Law Commons^™

Un-Fair Trade As Friendly Fire: The Australia-Usa Free Trade Agreement, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

Trade, economists and trade theorists advise, is a mutually beneficial exercise. Among this group, a particular set of advocates, claim that “Free Trade” is in the interest of all parties. As will be demonstrated, Free Trade is not truly “free” but an exercise of foreign policy and the implementation of policies favouring wealthy corporate interest groups. Free Trade is controlled by wealthy nations who have stacked the rules in favour of themselves, and in particular their corporate interests, and against the poor producers in poor nations. This control is used contrary to fairness, economic and ecological logic. Fair trade, by …

Evaluating The Wto's Two Step Test For Environmental Measures Under Article Xx, Nita Ghei

ExpressO

There has been considerable dissatisfaction expressed by both free trade proponents and environment activists with respect to the WTO’s exercise of authority on the impact of environmental measures on international trade. The Article first sets out a analytical framework, based on public choice theory, which examines the incentives to implement measures to achieve environmental goals which function effectively as disguised barriers to trade. This is followed by a careful examination of the WTO’s jurisprudence in the area, which suggests that the WTO’s focus on the measure being implemented is correct. Furthermore, the two step test under Article XX, as conceived …

Towards A Development-Oriented Multilateral Framework On Competition Policy, Jae Sung Lee

San Diego International Law Journal

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) is a successful attempt by the international community to codify and unify the law of the sea. After long negotiations, the LOSC opened for signature at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) in 1982. Together with its two formal associations, the Part XI Implementation Agreement 1994 and the Straddling and Migratory Fish Stocks Agreement 1995, it is regarded as one of the most comprehensive documents ever adopted by the international community. The LOSC not only succeeded in addressing all topics covered …

Of The Inequals Of The Uruguay Round, Srividhya Ragavan

Faculty Scholarship

Ten years ago, the TRIPs Agreement set a distinct tone in international law by requiring members to prioritize international trade obligations as a means to achieve national goals. Within the next five years, the AIDS crisis highlighted that compromising pressing national responsibilities - like a looming public health crisis - to fulfill international obligations may, in fact, detrimentally affect international trade. Meanwhile, access to medication continues to be an unresolved issue even as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of TRIPs and the end of the transitional period. This Article suggests that the success of TRIPs depends on its ability to …

Science In The Process Of Risk Regulation Under The Wto Agreement On Sanitary And Phytosanitary Measures, Lukasz A. Gruszczynski

Lukasz A Gruszczynski

This article attempts to present a comprehensive and coherent picture of the position occupied by science under the SPS Agreement and in the SPS case law. It claims that the approach adopted by the Appellate Body reflects the explicit language of the SPS Agreement and is predominantly based on a technical paradigm. In consequence, science plays a critical role in distinguishing between legal and illegal SPS measures. The article argues that such an approach is generally compatible with the text of the SPS Agreement and provides a coherent SPS system. However, it also identifies certain areas, which lack coherence, as …

Motion Picture Piracy: Controlling The Seemingly Endless Supply Of Counterfeit Optical Discs In Taiwan, Stephen K. Shiu

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Annually, Hollywood loses roughly $3.5 billion dollars in revenue to optical disc piracy in Taiwan. Optical disc piracy involves the camcording or copying of motion pictures onto laserdiscs, digital versatile discs, or video compact discs. Through the U.S. Trade Representative's satellite enforcement offices in Taiwan and coordination with the Taiwanese legislature and enforcement agencies, the U.S. motion picture companies have been able to influence some change in the frequency and severity of optical disc piracy in Taiwan. This can be mainly attributed to the Motion Picture Association of America's alliance with the U.S. Trade Representative in placing Taiwan on numerous …

Book Review. Companies, International Trade And Human Rights By Janet Dine, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This is a book review of Janet Dine's Companies, International Trade and Human Rights (2005). While this 9-page review is quite positive, it does offer some criticisms of Dine's analysis and views.

Services As Objects Of International Trade: Bartering The Legal Profession, Louise L. Hill

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The General Agreement on Trade in Service calls for members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to further liberalize and expand opportunities for international trade in services. With legal services included in this mandate, requests for specific commitments and offers have been made by WTO Member States. While services as components of international trade is new to many of the WTO Member States, free movement of services has been addressed by the European Union (EU) since the inception of the European Economic Community. Thus EU directives, declarations, codes and case law serve as valuable resources to WTO Member States as …

Trade And Morality: Preserving "Public Morals" Without Sacrificing The Global Economy, Miguel A. Gonzalez

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The World Trade Organization (WTO) exists for the purpose of promoting and facilitating trade amongst its member nations. When those member nations acceded to the WTO's agreements, however, they acknowledged that sometimes trade barriers are useful tools in protecting themselves from certain evils. This Note addresses one of those useful tools--the public morals exception--which allows a member nation to maintain trade barriers with respect to certain goods or services.

Since the WTO agreements have been in effect, the public morals has lacked two critical things.: a definition and boundaries. This Note will attempt to define the public morals exception in …

Rule-Based Dispute Resolution In International Trade Law, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

Why does the United States ever prefer to settle disputes under a system of rules rather than a system of negotiations? Powerful states are advantaged by negotiation-based approaches to settling disagreements because they have the resources to resolve individual disputes on favorable terms. By contrast, rule-based dispute resolution advantages weak states as a means to hold powerful states to the terms of their agreements. Then why did the United States want a rule-based system to settle international disputes in the WTO? To answer this question, we have to understand domestic politics as well as international politics. International constraints, particularly international …

Labor As Property: Guestworkers, International Trade, And The Democracy Deficit, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

In the 1914 Clayton Act, Congress declared: "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or an article of commerce." The practical reason for this section of the Clayton Act was to exempt collusion in labor negotiations from antitrust liability. The law also gave effect to the rejection of the commodification of human labor. Since the passage of the Clayton Act, developments in law and society have chipped away at the law's symbolic anti-commodification message. This paper examines the commodification of labor in the international trade and guestworker debates. Historically, the concept of "comparative advantage" in international trade …

Agricultural Trade And Developing Countries, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Carmen G. Gonzalez

This article reviews Global Agricultural Trade and Developing Countries, edited by M.A. Aksoy & J.C. Beghin (Washington DC: World Bank, 2004). The book examines key issues in agricultural trade policy that are of particular significance to developing countries. The book’s strength is its painstaking research and detailed and exhaustive analysis of agricultural trade and production policies in a variety of countries and across a variety of commodities. The book provides a clear explanation of the market distortions caused by agricultural protectionism and of the distributional impacts of agricultural trade liberalization. The book’s weakness is its failure to integrate its analysis …