In recent years, an impressive proliferation of competition laws has been seen around the world. While this development may lead to greater diversity of approaches, economic arguments may promote convergence. The contributions to this book look at a number of most topical issues by asking whether the competition world is turning more towards convergence or diversity. These issues include, among others, the changing role of economics in times of economic crises and political change, the introduction of criminal sanctions, resale-price maintenance, unilateral conduct and the application of competition law to intellectual property and state-owned enterprises. More Common Ground for International Competition Law will appeal to academics, PhD students, and postgraduate students law and economics, members of competition agencies, legal practice and international business. Contributors: S. Anderman, N.W Averitt, C. Beaton-Wells, J. Bejcek, J. Drexl, T. Eilmansberger, A.A. Foer, A. Fuchs, M.S. Gal, G. Ghidini, D. Healey, C.A. Jones, R.H. Lande, M. Lao, P.L Nihoul, R.J.R. Peritz, M.E. Stucke

In this book Peritz analyses how free competition has signified both freedom from oppressive government and freedom from private economic power. Peritz shows how these two complex yet distinct and sometimes contradictory images have influenced government policy and continue to inspire public debate over political economy in America.

Americans have long appealed to images of free competition in calling for free enterprise, freedom of contract, free labor, free trade, and free speech. This imagery has retained its appeal in myriad aspects of public policy--for example, Senator Sherman's Anti-Trust Act of 1890, Justice Holmes's metaphorical marketplace of ideas, and President Reagan's rhetoric of deregulation.
In Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992, Rudolph Peritz explores the durability of free competition imagery by tracing its influences on public policy. Looking at congressional debates and hearings, administrative agency activities, court opinions, arguments of counsel, and economic, legal, and political scholarship, he finds that free competition has actually evoked two different visions--freedom not only from oppressive government, but also from private economic power. He shows how the discourse of free competition has mediated between commitments to individual liberty and rough equality--themselves unstable over time. This rhetorical approach allows us to understand, for example, that the Reagan and Carter programs of deregulation, both inspired by the rhetoric of free competition, were driven by fundamentally different visions of political economy.
Peritz's historical inquiry into competition policy as a series of government directives, inspired by two complex yet distinct and sometimes contradictory visions of free competition, provides an indispensable framework for understanding modern political economy-- whether political campaign finance reform, corporate takeover regulation, or current attitudes toward the New Deal Legacy. Competition Policy in America will be of great interest to lawyers, historians, economists, sociologists, and policy makers in both government and business.

TRIPS reflects the dominant view that enforcing strong intellectual property rights is necessary to solve problems of trade and development. The global ensemble of authors in this collection ask, how can TRIPS mature further into an institution that supports a view of economic development which incorporates the human rights ethic already at work in the multilateralist geopolitics driving international relations? In particular, how can these human rights, seen as encompassing a whole 'new' set of collective interests such as public health, environment, and nutrition, provide a pragmatic ethic for shaping development policy? Some chapters address these questions by describing recent successes, while others propose projects in which these human rights can provide ethical ground for influencing the forces at play in development policies.This stimulating book will strongly appeal to policy makers, academics, and students seeking to understand how the 'new' human rights can inform efforts to reconfigure intellectual property rights as an engine for fair and just economic development. Contributors: L. Briceno Moraia, J.L. Contreras, L. Dong, G. Ghidini, A. Kur, M. Land, M. Levin, D. Matthews, C.R. McManis, J. Odek, R.J.R. Peritz, H. Rangel-Ortiz, M. Ricolfi