The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its companion agreement, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), provide important and often underappreciated protection for the environmental laws of the Party states: Canada, Mexico, and the United States. On the twentieth anniversary of NAFTA's ratification, this book assesses the current state of environmental protection under those agreements. Bringing together scholars, practitioners, and regulators from all three Party states, it outlines the scope and process of NAFTA and NAAEC, their impact on specific environmental issues, and paths to reform. It includes analyses of the impact of the agreements on such matters as bioengineered crops in Mexico, assessment of marine environmental effects, potential lessons for China, climate change, and indigenous rights. Together, the chapters of this book represent an important contribution to the global conversation concerning international trade agreements and sustainable development.

The enormous economic power of the People's Republic of China makes it one of the most important actors in the international system. Since China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, all fields of international economic law have been impacted by greater Chinese participation. Now, just over one decade later, the question remains as to whether China's unique characteristics make its engagement fundamentally different from that of other players. In this volume, well-known scholars from outside China consider the country's approach to international economic law. In addition to the usual foci of trade and investment, the authors also consider monetary law, finance, competition law, and intellectual property. What emerges is a rare portrait of China's strategy across the full spectrum of international economic activity.

Rules of customary international law provide basic legal protections to foreign investors doing business abroad. These rules remain of fundamental importance today despite the growing number of investment treaties containing substantive investment protection. In this book, Patrick Dumberry provides a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of custom in the field of international investment law. He analyses two fundamental questions: how customary rules are created in this field and how they can be identified. The book examines the types of manifestation of state practice which should be considered as relevant evidence for the formation of customary rules, and to what extent they are different from those existing under general international law. The book also analyses the concept of states' opinio juris in investment arbitration. Offering guidance to actors called upon to apply customary rules in concrete cases, this book will be of significant importance to those involved in investment arbitration.

Historically, few topics have proven to be so controversial in international intellectual property as the protection of geographical indications (GIs). The adoption of TRIPS in 1994 did not resolve disagreements, and countries worldwide continue to quarrel today as to the nature, the scope, and the enforcement of GI protection nationally and internationally. Thus far, however, there is little literature addressing GI protection from the point of view of the Asia-Pacific region, even though countries in this region have actively discussed the topic and in several instances have promoted GIs as a mechanism to foster local development and safeguard local culture. This book, edited by renowned intellectual property scholars, fills the void in the current literature and offers a variety of contributions focusing on the framework and effects of GI protection in the Asia-Pacific region. The book is available as Open Access.

Bringing a unique voice to international taxation, this book argues against the conventional support of multilateral co-operation in favour of structured competition as a way to promote both justice and efficiency in international tax policy. Tsilly Dagan analyzes international taxation as a decentralized market, where governments have increasingly become strategic actors. While many of the challenges of the current international tax regime derive from this decentralized competitive structure, Dagan argues that curtailing competition through centralization is not necessarily the answer. Conversely, competition - if properly calibrated and notwithstanding its dubious reputation - is conducive, rather than detrimental, to both efficiency and global justice. International Tax Policy begins with the basic normative goals of income taxation, explaining how competition transforms them and analyzing the strategic game states play on the bilateral and multilateral level. It then considers the costs and benefits of co-operation and competition in terms of efficiency and justice.

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the UPOV Convention are increasingly relevant and important. They have technical, social and normative legitimacy and have standardised numerous concepts and practices related to plant varieties and plant breeding. In this book, Jay Sanderson provides the first sustained and detailed account of the Convention. Building upon the idea that it has an open-ended and contingent relationship with scientific, legal, technical, political, social and institutional actors, the author explores the Convention's history, concepts and practices. Part I examines the emergence of the UPOV Convention during the 1950s and its expanding legitimacy in relation to plant variety protection. Part II explores the Convention's key concepts and practices, including plant breeder, plant variety, plant names (denomination), characteristics, protected material, essentially derived varieties (EDV) and farm saved seed (FSS). This book is an invaluable resource for academics, policy makers, agricultural managers and researchers in this field.

Gas transit is network-dependent and it cannot be established without the existence of pipeline infrastructure in the territory of a transit state or the ability to access this infrastructure. Nevertheless, at an inter-regional level, there are no sufficient pipeline networks allowing gas to travel freely from a supplier to the most lucrative markets. The existing networks are often operated by either private or state-controlled vertically integrated monopolies who are often reluctant to release unused pipeline capacity to their potential competitors. These obstacles to gas transit can diminish the gains from trade for states endowed with natural gas resources, including developing landlocked countries, as well as undermine WTO Members' energy security and their attempts at sustainable development. This book explains how the WTO could play a more prominent role in the international regulation of gas transit and promote the development of an international gas market.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently celebrated twenty years of existence. The general wisdom is that its dispute settlement institutions work well and its negotiation machinery goes through a phase of prolonged crises. Assessing the World Trade Organization overcomes this myopic view and takes stock of the WTO's achievements whilst going beyond existing disciplinary narratives. With chapters written by scholars who have closely observed the development of the WTO in recent years, this book presents the state of the art in thinking about WTO performance. It also considers important issues such as the origins of the multilateral system, the accession process and the WTO's interaction with other international organisations. The contributions shed new light on untold stories, critically review and present existing scholarship, and sketch new research avenues for a future generation of trade scholars. This book will appeal to a wide audience that aims to better understand the drivers and obstacles of WTO performance.

This book employs an innovative approach to explore the topic of flexicurity and related changes in the working world, the importance of which for the overall economic and social development is gradually being recognised. It focuses on the changing nature of work and its impact on EU law and national labour and social security laws. Though the transformation of regulatory and institutional frameworks of labour relations follows different patterns in different EU Member States, it is nevertheless a common phenomenon that offers an excellent opportunity for mutual learning experiences and comparing notes on best practices. Taking these ideas as a starting point, the book presents a collection of research on various aspects and implications of changing labour relations in the EU Member States. The opening chapters address the internal market dimension of the transformation of employment relations by investigating how social dumping, integration of migrant workers, and cross-border mergers influence national labour policies and laws. The book further analyses linguistic and terminological challenges in the field of labour law in the EU's multi-lingual legal environment. Subsequent chapters cover various theoretical and practical issues, such as the impact of chain-liability regulatory models on the legal situation of workers in subcontracting networks, and modern work arrangements in the collaborative or 'gig' economy. Other chapters are dedicated to issues of jurisdiction and law applicable to individual employment contracts, as well as alternative resolution mechanisms in labour disputes. The next section offers fresh insights on and a critical overview of the well-known Danish and Dutch models of flexicurity, often cited as role models for reforms of labour markets in other EU Member States. Three individual chapters investigate specific aspects of flexicurity in Croatia, in terms of individual dismissals, life-long learning and the impact of non-standard employment on future pension entitlements. One paper explores temporary agency work in Germany as an important instrument of flexicurity, while another discusses various forms of work used in Slovenia in the context of flexibilization of work relations. Many challenges still lie ahead, and the primary aim of this book is to provide a solid basis for informed future discussions.

In the international trade and development arena, new and developing economies have created a block that is known as BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Initially conceived to drive global change through economic growth, the financial crisis and reversal of fortunes of the BRICS nations have raised questions about their ability to have an impact on the governance of global affairs. This book explores the role of law in various areas of BRICS cooperation including: trade, investment, competition, intellectual property, energy, consumer protection, financial services, space exploration and legal education. It not only covers the specifics of each of the BRICS nations in the selected areas, but also offers innovative and forward-looking perspectives on the BRICS cooperation and their contribution to the reform of the global governance networks. This is a unique reference book suitable for academics, government officials, legal practitioners, business executives, researchers and students.

As knowledge production has become a more salient part of the economy, intellectual property laws have expanded. From a backwater of specialists in patent, copyright, and trademark law, intellectual property has become linked to trade through successive international agreements, and appreciated as key to both economic and cultural development. Furthermore, law has begun to engage the interest of economists, political theorists, and human rights advocates. However, because each discipline sees intellectual property in its own way, legal scholarship and practice have diverged, and the debate over intellectual property law has become fragmented. This book is aimed at bringing this diverse scholarship and practice together. It examines intellectual property through successive lenses (incentive theory, trade, development, culture, and human rights) and ends with a discussion of whether and how these fragmented views can be reconciled and integrated.

The mental suffering and agony, the ruined lives, the broken homes and hearts, the desolation and yearning and despair - who can measure the cost of crime? Eugene Smith, 1901 The anxiety people feel towards another people - the fear of crime - lies at the foundations of human society. The enormous burden that crime imposes on societies calls for ef?cient social arrangements and institutions. While intuitively obvious, the exact scope of this burden for a long time eluded measurement. With the emergence and development of quantitative methods in economics and statistics, the exercise of calculating costs of crime became possible, and indeed has been undertaken. The emerging ?eld of assessing costs of crime is still a controversial one, both in its methodology and applications. Many people would feel it absurd to calculate costs of crimes, particularly violent ones. What is a cost of murder, rape, or assault? Can any number meaningfully represent the villainous nature of such acts? These questions are undoubtedly good ones. In this book, I will argue that we can estimate costs of different crimes, and that such estimates are relevant for criminal law and crime policy. Notwithstanding the incommensurability of many consequences of crime, society every day makes numerous decisions how to tackle crime, and at least implicitly assesses the relative importance of the problem. Properly done costs of crime estimates make people's evaluation more visible, and allow for more coherent public policy.

If a broker-dealer liquidates in federal bankruptcy court, why does an insurance company liquidate in state court, and a bank outside of court altogether? Why do some businesses re-organize under state law 'assignments', rather than the more well-known Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code? Why do some laws use the language of bankruptcy but without advancing policy goals of the Bankruptcy Code? In this illuminating work, Stephen J. Lubben tackles these questions and many others related to the collective law of business insolvency in the United States. In the first book of its kind, Lubben notes the broad similarities between the many insolvency systems in the United States while describing the fundamental differences lurking therein. By considering the whole sweep of these laws - running the gamut from Chapter 11 to obscure receivership provisions of the National Bank Act - readers will acquire a fundamental understanding of the 'law of failure'.

The stalling of the Doha Development Round trade negotiations has resulted in bilateral and regional free trade agreements becoming an important alternative. These agreements have proliferated in recent years, and now all of the major trading countries are engaging in serious bilateral trade negotiations with multiple trading partners. This second edition provides a new collection of case studies illustrating the latest trends and innovations in bilateral and regional trade agreements (BRTAs). The selected BRTAs represent a good sampling of regional variation and cover the most important substantive issues. Authored by leading scholars and practitioners, each case study offers comprehensive analysis of the featured BRTA, and the format allows for quick comparisons.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the new framework of relationship between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) applicable since 1st January 2021, following the end of the Brexit transition period and the entry into force of the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA), concluded on Christmas Eve 2020. The book contextualizes the new framework of EU-UK relations, including the ongoing challenges of implementing the Withdrawal Agreement (WA), and sheds light on the new mechanisms for EU-UK cooperation both in the economic domain including free movement of goods, financial services, and mobility of persons, and in the security domain including law enforcement, defence, and data protection. The work underlines the profound differences between the new status quo compared to the legal framework applicable when the UK was still an EU member state including end of free movement of persons, financial passporting, and cooperation in foreign affairs and defence, and reflects on what the latest stage in the Brexit process means for governance, sovereignty, and the future of European integration.

This edited collection consolidates research on the current and future perspectives of international trade law applicable to telecommunications services and audiovisual services in a context of convergence. It is divided into three main parts. The first part analyses the current regulatory framework applicable to telecommunications services in the context of the WTO, including the controversial issues of accounting rates and international competition rules. The second part discusses and analyses the current regulatory framework applicable to audiovisual services. The third part analyses convergence from different angles, including an explanation of convergence in technical terms, as well as reviewing the legal and economic consequences of convergence for trade in telecommunications and audiovisual services. This research lead the editors to summarize the findings made in the chapters and to draw a tentative set of issues to be discussed in the context of the Doha Round of negotiations.

There is an inherent tension between the push to harmonize international intellectual property norms and the need to remain flexible and adaptive in domestic policy-setting. In trademark law, global brands protection must be balanced against the interests of consumers, who, though they may be aware of the global realm, are ultimately local actors. This is the key issue explored in this well-crafted and timely book.' - Daniel J. Gervais, Vanderbilt University Law School, US 'Trademark law is territorial but trademarks, like trade, are increasingly global. Trademark owners often operate in worldwide markets where they are confronted with varying territorial legal rules about registration and even use of their trademarks. This apparent dichotomy between trade without borders and trademark laws with borders creates many challenging legal and practical issues which this volume tackles. This outstanding collection offers both specialists and novices insights into this complex topic. The editors are to be commended for their foresight in bringing this collection together.' - Susy Frankel Victoria, University of Wellington, New Zealand 'The growing globalization of trade increases the challenges faced by trademark owners in the territories where they operate or plan to expand. Trademark owners thus have to find ways to solve the tension between global markets and territorial regimes of protection, which is precisely what this book explores from different angles and what makes it an essential work in today's borderless and brand-based economy. The result is a remarkable collection of original and thought-provoking chapters, which masterfully discuss the challenges and opportunities that the global economy presents, and will continue to present, for the territorial acquisition and enforcement of trademark rights.' - Jacques de Werra, University of Geneva, Switzerland As the modern business world becomes increasingly decentralized and globally focused, traditional interpretations and applications of trademark protection law are facing greater and greater challenges. This is particularly true regarding the principle of trademark territoriality, which holds that trademark rights are bound by the laws of individual nations. This timely volume offers expert analyses of the challenges facing crucial aspects of trademark law from some of the most prominent scholars in the field. The contributors explore how the rise of international trade and globalization has changed the way trademark law functions in a number of important areas, including protection of well-known marks, parallel imports, enforcement of trademark rights against counterfeiting, remedies, protection of certification marks, and domain names. A detailed discussion of the history of trademarks and territoriality along with a comprehensive breakdown of current issues make this a complete and well-rounded resource for the study of trademark law in a contemporary context. Students, professors and practitioners working in international law, trade law and intellectual property law will find this book to be a valuable resource. Contributors include: G.W. Austin, I. Calboli, L. Chan Grinvald, M. Chon, D.C.K. Chow, G.B. Dinwoodie, C.H. Farley, L.C. Grinvald, M. LaFrance, M.A. Leaffer, E. Lee, J. Lipton, L.A.W. Lockridge, D.E. Long, P.-E. Moyse, M. Wong, P.K. Yu, D. Zografos Johnsson

This special issue asks what role society can play in the regulation of transnational risks, as an alternative to or at least significant addition to reliance on state regulatory activity and the myth of the self-regulatory capacity of markets (Stiglitz, 2001, p. xiii). How can a social sphere contribute to the prevention and management of risks, often transnational in nature, posed by economic activity? Leading socio-legal scholars explore whether and how the idea of harnessing the regulatory capacity of a social sphere provides a new analytical lens that can provide fresh insights into transnational risk regulation, and whether this idea helps to identify innovative approaches to regulating transnational risks.

All treaties, from human rights to international trade, include formal exceptions that allow governments to legally break the rules that they have committed to, in order to deal with unexpected events. Such institutional 'flexibility' is necessary, yet it raises a tricky theoretical question: how to allow for this necessary flexibility, while preventing its abuse? Krzysztof J. Pelc examines how designers of rules in vastly different settings come upon similar solutions to render treaties resistant to unexpected events. Essential for undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars in political science, economics, and law, the book provides a comprehensive account of the politics of treaty flexibility. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, its multi-disciplinary approach addresses the paradoxes inherent in making and bending international rules.

Driven by public opinion in host states, contracting parties to investment agreements are pursuing many avenues in order to curb a system that is being perceived - correctly or not - as having run out of control. Reassertion of Control over the Investment Treaty Regime is the first book of its kind to examine the many issues of procedure, substantive law, and policy which arise from this trend. From procedural aspects such as frivolous claims mechanisms, the establishment of appeals mechanism or state-state arbitration, to substantive issues such as joint interpretations, treaty termination or detailed definitions of standards of protection, the book identifies and discusses the main means by which states do or may reassert their control over the interpretation and application of investment treaties. Each chapter tackles one of these avenues and evaluates its potential to serve as an instrument in states' reassertion of control.

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have been proliferating for more than two decades, with the negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and a Trans-Pacific Partnership being just the tip of the iceberg. This volume addresses some of the most pressing issues related to the surge of these agreements. It includes chapters written by leading political scientists, economists and lawyers which theoretically and empirically advance our understanding of trade agreements. The key theme is that PTAs vary widely in terms of design. The authors provide explanations as to why we see these differences in design and whether and how these differences matter in practice. The tools for understanding the purposes and effects of PTAs that are offered will guide future research and inform practitioners and trade policy experts about progress in the scientific enquiry into PTAs.

Providing extensive coverage of international trade law from an economic development perspective, this second edition of Reclaiming Development in the World Trading System offers discussion of key principles of international trade law, trade measures, trade and development issues, and regulatory reform. Including such topics as the most-favored-nation principle, national treatment, and tariff binding, Lee also offers insightful analysis into new areas pertaining to agriculture and textile, trade-related investment, intellectual property rights, and trade in services. Looking at trade and development issues in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as microtrade, an innovative international trade system designed to relieve the absolute poverty of least-developed countries, this book is essential reading that gives context to development interests and advances specific regulatory and institutional reform proposals. Lee lends insight into these topics with case analysis exemplifying how our trading systems have been adopted by the developing world in order to foster their own economic development.

WTO law sets the global minimum standards for trade regulation, while allowing some regulatory flexibility for developing countries. The exact scope of regulatory flexibility is often unclear and, at times, flexibility may be counterproductive to sustainable economic growth in developing countries. Undisputedly, developing countries would have some flexibility with respect to tailoring preferential services trade agreements to their individual economic needs and circumstances, but empirical data from over 280 preferential services trade agreements worldwide shows that this flexibility is rarely used. This volume clarifies the regulatory scope of flexibility for preferential services trade agreements between developing countries by linking the legal interpretation of WTO law with evidence from research in economics and political sciences. The book suggests that the current regulatory framework leaves room for meaningful flexibility for developing countries, and encourages policymakers and scholars to take these flexibilities into consideration in their design and study of trade policies.

The bricks and mortar of commercial law as we know it are crumbling into dust. Electronic commerce sweeps away the very foundations of what was not so long ago our most solid, comfortable, and secure legal system. In its most advanced form, e-commerce allows unidentified purchasers to pay obscure vendors, in 'electronic cash,' for products that are often goods, services, and licenses all rolled into one. A payee may be no more than a computer that can take up 'residence' anywhere at the drop of a hat; national boundaries are of no consequence whatsoever. Taxation authorities are understandably dismayed. This book, now in its second edition, is a minutely detailed overview of current reality in the worldwide huddle of revenue regimes as they try to cope with the most daunting challenge they have ever had to face. It analyzes a number of fast-moving trends in the behaviors of national taxation authorities, web-based companies, VoiP, certain low-tax (or no-tax) jurisdictions, and international organizations that have significant bearing on the future development of the taxation of e-commerce. These trends include the following: how United States domestic and international tax rules are being interpreted in the effort to accommodate e-commerce; the powerful retailers' lobby against the moratorium on U.S. state and local sales tax on Internet transactions; how VAT rules in EU countries and other jurisdictions are being restructured to accommodate international e-commerce; new theories of income and payment characterization, and in particular the influential OECD ongoing study; and, the crucial discussion over what constitutes a 'permanent establishment' for tax purposes.

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.