process of further cooperation at the WTO have been stalled, which made free trade agreements a central pillar in setting the agenda of international trade governance. This leads us to rethinking the interrelation between the WTO and free trade agreements and to questioning the role of both fora in the future of trade. The book examines some TBT provisions in free trade agreements and highlights their positive and problematic aspects when it comes to the WTO-consistency and the ideas of open and inclusive trade. It also suggests that a more optimal way forward would be to increase parallel work on TBT cooperation at the WTO, a more inclusive forum that could address issues of global significance, such as environmental protection and regulation of digital goods. The book explores the potential for trade agreements to advance the WTO agenda, but notes that the organization would need to adapt its institutional structure and governance in order to do so. Drawing on the example of the EU and US so-called “new generation� trade agreements, the book provides a detailed analysis of the various methods used to navigate TBT cooperation, and offers insight into how these agreements can serve as inspiration for future multilateral disciplines. This book is a valuable resource for trade law academics, policymakers, and anyone interested in the intersection of technical barriers to trade, regional trade agreements, and the WTO.

This open access book investigates, analyses, and discusses the emerging issues of investment and the EU legal order. Europe has historically had an open approach to investment, but evolving geopolitical considerations over the past decade have seen this classical open approach being increasingly replaced by a more protectionist stance. Leading scholars, civil servants and practitioners assess the implications of this change, taking a four part approach of framing investment, arbitration, sustainability, and future developments. The collection’s expert insights and ambitious scope ensures its appeal to investment lawyers both within and outside the European Union. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Swedish Studies Network.