This book highlights China's engagement with Africa through trade, investment and financial linkages. Its three main goals are as follows: firstly, to provide insights into Chinese FDI in Africa, by exploring a range of infrastructural projects and several countries' historical, geographical, socio-political, cultural and economic backgrounds; secondly, to present the main double taxation treaties with Beijing and country profiles of the African economies; and lastly, to provide a valuable business guide for recognizing and capitalizing on new opportunities in Afro-Eurasia.

This book takes a law and economic approach to examine the securities law enforcement in China and provides an in-depth empirical analysis on the enforcement inputs and outputs. In contrast to previous studies, it systematically collects a large sample of judicated securities fraud cases and public sanctions as disclosed by the listed companies. The enforcement regime is further divided into the private enforcement exemplified by the civil litigation imitated by harmed investors and public enforcement by sanctions proceedings initiated by public agencies. Academic researchers, policy makers and practitioners, who are interested in the securities market and regulation could find the information provided in this book interesting.

This open access volume of the AIDA Europe Research Series on Insurance Law and Regulation brings together contributions from authors with different legal cultures. It aims to identify the legal issues that arise from the intersection of two disciplines: insurance law and corporate/company law. These legal issues are examined mainly from the perspective of European Union (EU) law. However, there are also contributions from other legal systems, enriching the perspective with which to approach these issues.

This book illustrates the challenges that regulators and policy makers have faced in the transition from the 'old' network industries to the new digital ecosystem. It succinctly describes the evolution of digital economy, its main actors, notably global digital platforms, as well as its interactions, interdependences, and trade-offs. Eventually, it proposes insights about why public rules are needed, what kind of rules could be more effective, fair, and efficient, and who should pose and enforce them. The book is opened by an introduction, dealing with Digital Transformation, Big Techs, and Public Policies, which provides a general conceptual and thematic framework to the following analysis but could be also read as a stand-alone paper. The following chapters are grouped in two parts: I. The Evolution of Digital Markets and Digital Rights, and II. Regulating Big Tech's Impact on Market and Society. The secondary title - the European approach - has a twofold meaning. It highlights the fact that this work has a clear focus on EU law and policy - although the economic and institutional issues addressed are global phenomena, common to all world's economies. In addition, it also underlines that European digital policy is not yet complete and effective. This book intends to provide a small contribution to the ongoing policy making process, as well as to the wider academic and policy debate.

This book gathers a selection of peer-reviewed chapters reflecting on the Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement (AEUFTA). Since 18 June 2018, ten rounds of negotiations for a AEUFTA have been held in a constructive atmosphere, showing a shared commitment to move forward with this ambitious and comprehensive agreement. After a lengthy and arduous process interrupted by the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union (EU), the United States' hesitations regarding the EU's global strategy and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the negotiations between Australia and the European Union finally appear to be nearing completion. In challenging times, both parties share a commitment to a positive trade agenda, and to the idea that good trade agreements benefit both sides by boosting jobs, growth and investment. This book explores the challenges, achievements and missed opportunities in the AEUFTA negotiation process, and examines current legal and political relations between the EU, its Member States and Australia. Furthermore, it examines in detail a wide and diverse range of negotiated areas, including digital trade, services, intellectual property rules, trade remedies and investment screening, as well as dispute settlement mechanisms. Lastly, it sheds light on the likely nature of future commercial relations between Australia and the EU. Written by a team of respected authors from leading institutions in both Australia and Europe, the book provides a valuable, interdisciplinary analysis of the AEUFTA.

Who are the agents of financial regulation? Is good (or bad) financial governance merely the work of legislators and regulators? Here Annelise Riles argues that financial governance is made not just through top-down laws and policies but also through the daily use of mundane legal techniques such as collateral by a variety of secondary agents, from legal technicians and retail investors to financiers and academics and even computerized trading programs.
Drawing upon her ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Japanese derivatives market, Riles explores the uses of collateral in the financial markets as a regulatory device for stabilizing market transactions. How collateral operates, Riles suggests, is paradigmatic of a class of low-profile, mundane, but indispensable activities and practices that are all too often ignored as we think about how markets should work and be governed. Riles seeks to democratize our understanding of legal techniques, and demonstrate how these day-to-day private actions can be reformed to produce more effective forms of market regulation.

This book focuses on the enforcement aspect of tobacco control policy, and argues that the intense regulation of the tobacco market will never be successful as long as it can be circumvented by the availability of illicit tobacco products. Yet, current efforts to combat illicit tobacco trade are insufficient, suffering from several flaws and gaps at the regulatory and operational levels. The aim of this book is to provide an analysis of the legal framework and practice of enforcement with regard to illicit tobacco products. Combining criminological and legal perspectives, it presents and critically analyses the phenomenon of illicit tobacco trade, as well as the policies, legal frameworks and practices in six EU countries with regard to combatting this phenomenon, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches. Furthermore, it studies the relationship between the EU and third countries (e.g. Ukraine) in terms of how the EU can influence policy and enforcement in these countries in order to counter illicit tobacco trafficking. Not exclusively focusing on the EU, the book also includes an analysis of enforcement against illicit tobacco products in the US. The EU Member States analysed in the book (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland) reflect the range of currently available approaches. Some of them have ratified the WHO Protocol against tobacco smuggling; others have not. They belong to different legal traditions and face different challenges due to their respective border situations. While Belgium and the Netherlands are key entry ports to the EU, Poland and Latvia represent the Eastern land border of the EU, with various regional challenges. Italy has a long maritime border, where trafficking is possible from Northern Africa and from the Middle East. It also has significant experience in fighting organised crime. Lastly, Germany is the largest market in Europe and situated in the middle of these trafficking routes.

This book is the first-ever to explore commercial arbitration in the Ethiopian context. Alternative conflict resolution mechanisms are nothing new to the country: arbitration as a dispute settlement mechanism by which a third party issues a binding decision on a dispute between two or more parties by exercising the jurisdictional mandate conferred on it by the parties themselves was established with the adoption of the Civil Code in 1960. This pioneering book evaluates the extent to which Ethiopia's laws and institutions allow disputing parties to effectively reap the benefits of international commercial arbitration. It interprets the relevant legislation and attempts to bridge the gaps in it, in order to help lawyers, arbitrators, arbitral institutions, academics and judges to understand and apply it. It also helps parties seeking to complete international transactions pertaining to Ethiopia make the right choice regarding conflict resolution.

The knowledge economy, a seeming wonder for the world, has caused unintended harms that threaten peace and prosperity and undo international cooperation and the international rule of law. The world faces threats of war, pandemics, growing domestic political discord, climate change, disruption of international trade and investment, immigration, and the pollution of cyberspace, just as international law increasingly falls short as a tool for managing these challenges. Prosperity dependent on meritocracy, open borders, international economic freedom, and a wide-open Internet has met its limits, with international law one of the first casualties. Any effective response to these threats must reflect the pathway by which these perils arrive. Part of the answer to these challenges, Paul B. Stephan argues, must include a re-conception of international law as arising out of pragmatic and limited experiments by states, rather than as grand projects to remake and redeem the world.

This volume examines the impact of and interplay between human rights and insurance. National, supranational and international legal instruments regulating the taking-up and pursuit of the business of insurance and reinsurance, (re)insurance distribution and the insurance contract often refer to or impact on human or fundamental rights. Courts are often faced with the sometimes seemingly impossible task of reconciling insurance core principles, practices and mind-sets with the principles and values stemming from human rights protection. In some cases, such as that of discrimination in insurance, this discussion has been going on for decades. Some deal with hot topics which have more recently emerged in light of developments stemming from technologic innovations ('InsurTech'). The first part of the book focuses on insurance and the right to equal treatment. Discrimination on the basis of factors such as gender or age is tackled, from the perspectives of the European Union, Canada and South Africa. The second part of the book highlights the very relevant role played by insurance in the upholding of the right to health, covering the United States of America, Africa and Brazil. The third part of the book explores InsurTech's manifold challenges upon the right to privacy, focusing on European Union. The fourth part tackles the threat posed by insurance on the right to life in general, but with a particular focus on the United Kingdom. Written by legal scholars and practitioners, the book offers international, comparative and regional or national perspectives, aiming to contribute to a more thorough and systematic understanding of the interactions between these two very different fields of law, providing the industry as well as the scientific community with insights from both sides of this seemingly difficult to transpose divide.

This book examines how the developments in veterinary science, philosophy, economics and law converged during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to entrench farm animals along a commodification pathway. It covers two neglected areas of study; the importance of international veterinary conferences to domestic regimes and the influence of early global treaties that dealt with animal health on domestic quarantine measures. The author concludes by arguing that society needs to reconsider its understanding and the place of the welfare paradigm in animal production systems. As it presently stands, this paradigm can be used to justify almost any self-serving reason to abrogate ethical principles. The topic of this book will appeal to a wide readership; not only scholars, students and educators but also people involved in animal production, interested parties and experts in the animal welfare and animal rights sector, as well as policy-makers and regulators, who will find this work informative and thought-provoking.

This is the first book published that focuses on competition law and policy in the Japanese pharmaceutical sector. It consists of chapters written and edited by academics who research the industry from various perspectives, including economics, competition law, pharmaceutical regulations, and intellectual property law. Competition policies involving pharmaceutical products attract attention from academics and policymakers worldwide. The pharmaceutical industry is regulated by drug laws that vary from country to country and are affected by differing practices and industrial structures. The book begins by examining drug regulations and trade practices in the industry that are peculiar to Japan and its healthcare system. It then presents the Japanese Antimonopoly Act and cases involving it, and discussions of current competition law issues in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. The book also discusses innovation and intellectual property and economic analyses of pharmaceutical regulations and drug discovery. The chapters include comparative studies on Japanese regulations vs. those in the European Union and the United States. Japan is one of the biggest pharmaceutical markets in the world. With this in mind, the book provides "one-stop shopping" for anyone interested in pharmaceutical regulations in the country. Covering the basics but extending to in-depth explorations of complex problems, this book appeals not only to students and academics, pharmaceutical companies and regulators, but also to those dealing with real-world policy issues that encompass competition policy, intellectual property, and pharmaceutical regulation. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com

This book provides a comprehensive account of the CETA Investment Chapter's ability to overcome the legitimacy crisis facing investment arbitration. To do so, it first examines the root causes behind the legitimacy crisis, ultimately arguing that it reflects a fundamental rule of law crisis within investment arbitration. In particular, it asserts that the normative standpoints of the legitimacy crisis form part of the rule of law, the uniting legal principle from which the legitimacy concerns stem. The book contends that the rule of law is not only the principal normative and causal assumption on which the legitimacy concerns are based, but that it could also be utilized as a platform to evaluate the investment arbitration mechanism in CETA's Investment Chapter. Based on this, the book evaluates CETA's Investment Chapter through the rule of law framework in order to provide a convincing account of the latter's ability to overcome the legitimacy crisis facing investment arbitration. It concludes that CETA's Investment Chapter is unlikely to completely solve the legitimacy crisis simply because it is just a patchwork of reforms rather than a comprehensive reinvention of the substantive and procedural law of investment arbitration. Lastly, the book offers meaningful insights into the way the challenges presented by investment arbitration should be addressed. The book is intended for academics researching international investment law and arbitration as well as for policy-makers focusing on reforming investor-state dispute settlement.

This book presents the first critical review of the less frequently addressed stakeholders in international investment law. Focusing on private actors, including but not limited to lawyers, experts, funders, civil society, the media and scholars, the book highlights the variety of actors that help shape international investment law and demonstrates how best to manage their interactions in order to achieve synergies and enhance the legitimacy of this pluralistic field.

This book analyzes the business model of enterprises in the digital economy by taking an economic and comparative perspective. The aim of this book is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the anti-competitive behavior of companies who monopolize data, and put forward the necessity of regulating data monopoly by exploring the causes and characteristics of their anti-competitive behavior. It studies four aspects of the differences between data monopoly and traditional monopolistic behavior, namely defining the relevant market for data monopolies, the entry barrier, the problem of determining the dominant position of data monopoly, and the influence on consumer welfare. It points out the limitations of traditional regulatory tools and discusses how new regulatory methods could be developed within the competition legal framework to restrict data monopolies. It proposes how economic analytical tools used in traditional anti-monopoly law are facing challenges and how competition enforcement agencies could adjust regulatory methods to deal with new anti-competitive behavior by data monopolies.

This book reviews for the first time some of the less frequently addressed actors in international investment law. Traditional studies concerning actors in international investment law have tended to focus on arbitrators, claimant investors and respondent states. This book explores transnational actors, such as UNCITRAL, the EU, international standardizing bodies, domestic and international courts and tribunals, etc., shedding light on their transnational activity and pluralistic role in international investment law.

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.

This book offers an exciting overview of how the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism currently deals with allegations and/or evidence of fraud and corruption. It provides a detailed analysis of the legal framework under which arbitral tribunals usually operate in investment disputes involving allegations of illegality. Readers will find step-by-step examinations of the corruption and fraud arguments employed by arbitral tribunals in ten landmark ISDS cases, followed by a chapter summarizing the status quo on the topic. The final part of the book discusses the identified challenges of addressing illegality issues in investment arbitration and potential solutions, including the creation of a multilateral investment court.

Anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures are the most important elements of the European Union's trade defence instruments. Since the beginning of the European integration process, they have been used to combat trade practices which are considered "unfair" and their distortive effects on competition in the internal market. However, while the imposition of trade defence measures aims to level the playing field between EU producers and their foreign competitors, it also produces negative effects on competition itself. Based on the role attributed to competition and trade defence policy respectively throughout the European integration process, this book argues that the trading bloc's trade defence instruments should not be designed or applied with the objective of granting maximum protection to EU producers, but that their use should be limited to what is necessary to ensure fairness in competition between EU producers and exporting producers. However, an analysis of the changes made to the European Union's Basic Anti-Dumping Regulation and the Basic Anti-Subsidy Regulation by the Trade Defence Modernisation Package reveals that several aspects of the European Union's modernised trade defence instruments do not meet this requirement. Rather than being limited to offsetting the unfair competitive advantages of producers practicing dumping or benefiting from subsidies, the reformed provisions go beyond this, distorting competition in favour of the EU industry instead. Furthermore, the book critically assesses the reformed rules relating to the integration of social and environmental aspects in the imposition of anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures as well as the modernised basic regulations' compatibility with WTO law.

This book explores engagement between the trade and investment law regimes and the extent to which this is being driven by Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements (PTIAs). It provides an empirical analysis of engagement between the two regimes using data from 60 PTIAs and 60 Bilateral Investment Treaties concluded between 2005-2019 to see whether PTIAs result in increased engagement and whether they are doing so over time. The book explores eight of the factors identified as evidencing inter-regime engagement. These chapters look at when engagement is appropriate and to what extent it is appropriate in relation to each of these areas. Based on the findings of this book's empirical and comparative law analysis of PTIAs, BITs, and the trade and investment law regimes, the book examines whether the conclusion of PTIAs compared to BITs has resulted in increased levels of engagement between the trade and investment law regimes. This book does not put forth the view that convergence between trade and investment is always appropriate, but provides recommendations as to how treaties may be formulated and interpreted in a manner that takes inter-regime engagement into account with a view to ensuring the harmonious simultaneous development of the two regimes. The question of the future direction for engagement between the trade regime and the investment regime is very topical in light of changes to the architecture of both regimes at present.

This book analyzes the issue of European fiscal State aid in order to provide insights into the related evolution prospects and legal problems. State aid has assumed a central position in the field of taxation, becoming the most important instrument of European legal integration, especially in the area of direct taxes. This is the result of major regulatory and interpretative development, which has altered the initial European and national balances in the face of globalization and the problems of the new economy. In this context, the scope and objectives of State aid have progressively broadened, encompassing a significant level of both positive and negative integration of European national tax systems.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is seen primarily as an international human rights instrument. However, the Declaration also encompasses cultural, social and economic rights. Taken in the context of international trade and investment, the UN Declaration is a valuable tool to support economic self-determination of Indigenous peoples. This volume explores the emergence of Indigenous peoples' participation in international trade and investment, as well as how it is shaping legal instruments in environment and trade, intellectual property and traditional knowledge. One theme that is explored is agency. From amicus interventions at the World Trade Organization to developing a future precedent for a 'Trade and Indigenous Peoples Chapter', Indigenous peoples are asserting their right to patriciate in decision-making. The authors, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts on trade and investment legal, provide needed ideas and recommendations for governments, academia and policy thinkers to achieve economic reconciliation.

This book addresses the diverse ways in which international law governs the uses, management, and protection of fresh water. The regulation of fresh water has primarily developed through the conclusion of treaties concerning international watercourses, yet a number of other legal regimes also apply to the governance of fresh water. In particular, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of fresh water to environmental protection. The development of international human rights law and international humanitarian law has also proven crucial for ensuring the sound and equitable management of this resource. In addition, the economic uses of fresh water feature prominently in the law applicable to watercourses, while water itself has become an important element of the trade and investment regimes. These bodies of rules and principles not only surface in an array of dispute settlement mechanisms, but also stimulate wider trends of institutionalization. Since the publication of the first edition of this volume in 2013, water has continued to be at the forefront of the international agenda, and the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals constitutes a milestone around which various public and private initiatives have been launched. This book presents and appraises these important developments as part of its comprehensive analysis of the origin and scope of the various areas of international law as they apply to fresh water. It demonstrates how these areas connect and adapt to one another, forming an integrated body of international principles.

An all-inclusive, exhaustive evaluation of the foreign policy of the European Union.Ten years ago the 2009 Lisbon Treaty put into place the legal and structural foundations for the European Union to play a role as a global actor. In the decade since, the EU itself has undergone intense political and economic stress, from debt crises to the rise of nationalist parties and the strains of Brexit. What effect have these changes had on the EU's foreign policy and its role in the world? This new edition of The Foreign Policy of the European Union offers an up-to-date and comprehensive examination of that question. The globe-spanning contributions to the book include a look at relations between Brussels and its regional neighbors, including Russia; the tensions that have arisen with the United States during the Trump administration; and the burgeoning relationship with China. How the EU is dealing with issues such as migration, terrorism, trade, and security round out the volume.

The book analyzes the most relevant developments in the relation between contracts and technology, from automatically concluded contracts to today's revolutionary "smart contracts" developed through blockchain, which are beginning to and will increasingly disrupt many economic and social relations. First of all, the author offers a broad analysis of the peculiarities and evolution of the relation between contracts and technology. The main features and elements of electronic contracts are then examined in depth to highlight the specific rules applicable to them in the international comparative legal framework. In turn, the book provides a detailed explanation of the technology, economic and social dynamics, and legal issues concerning blockchain and smart contracts. The analysis focuses on the question of the legal nature of smart contracts, the issues posed by their development and the first legal solutions adopted in some countries. The comparative approach pursued makes it possible to focus attention on the first solutions adopted until now in various systems, with particular regard to the circulation of models and ideas and to the specificities of their local variations, in terms of e.g. applicable law and jurisdiction. In reviewing the characteristics of distributed ledger technologies, and in particular of the blockchain technology on which smart contracts are based, above all the peculiarities of the latter are taken into consideration, especially automatic execution and resistance to tampering, which simultaneously present significant opportunities and complex legal issues. A comprehensive framework is then provided to reconcile smart contracts with comparative contract law, in order to define the scope and specificities of their binding force, legal effectiveness and regulation in various legal systems. Lastly, with specific reference to the elements, pathologies and contractual remedies for smart contracts, the book examines the peculiarities of their application and the main issues that emerge in comparative contract law in order to promote their harmonized use, in keeping with the transnational nature of such a revolutionary tool.