Law Commons^™

Achieving Effective Procurement During A Global Crisis: A Study Of The Uncitral Model Law On Public Procurement And The Wto Agreement On Government Procurement, Dmitri Goubarkov

American University International Law Review

The global nature of the COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges for public procurement systems around the world. Governments everywhere faced an immense pressure to facilitate the rapid procurement of supplies and services needed to support overburdened health and social care systems. Speed and flexibility were needed to address the shortages of protective personal equipment, distribution of ventilators, and increased demand for medications, all of which required governments to forego traditional public procurement methods. Governments had to balance the underlying principles of their procurement systems—namely, competition, integrity, and transparency—against urgency, and do so in a way that does not erode public …

A Dam Over Troubled Waters? The Obligation To Negotiate In Good Faith In Annex "C" Of The Treaty Of Itaipu, Rene Figueredo Corrales

American University International Law Review

The year 2023 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty of Itaipú (“the Treaty”). According to paragraph VI of the Treaty, its provisions are to be reviewed after fifty years have elapsed from the date the Treaty entered into force. In October 2021, João Francisco Ferreira, the former Brazilian representative of the Itaipú binational entity, stated in a press conference what seemed to be a new interpretation of the review provision contained in Annex “C” of the Treaty of Itaipú. He noted that there is no obligation to negotiate Annex “C” if an agreement is …

Is There Force In Force Majeure After Covid-19 Or In The Freedom To Negotiate Risk?, Sara Lazarevic

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

This note explores the impact COVID–19 has had on contracting parties who have attempted to implicate force majeure provisions. An inquiry of recent cases reveals varying degrees of success and tension when parties turn towards force majeure text. This Note analyzes common law alternatives, discusses the implication of force majeure clauses as applied under Mexican and American law, highlights the implications that have played out in recent court decisions, and discusses post–pandemic implications that could affect how parties conduct cross–border transactions in the future.

Keep Calm And Negotiate On: The United Kingdom’S Withdrawal From The European Union And Suggestions For A Smooth Departure, Aryanah Yasmine Eghbal

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article will attempt to both examine the ramifications of the UK’s decision to leave the EU, as well as determine a path to begin the process of renegotiating trade deals with the EU and other countries throughout the world. Part I will begin by providing a brief historical overview of the formation of the EU and a focus on how and when the UK joined the EU. Part II will present the stages of leaving the EU, specifically introducing Article 50 and how it is used. Part III will provide an understanding of what trade deals are, how they …

Sino-American Contract Bargaining And Dispute Resolution, Garrick Apollon

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article offers information on international trade disputes between the U.S. and China. Topics include economic interdependency of Sino-American trade, cross-legal and cross-cultural relationships between the U.S. and China, and the historical and cultural preference for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in China. Other topics include learning of cross-cultural management and international business negotiation.

Book Review, Anna Spain

Publications

No abstract provided.

Lo Que Usted Debe Saber Al Invertir En Una Franquicia En México, Rodolfo C. Rivas Rea Esq., Marco A. Vargas Iñiguez Esq.

Rodolfo C. Rivas

The authors provide a brief account of the increasing importance of franchises in the current economic environment. Furthermore, in this walkthrough the authors discuss the existing legal regime for franchises in Mexico and provide an analysis of the negotiating positions involved in successfully developing a franchise.//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Los autores proporcionan un breve estudio sobre la creciente importancia de las franquicias en el entorno económico actual. Además, los autores analizan el régimen jurídico vigente para las franquicias en México y ofrecen un análisis sobre las negociaciones necesarias para el desarrollo exitoso de una franquicia.

The Alternative Forms Of Dispute Settlement And The Essential Difference Between These And Arbitration, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

The paper examines the characteristics of some common alternative forms of dispute settlement and their key differences from arbitration regarding their nature and scope. Its purpose is to explore each mechanism's suitability for specific types of disputes.

Don't Get Bit: Addressing Icsid's Inconsistent Application Of Most-Favored-Nation Clauses To Dispute Resolution Provisions, Gabriel Egli

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Remedy Gap: Institutional Design, Retaliation, And Trade Law Enforcement, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

One of the major innovations of the World Trade Organization’s (“WTO”) Dispute Settlement Understanding (“DSU”) is the regulation of sanctions in response to violations of trade law. The DSU requires governments to receive multilateral approval before suspending trade concessions and limits the extent of retaliation to prospective damages. In addition, the DSU permits governments to impose only conditional sanctions: sanctions for violations that continue after the dispute resolution process is complete. This enforcement regime creates a remedy gap: governments cannot respond, even to obvious breaches, until the end of the dispute resolution process (and then only to the extent of …

Think Big And Ignore The Law: U.S. Corn And Ethanol Subsidies And Wto Law, Phoenix X.F. Cai

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Everyone should care about what happens at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva. This Article argues that new challenges to US corn and ethanol subsidies are highly likely. Even though at first glance this Article deals with the specialized and esoteric field of international trade law, its sweep is much broader. The subject of this Article is also both timely and salient. Part I explains the multi-layered WTO regime on agriculture and subsidies, with particular emphasis on the delicate interplay among multiple WTO agreements. Part II discusses the Upland Cotton case in detail, highlighting in particular the implications for …

Challenges Facing Investment Disputes: Reconsidering Dispute Resolution In International Investment Agreements, Susan Franck, Karl P. Sauvant, Michael Chiswick-Patterson, Rainer Geiger, José E. Alvarez, M. Sornarajah, Patrick Juillard, Jeswald W. Salacuse, Giorgio Sacerdoti, Anna Joubin-Bret, Hugo Perezcano Díaz, Michael K. Tracton, Christoph Schreuer, Howard Mann, Katia Yannaca-Small, Barton Legum, Jan Paulsson, Asif H. Qureshi, Shandana Gulzar Khan, Christopher Brummer, Brian J. Rapier

Contributions to Books

This volume brings together significant contributions from leading voices in academia, the legal profession and government on the increasingly important topic of international investment and the legal system in which it operates. With the burgeoning size of international capital flows matched only by an explosion in international agreements intending to regulate the field, there is increasing potential for incoherence amongst and between treaties and arbitral decisions.

Appeals Mechanism in International Investment Disputes compiles, compares and contrasts the analysis and arguments of the leading scholars, practitioners and government officials on the future of the international investment law regime. Its special emphasis …

Challenges Facing Investment Disputes: Reconsidering Dispute Resolution In International Investment Agreements, Susan Franck

Contributions to Books

International investment and international investment agreements have experienced a particular level of growth in the past few decades. With that growth and the granting of affirmative dispute resolution rights to foreign investors, international investment conflict has become increasingly highlighted; and one particular methodology - namely investment treaty arbitration - has become particularly visible. Reliance on this single option for resolving conflict has a unique set of systemic implications. This chapter therefore takes a more systemic look at investment treaty conflict and, in an effort to provide an appropriate historical and doctrinal framework, approaches to dispute resolution broadly. It asks for …

The Promotion Of Free-Trade Areas Viewed In Terms Of Most-Favored-Nation Treatment And "Imperial Preference", Sydney M. Cone Iii

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article will first examine the relevant WTO provisions that permit free-trade agreements as exceptions to MFN treatment. It will then situate current U.S. policy in the context of the history and purpose of those provisions. Next, the discussion of history and purpose will take up a key debate in the original GATT negotiations, in which the United States championed MFN treatment, while European countries, in particular, Great Britain, sought to retain preferential trading arrangements-arrangements once associated with the rubric of "imperial preference." Against this background, the article will explore the question of whether current U.S. policy represents a reversion …

Labor Rights, Globalization And Institutions: The Role And Influence Of The Organization For Economic Cooperation And Development, James Salzman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article has four sections. The first recounts the history of the OECD, from its creation as the overseer of the Marshall Plan to its current prominence as global economic analyst, and explains its operations. The second section explores its influence on the development of labor rights, examining the well-known OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, publications on trade and labor by the Employment, Labor and Social Affairs Directorate, and the events surrounding South Korea's accession to the OECD. Each of these activities, though quite different from one another (and, in combination, very different from the activities of other IGOs), provided …

Getting Along: The Evolution Of Dispute Resolution Regimes In International Trade Organizations, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the face of the remarkable growth of international organizations in the last fifty years, scholars in multiple disciplines have sought to explain why and how states cooperate. Dispute resolution is one of the most crucial components of international cooperation. Examining the dispute resolution regimes of international organizations in light of these theories can inform and help reform these evolving regimes.

U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaties: The Second Wave, Kenneth J. Vandevelde

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article describes and appraises the second wave of negotiations. It functions as a sequel to an earlier article that described the first ten years of the program. Although the second wave of negotiations continues, and thus any conclusions about it necessarily are tentative, the second wave already has developed a variety of characteristics that distinguish it from the first wave. The goal of this Article is to identify the ways in which the second wave appears to differ from the first and to assess the significance of the differences.

Negotiating Investment In The Gatt: A Call For Functionalism, Paul Bryan Christy Iii

Michigan Journal of International Law

In part, this article is about the conflict between literalism and functionalism in the GATT. It examines an attempt in the Uruguay Round to negotiate rules on foreign direct investment - the so-called trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) negotiations. Foreign direct investment is often a stage in the internationalization of enterprises; it is helpful to the trade of goods producers and necessary to the trade of many services providers. Affected by the output-oriented history of the GATT, however, the Contracting Parties have treated investment as though it were simply one of three legs of an economic triangle: goods, services, investment. In …

The Structural Impediments Initiative: An Example Of Bilateral Trade Negotiation, Mitsuo Matsushita

Michigan Journal of International Law

In June 1990, the governments of the United States and Japan concluded the Structural Impediments Initiative ("SII"), a series of bilateral trade negotiations. The SII came about as a result of a large trade imbalance between the two countries in favor of Japan, which, despite many efforts, the United States and Japan had been unable to reduce. It was the U.S. government's perception that the real cause of the trade imbalance was not Japan's protective border measures in the form of tariffs or quantitative restrictions, such as import quotas on agricultural and leather products, but rather the oligopolistic industrial sector …

Japan, Sii And The International Harmonization Of Domestic Economic Practices, Gary R. Saxonhouse

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Structural Impediments Initiative ("SII") discussions, the first stage of which concluded with a report on June 28 of last year, have been heralded as a new departure in international economic relations. Instead of talking about the removal of barriers at national borders, the United States and Japan have been discussing the relationship between international trade, international payments balances and domestic economic institutions. Trade negotiators have been exploring whether the harmonization of domestic economic institutions can allow for more intimate as well as more balanced economic relations between the United States and Japan. Concern with the international harmonization of institutions …

The Sale Of A Unique Object In The Open Market, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Implementing The Tokyo Round: Legal Aspects Of Changing International Economic Rules, John H. Jackson, Jean-Victor Louis, Mitsuo Matsushita

Michigan Law Review

International economic and political interdependence has increased dramatically since the close of World War II. We now watch foreign wars on our living room television sets, move billions of dollars worth of funds across national borders daily, and feel the effects of political violence in the Mideast throughout our domestic farmlands. A corollary to economic and political interdependence, however, is the less visible but equally pervasive problem of legal interdependence. Any attempt, in the contemporary world, to create new international rules or institutions necessarily depends on the national legal and constitutional systems of a number of countries. This Article analyzes …

Non-Tariff Import Restrictions: Remedies Available In United States Law, Craig Mathews

Michigan Law Review

Since World War II, a fundamental objective of the foreign policy of the United States has been to strengthen political and economic relationships among free-world nations. An integral element of this policy has been the expansion of international trade on mutually beneficial terms. The legal and practical problems of reducing or eliminating restrictions on the international movement of commodities have therefore assumed a major importance.

International commodity transactions have traditionally been subject to a wide range of such restrictions. In the case of imports, the most familiar barriers are tariffs and formal quotas or embargoes imposed by national governments. In …