International Law Commons^™

The Tax Expenditure Budget Is A Zombie Accountant, Steven Dean

Faculty Scholarship

Like a student blocking his access to the internet to help him study, governments across the globe rely on commitment devices to generate fiscal discipline. From the collapse of the Congressional Supercommittee in the United States to the near-cataclysmic failure of a mechanism designed to prevent the European Union debt crisis, the evidence suggests that faith in such commitment devices is misplaced. This Article focuses on one such device that stubbornly refuses to stay dead: the tax expenditure budget. Created to guard against abuse by publicizing the costs of tax subsidies then resurrected as a bean counter, the tax expenditure …

Real-Time Collection Of The Value-Added Tax: Some Business And Legal Implications, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Boryana Madzharova

Faculty Scholarship

Recent estimates of the level of VAT fraud in the EU are commensurate with the EU budget. With the Green paper on the future of VAT, the European Commission stressed the urgency and necessity of comprehensive VAT reforms. This paper analyses the business and legal implications of the recently proposed split-payment mechanism, which, if implemented, would move VAT’s method of collection to real-time. The discussion is positioned in the context of two increasingly visible trends in the EU – the general shift towards greater reliance on indirect taxation and the growing popularity of electronic payment instruments. The potential implementation of …

Vat Fraud In The Customer Chain - The German Perfect Storm Cases, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

German civil and criminal courts have not always agreed over whether to allow a taxpayer to zero-rate intra-Community supplies when the taxpayer making the supply knew (or should have known) that his buyer in the other Member State intended to fraudulently evade VAT as a missing trader. This is no longer the case. Zero-rating of intra-community supplies is now being denied in German civil and criminal courts.

This paper considers how far Germany appears to be extending the law in this area. In 2011 six cases were heard by the Bundesfinanzhof (German Supreme Tax Court) that demonstrate both (a) the …

Mahagében Kft & Péter Dávid: Re-Directing The Eu Vat's Perfect Storm, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On June 21, 2012 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered judgment on two Hungarian references, Mahagében kft v. Nemzeti Adó-és Vámhivatal Dél-dunántúli Regionális Adó Fölgazgatósága and Péter Dávid v. Nemzeti Adó-és Vámhivatal Dél-dunántúli Regionális Adó Fölgazgatósága (Mahagében/Dávid). The Mahagében/Dávid decisions clarify the CJEU’s earlier holdings in the joined cases of Alex Kittel v. Belgium and Belgium v. Recolta Recycling SPRL (Kittel/Recolta).

Kittel/Recolta is a critically important decision. It is central to the EU’s anti-fraud effort. It is one of three legal imperatives that earlier this year appeared to be coalescing into a Perfect (enforcement) Storm.

After …

International Arbitration And The Ends Of Appellate Review, Irene M. Ten Cate

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Refund Fraud? - Real-Time Solution! Digital Security Borrowed From The Vat (Brazil, Quebec, & Belgium), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This article provides support for a proposal to eliminate refund fraud in the U.S. by turning Forms W-2, and 1099 into self-certified/ self-authenticated tax documents. The proposal suggests that a “digital signature” of these documents should be taken after they are completed. The signature should then be made part of the final document.

This proposal was initially advanced in Refund Fraud? Real-Time Solution! The underlying premise of that article was that the US could dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, refund fraud if it borrowing digital security techniques from the VAT. The article did not however, explain or expand upon these …

The Four Into One Platform: New Reform Initiatives Compound China's Dissected Public Procurement Governance, Daniel J. Mitterhoff

Faculty Scholarship

For over ten years now, supervision and implementation of public purchasing activities in China has largely been divided among government agencies that jealously guard their share of their regulatory pie and covet the regulatory province of other agencies. Yet vested interests are now on the defensive, as a reform process seeks to collapse the segregated regulatory regimes into a more centralized governance structure. The idea is to combine construction tendering and bidding, government procurement, public land-use auctions and public asset exchanges under one management structure called the “Public Resources Exchange Center.” Hence, some refer to the reforms as the “four …

Transfer Pricing: The Cup -- Case Studies: Australia, Us, Uk, Norway And Canada, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact

Faculty Scholarship

All transfer pricing regimes give priority to the comparable uncontrolled price (CUP) method. Despite declarations that transfer pricing is a search for the “best method” or “most appropriate method,” all systems concede that the search is over when an exact comparable is found because a CUP is preferred over all methods. The best CUP is an exact CUP because it provides an arm’s length price that is not calculated. The price emerges directly from the comparison.

CUPs have traditionally been the most commonly applied method for both taxpayers and the government. They are the judicial gold standard. They hold sway …

An American Look At Zappers: A Paper For The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Revisionssicheres System Zur Aufzeichnung Von Kassenvorgängen Und Messinformationenthe, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The common observation in the U.S. is that enforcement against technology-facilitated sales suppression has fallen through an intra-jurisdictional crack. Neither federal nor state auditors systemically target this area. But this is changing, and the change is coming from the state side.

This paper has two main parts. First, it summarizes the current state of sales suppression enforcement in the U.S. Secondly, it reviews the international solutions that are attracting the most U.S. attention. A conclusion indicates likely directions for U.S. enforcement.

Georgia is the first state to take action. On May 3, 2011 Georgia added code section 16-9-62 to Georgia …

Transfer Pricing: Data Dumps And Comparability - Us, Uk, Canadian, And Australian Case Studies, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact

Faculty Scholarship

Comparability is the heart of transfer pricing. The OECD, U.K., Canadian, Australian, and U.S. transfer pricing rules all echo one another on how critically important the comparability analysis is. Performing this analysis and proving comparability, however, is a demanding exercise.

What makes proving comparability so difficult is that the analysis is two sided. Both controlled and uncontrolled transactions must be thoroughly analyzed. Just as much effort needs to be applied to determine the functions, contract terms, risks and the economic conditions for the unrelated party comparables as is spent on analyzing the related parties (taxpayers).

But there is more to …

Stare Decisis And Foreign Affairs, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines whether the jurisprudential and institutional premises of the doctrine of stare decisis retain their validity in the field of foreign affairs. The proper role of the judicial branch in foreign affairs has provoked substantial scholarly debates—historical, institutional, normative—since the very founding of the republic. Precisely because of the sensitivity of the subject, the Supreme Court itself has both cautioned about the judicial branch’s comparative lack of expertise in the field and recognized a web of deference doctrines designed to protect against improvident judicial action. Notwithstanding all of this, however, neither the Supreme Court nor any scholar has …

The Emergence Of The New Chinese Banking System: Implications For Global Politics And The Future Of Financial Reform, Shruti Rana

Faculty Scholarship

As the current financial crisis spreads from country to country around the world, China’s new-found financial and political power is dominating global, financial, and political arenas. China’s recent rise to power deserves increased scrutiny as China’s experience may offer lessons and models for other countries struggling with financial chaos. These remarks begin a dialogue over the lessons that can be learned from China’ ascent to power, and considers some of implications of China’s rise. It also contrasts China’s experience with that of Western countries, who have approached financial reform from entirely different perspectives. After considering these perspectives, and providing an …

Treaty Double Jeopardy: The Oecd Anti-Bribery Convention And The Fcpa, Michael P. Van Alstine

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the possibility of "double jeopardy" protection arising from an international treaty. In specific, it examines whether, either as a matter of general principle or from the treaty's express provisions, the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery of Foreign Public Officials protects a defendant from multiple or successive prosecutions under our domestic Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The Tangled Law And Politics Of Religious Freedom, Peter G. Danchin

Faculty Scholarship

This symposium Essay comments on four interrelated themes regarding the right to religious liberty in international law that emerge from Seval Yildirim's article Global Tangles: Laws, Headcoverings and Religious Identity, 10 SANTA CLARA J. INT’L L. 52 (2012). The first is the paradoxical language of freedom in struggles over attempts to proscribe the wearing of the hijab, especially regarding the principles of gender equality and women’s rights. The second is the apparent comfort that governance feminism exhibits with the state imposition of new (presumably woman liberationist) norms and how institutions such as courts may act not only as …

Sealand, Havenco, And The Rule Of Law, James Grimmelmann

Faculty Scholarship

In 2000, a group of American entrepreneurs moved to a former World War II anti-aircraft platform in the North Sea, seven miles off the British coast, and launched HavenCo, one of the strangest start-ups in Internet history. A former pirate radio broadcaster, Roy Bates, had occupied the platform in the 1960s, moved his family aboard, and declared it to be the sovereign Principality of Sealand. HavenCo's founders were opposed to governmental censorship and control of the Internet; by putting computer servers on Sealand, they planned to create a "data haven" for unpopular speech, safely beyond the reach of any other …

Libya: A Multilateral Constitutional Moment?, Catherine Powell

Faculty Scholarship

The Libya intervention of 2011 marked the first time that the UN Security Council invoked the “responsibility to protect” principle (RtoP) to authorize use of force by UN member states. In this comment the author argues that the Security Council’s invocation of RtoP in the midst of the Libyan crisis significantly deepens the broader, ongoing transformation in the international law system’s approach to sovereignty and civilian protection. This transformation away from the traditional Westphalian notion of sovereignty has been unfolding for decades, but the Libyan case represents a further normative shift from sovereignty as a right to sovereignty as a …

Is Europe Headed Down The Primrose Path With Mandatory Mediation, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Stateless Babies & Adoption Scams: A Bioethical Analysis Of International Commercial Surrogacy, Seema Mohapatra

Faculty Scholarship

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and nowhere is this more evident than when examining the real stories related to international commercial surrogacy that have occurred in the last few years. This Article utilizes these recent cases to analyze this industry using a bioethical lens. Bioethicists use stories effectively to demonstrate how theory and normative ideals apply to real world situations. By detailing examples of some of the unique scenarios that have arisen in far-flung cities of India, the United States, and the Ukraine, this Article highlights some of the bioethical dilemmas such stories raise. This Article examines these stories …

Dating The State: The Moral Hazards Of Winning Gay Rights, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

On August 1, 2009, a masked man dressed in black carrying an automatic weapon stormed into Beit Pazi in Tel Aviv, the home of the Aguda, the National Association of GLBT in Israel. He opened fire on a group of gay and lesbian teenagers who were meeting in the basement for "Bar-Noar," or "Youth Bar," killing two people and wounding at least ten others. This terrible act of violence attracted immediate national and international attention and condemnation. President Simon Peres declared the next day:

[T]he shocking murder carried out in Tel Aviv yesterday against youths and young people is a …

Reversible Rewards, Omri Ben-Shahar, Anu Bradford

Faculty Scholarship

This article offers a new mechanism of private enforcement, combining sanctions and rewards into a scheme of “reversible rewards.” The enforcing party sets up a precommitted fund and offers it as reward to another party to refrain from violation. If the violator turns down the reward, the enforcer can use the money in the fund for one purpose only – to pay for punishment of the violator. The article shows that this scheme doubles the effect of funds invested in enforcement and allows the enforcer to stop violations that would otherwise be too costly to deter. It argues that reversible …

Eparpillement Aux Quatre Vents: La Fragmentation Du Droit Du Sport, Giovanni Distefano, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

Scattering to the Four Winds: The Fragmentation of Sports Law

Sports Law is characterized by a multiplicity of sources: from the outset, law-making function was mainly carried out by different and competent sports associations (both national and international). Two major events have wreaked havoc: on one side, the ever-increasing professionalization of sports business has given birth to the outcrop of private associations – active in a sort of grey and undefined area – torn between public authority ans free market; on the other side, international federations have been called upon to manage those same associations. Lack of institutional and substantive …

Arbitrating Trade Disputes (Who's The Boss?), Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

World Trade Organization (“WTO”) dispute settlement has attracted a lot of interest over the years and there is a plethora of academic papers focusing on various aspects of this system. Paradoxically, there is little known about the identity of the WTO judges: since, at the end of the day, the WTO has evolved into the busiest forum litigating state-to-state disputes. There are many writings regarding the appointment process in other international tribunals. At the risk of doing injustice to many papers on this issue, we should mention the following works: Terris et al. look at various courts and especially those …

One (Firm) Is Not Enough: A Legal-Economic Analysis Of Ec-Fasteners, Chad P. Brown, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

The WTO’s Appellate Body (AB) dealt with a number of issues for the first time in the Report of EC-Fasteners. Importantly, the AB discussed the consistency of the European Union (EU) regulation with the multilateral rules on the conditions for deviating from the obligation to calculate individual dumping margins. Although China formally won the argument, the AB may have opened the door to treat China as a non-market economy (NME) even beyond 2016 when China’s NME-status was thought to expire under the terms of China’s 2001 WTO Accession Protocol. The AB further dealt with numerous other issues ranging from statistical …

A Development Model Meets Piracy In Paraguay, James M. Cooper, Carlos Ruffinelli

Faculty Scholarship

This essay will explore the dynamics behind Paraguay's economy, political stability, legal culture, and geopolitical conditions that make the protection of IP rights a major challenge. Part I of this essay details Paraguay's current condition in a socioeconomic, political, and developmental context. Part II of this essay explores how Paraguay's lack of economic opportunities, relaxed enforcement regime, and cultural tradition create conditions where the counterfeiting industry flourishes. Part III of this essay examines some of the international IP rights agreements to which Paraguay is a party, and it examines how these agreements might help strengthen the IP rights regime in …

The Common Heritage Of Mankind: Past, Present, And Future, John E. Noyes

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reflects on what has happened to the principle of the common heritage of humankind (the CH principle whereby all manage resources and share in the rewards of exploiting them, even if they are not able to participate in that exploitation) including recent developments affecting its implementation and its possible future. Part II of this essay discusses what the CH principle means in international law. This discussion involves three questions: To what situations does the principle apply? What are its components or elements? And what is its legal status? Parts III and IV suggest that "context" is essential to …

Evaluating The Palestinians’ Claimed Right Of Return, Andrew Kent

Faculty Scholarship

This Article takes on a question at the heart of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian dispute: did Israel violate international law during the conflict of 1947-49 either by expelling Palestinian civilians or by subsequently refusing to repatriate Palestinian refugees? Palestinians have claimed that Israel engaged in illegal ethnic cleansing, and that international law provides a "right of return" for the refugees displaced during what they call al-Nakbah (the catastrophe). Israel has disagreed, blaming Arab aggression and unilateral decisions by Arab inhabitants for the refugees' flight, and asserting that international law provides no right of the refugees to return to Israel. Each side …

Use Of Comparative Law In Determining The Customary International Law Of Human Rights, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

Comparative law method is essential to determining the customary international law status of rules of human rights law. Doing the hard, detailed work of comparative law is necessary if we are to give up on the unfortunate tendency to make overly broad, unsupported claims that wide varieties of human rights have passed into customary international law.

The traditional use of only interstate practice in determining rules of customary international law is insufficient where the rules concern relationships between states and individuals, especially their own nationals. This, however, is the essence of human rights law.

Comparative law techniques allow, and are …

Comparative Law And International Human Rights Law: Non-Retroactivity And Lex Certa In Criminal Law, Kenneth S. Gallant

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The "Gateway" Problem In International Commercial Arbitration, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

Participants in international commercial arbitration have long recognized the need to maintain arbitration as an effective and therefore attractive alternative to litigation, while still ensuring that its use is predicated on the consent of the parties and that the resulting awards command respect. A priori, at least, all participants – parties, counsel, arbitrators, arbitral institutions – have an interest in ensuring that arbitration delivers the various advantages associated with it, notably speed, economy, informality, technical expertise, and avoidance of national fora, while producing awards that withstand judicial challenge and otherwise enjoy legitimacy.

National courts play a potentially important policing role …

Sovereign Wealth Funds And Global Finance, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter focuses on a number of specific sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) whose portfolios indicate strong interests in finance both in their home countries and abroad. It first reviews empirical evidence that shows SWFs having been major investors in Western financial intermediaries for decades. It then considers the organization and governance of SWFs, with particular emphasis on the three main schools of thought as well as the predictions one can derive from them vis-à-vis the behavior of individual actors in the global financial network: economic theories, economic sociology, and political economy. It also presents case studies that “test” these theories …