International Law Commons^™

Two Decades Of Trips In China, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter reviews China’s engagement with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) in the past twenty years. It begins by highlighting TRIPS-related developments in the first decade of China’s WTO membership. The chapter then discusses the country’s ‘innovative turn’ in the mid-2000s and the ramifications of its changing policy positions. This chapter continues to examine the US-China trade war, in particular the second TRIPS complaint that the United States filed against China in March 2018. It concludes with observations about the impact of the TRIPS Agreement on China, China’s impact on that agreement and how the …

Cuban Embargo: An Insufficient Measure To Encourage Us Foreign Policy Interests, Esme Jm Prowse

Major Papers

This major paper examines the Cuban embargo as an ineffective hard power policy and explores the potential of soft, hard, and smart power as alternative approaches to resolve the failures of the 60-year-old blockade. The paper analyzes the historical context and rationale behind the embargo and assesses its impact on Cuban-American relations, regional stability, and U.S. national interests. The study argues that the embargo has failed to achieve its intended goals and has instead perpetuated a cycle of hostility, isolation, and human rights abuses. By drawing on the theoretical frameworks of soft, hard, and smart power, the paper presents policy …

A Canadian Perspective On Fifty Years Of International Economic Law, J. Anthony Van Duzer

Dalhousie Law Journal

In 1970, “international economic law” (IEL) was not a distinct academic subject. Fifty years later, IEL has become an important and well-recognized field of legal enquiry, though its boundaries remain unclear. Globalization of trade and investment activity and the concomitant proliferation of trade and investment treaties over the last 50 years have been key drivers of academic interest in IEL and its transformation. The impacts of trade and investment on the protection of the environment and health, Indigenous, labour, and human rights, development, and other policy priorities have become significant subjects of academic discourse and are increasingly addressed in trade …

Cambodia's Law On Secured Transaction, Timothy J. Holzer, Pho Sotheaphal

Akron Law Review

Cambodian law permits the taking of and the perfecting of a security interest in movables (e.g., goods) and in intangibles (e.g., legally enforceable rights, such as contracts and rights in property.) Cambodia’s system is strongly patterned after Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code as developed in the United States. Perfection (i.e. notice to third parties that a security interest exists) is usually effected by the filing of a notice at the Secured Transactions Filing Office (the “STFO”) of the Ministry of Commerce, although sometimes physical possession may be required. However, conflicting or ambiguous provisions in other Cambodian laws may …

Sustaining Vietnamese Economic Development By Improving The Transparency Of Choice Of Law Decisions, Luong Duc Doan, Trinh Thi Hong Nguyen

Akron Law Review

Without a doubt, Vietnam has enjoyed outstanding economic performance since the adoption of doi moi in 1986. To a significant extent, Vietnam has accomplished this through the dramatic increase in international trade and investment. However, further economic progress will be undermined if international partners begin to question the fairness of the Vietnamese legal system – especially in the application of choice of law principles. At best, a perceived lack of transparency in choice of law decisions will increase uncertainty; at worst, it will foster the impression that Vietnamese Courts do not treat international parties fairly. Accordingly, this article recommends that …

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: The United States, Trade Sanctions, And International Blocking Acts, Meaghan Jennison

Catholic University Law Review

When the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA,” colloquially known as the Iran Nuclear Deal) in May of 2018, that withdrawal signaled not only the United States withdrawal from that deal, of which it had been one of the chief negotiators, but also of a new level of trade engagement by the United States and the Trump Administration within the international community. European countries, in an attempt to continue existing business relationships with the Iranians, pulled an old tool from their toolbox – the blocking statute – to attempt to allow European and multinational …

Section 230 And The Duty To Prevent Mass Atrocities, David Sloss

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

"Of course, any proposal to create a statutory exception to section 230 immunity raises a set of complex questions about the proper scope of such an exception. This article identifies the key issues that would need to be resolved if Congress decided to create an exception along these lines. The remainder of this article consists of three parts. The first part explains why removal of immunity from civil liability is an appropriate mechanism to help prevent use of social media to incite or induce commission of mass atrocity crimes. The second part contends that the exception to section 230 immunity …

Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman

Ganesh Sitaraman

There are two paradigms through which to view trade law and policy within the American constitutional system. One paradigm sees trade law and policy as quintessentially about domestic economic policy. Institutionally, under the domestic economics paradigm, trade law falls within the province of Congress, which has legion Article I authorities over commercial matters. The second paradigm sees trade law as fundamentally about America’s relationship with foreign countries. Institutionally, under the foreign affairs paradigm, trade law is the province of the President, who speaks for the United States in foreign affairs. While both paradigms have operated throughout American history, the domestic …

The Jekyll And Hyde Story Of International Trade: The Supreme Court In Phrma V. Walsh And The Trips Agreement, Srividhya Ragavan

Srividhya Ragavan

No abstract provided.

How The United States Stopped Being A Pirate Nation And Learned To Love International Copyright, John A. Rothchild

Pace Law Review

From the time of the first federal copyright law in 1790 until enactment of the International Copyright Act in 1891, U.S. copyright law did not apply to works by authors who were not citizens or residents of the United States. U.S. publishers took advantage of this lacuna in the law, and the demand among American readers for books by popular British authors, by reprinting the books of these authors without their authorization and without paying a negotiated royalty to them.

This Article tells the story of how proponents of extending copyright protections to foreign authors—called international copyright—finally succeeded after more …

Symposium On "International Trade In The Trump Era", Padideh Ala'i

Presentations

Speaker, Symposium on International Trade in the Trump Era, Yale Law School (February 22, 2019) Symposium: International Trade in the Trump EraPanel I: The WTO and the Future of Dispute Settlement in International TradePresented Paper: The Vital Role of the WTO Appellate Body in the Promotion of Rule of Law and International Cooperation: A Case Study

Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There are two paradigms through which to view trade law and policy within the American constitutional system. One paradigm sees trade law and policy as quintessentially about domestic economic policy. Institutionally, under the domestic economics paradigm, trade law falls within the province of Congress, which has legion Article I authorities over commercial matters. The second paradigm sees trade law as fundamentally about America’s relationship with foreign countries. Institutionally, under the foreign affairs paradigm, trade law is the province of the President, who speaks for the United States in foreign affairs. While both paradigms have operated throughout American history, the domestic …

Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman

Faculty Scholarship

There are two paradigms through which to view trade law and policy within the American constitutional system. One paradigm sees trade law and policy as quintessentially about domestic economic policy. Institutionally, under the domestic economics paradigm, trade law falls within the province of Congress, which has legion Article I powers over commercial matters. The second paradigm sees trade law as fundamentally about America’s relationship with foreign countries. Institutionally, under the foreign affairs paradigm, trade law is the province of the President, who speaks for the United States in foreign affairs. While both paradigms have operated throughout American history, the domestic …

Moving Beyond The Wto: A Proposal To Adjudicate Gmo Disputes In An International Environmental Court, Marguerite A. Hutchinson

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article begins with a brief summary of the scientific basis of creating GMOs and its historic precursors. The second section provides an overview of risks to humans and the environment. The third part of this Article analyzes the arguments put forward by both the United States and the E.U., which have defined the conflict between blocs of countries pushing GMOs abroad and those who persistently reject them. The fourth section evaluates the respective regulatory schemes imposed on GMOs by the United States and Europe, domestically and by international treaty. The success of these systems is evaluated in the fifth …

After The Fall: Financial Crisis And The International Order, Robert B. Ahdieh

Robert B. Ahdieh

Recent years have challenged the international order to a degree not seen since World War II — and perhaps the Great Depression. As the U.S. housing crisis metastasized into a financial and economic crisis of grave proportions, and spread to nearly every corner of the globe, the strength of our international institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the Group of Twenty, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and others — was tested as never before. Likewise tested, were the limits of our national commitment to those institutions, to our international obligations, and to global engagement more …

Building Multilateral Anticorruption Enforcement: Analogies Between International Trade & Anti-Bribery Law, Rachel Brewster, Christine Dryden

Faculty Scholarship

In the last twenty years, the United States government has put substantial resources behind the fight against .foreign bribery by using the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to prosecute unilaterally foreign and domestic companies who engage in corruption abroad. The United States is not entirely alone in this effort, but other countries have been far less vigorous in investing resources in investigations and prosecuting cases. Because of the unilateral and extraterritorial nature of FCPA prosecutions, these cases are sometimes controversial as foreign governments resist American influence in their commercial relations.

In response to this international tension, as well as a …

Lodging The Sustainable Development Goals In The International Trade Regime: From Trade Rhetoric To Trade Plethoric, Nasser Alreshaid

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Us-Cuba Trade And The Challenge Of Diversifying A Sugar Economy, 1902-1962, Carmen Diana Deere

Florida Journal of International Law

Prior to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Cuban exports to the United States held a privileged position in the US market. Many of the country’s exports paid at least 20% less in duties than competitors and after 1934, Cuba’s main export—sugar-- had a guaranteed quota in the US market. Yet these trade agreements—specifically, the Reciprocity Convention of 1902 and the Reciprocal Trade Agreement of 1934—have often been criticized by Cuban and US scholars alike as having condemned Cuba to a monoculture economy.

Moreover, critics contend that the treaties led to the dominance of US capital in Cuba’s sugar industry, and …

Transparency Evolution: More Than The Right To Know, Ljiljana Biuković, Pitman B. Potter

All Faculty Publications

Providing an analysis of global regulation and the impact of international organizations on domestic laws, this collection grew out of a central objective to explore methods of domestic engagement with international trade and human rights norms, and the inherent difficulties in establishing balanced links between these two international law regimes. The common thread of the papers in this collection is a focus on the application of socio-legal normative paradigms in building knowledge and policy support for coordinating local performance with international trade and human rights standards in ways that are mutually sustaining.

Refining Statutory Interpretation: How Natural Gas Export Regulations Violate U.S. International Trade Obligations, Amanda L. Tharpe

Catholic University Law Review

As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States is required to abide by nondiscriminatory trade policies when exporting products to other WTO members. Current U.S. policy regulating natural gas exports impose burdensome and lengthy licensing procedures on those requesting approval of a permit to export natural gas to countries with which the U.S. does not have a free trade agreement. A similar commodity, crude oil, is regulated by different regulations that allow for U.S. oil producers to freely export crude oil overseas. This Comment analyzes the differences in federal laws and regulations governing the export of …

Border Crossings: Nafta, Regulatory Restructuring, And The Politics Of Place, Ruth Buchanan

Ruth Buchanan

Professor Buchanan begins her paper by questioning whether recent economic and political shifts towards notions of "globalization" (e.g., the NAFTA) have failed to consider the politics or economics of change in particular places. Her prime example of a "place" where integration is illogically forced against a background of differentiation is the U.S.-Mexico border region. Through the scope of a "regulatory complex" (a complex of legal, institutional, regulatory, and social orderings), she departs from the common view of the NAFTA as a productive tool of North American integration, and instead views the NAFTA as exacerbating "differences between localities, industries, and labor …

Lodging The Sustainable Development Goals In The International Trade Regime: From Trade Rhetoric To Trade Plethoric, Nasser A. Alreshaid

Nasser A Alreshaid

While the international community is stimulated by the new sustainable development goals’ impetus, the global trade regime lives through its 40’s mid-life crisis and anticipates what it does not know. Views of the multilateral trading system being stalled by a proliferation of other preferential trade agreements, signal a deep inquiry into this policy trend. What this paper intends to highlight though, is that if lessons are drawn from the new sustainable development goals, these global trade challenges could be mere air turbulence. By introducing the needs of states and their constituents through these goals, an inclusive and more representative international …

Special Economic Zones In The United States: From Colonial Charters, To Foreign-Trade Zones, Toward Ussezs, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

The Brazilian Amazon Timber Industry And The International Mechanisms Of Timber Trade Control – Combating Illegal Logging And Associated Trade, Juliana Coelho Marcussi

Dissertations & Theses

Illegal logging and its associated trade are one of the main causes of degradation of the Amazonian Rainforest in Brazil. They spring from several deficiencies in the regulatory and monitoring systems. The purpose of this work is to recommend mechanisms to overcome these deficiencies to eliminate illegal logging and its associated trade in the long-term and to enhance the appreciation of the standing forests and the sustainable use of their natural resources.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Brazilian tropical timber market’s trends, and briefly describes the main stages of timber supply chain to build familiarity with the activities …

The Phase-Out And Sunset Of Travel Restrictions In The International Health Regulations, Sarah R. Goldfarb

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Whether and to what extent travel restriction should be implemented during international infectious disease epidemics became a controversial issue, most recently, during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. The primary authority on the manner in which to respond to such epidemics is the International Health Regulations (IHR). The IHR is a treaty, established by the World Health Organization (WHO), which governs and coordinates international responses to international infectious disease epidemics. Despite the WHO's strong advisement to the contrary, many countries who were signatories to the IHR implemented travel bans and other types of travel restrictions to prevent the transmission of the disease …

A Hitchhiker’S Guide To The Oecd’S International Vat/Gst Guidelines, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

The OECD’s International VAT/GST Guidelines, which were released in their consolidated form at the OECD’s Global Forum on VAT in Paris in late 2015, are the culmination of nearly two decades of efforts to provide internationally accepted standards for consumption taxation of cross-border trade, particularly trade in services and intangibles. This article provides a roadmap to the Guidelines, especially for readers who may be unfamiliar with consumption tax principles, in general, or VATs in particular. Part II of the article provides the background to the Guidelines, describing the basic features of a VAT, the problems with which the Guidelines are …

Balancing National Public Policy And Free Trade, Diane A. Desierto

Pace International Law Review

In the wake of the impasse between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and India regarding the ratification of the Protocol to the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that concluded during the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali, Indonesia on December of 2013, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo admitted that while the WTO succeeds in resolving trade disputes and monitoring trade practices, it “has failed to deliver new multilateral results since its creation.” This systemic failure in the trade negotiations pillar of the WTO is evident to all of its 160 Members. It is evident from thirteen years of stalled negotiations under the …

Hollywood's Disappearing Act: International Trade Remedies To Bring Hollywood Home, Claire Wright

Akron Law Review

This article addresses whether the film incentives offered by other countries are consistent with those countries’ obligations under international law and can be countered with countervailing duties under U.S. domestic law. In particular, this article discusses in some detail whether the foreign film incentives are consistent with these countries’ obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (the SCM Agreement)...The question addressed in this article is whether, under U.S. and WTO law, a foreign government can artificially lower the costs of production in an industry to such an extent that a number of U.S. companies …

Sex And Globalization, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

For some time now, I have focused on a mission to bring together the separate discourses of the human rights and trade fields -- certainly not to blend them, but to raise awareness of their myriad interconnections. Indeed, human rights and trade are interlocking pieces of the puzzle we call international law and cannot possibly remain sequestered in the "splendid isolation" in which they have existed since their inception as disciplines. In any study of globalization, especially if one endeavors to pursue its benefits for all persons, not just the elite around the world, one must be aware of and …

Regulation Of Foreign Trade In Korea, Eun Sup Lee

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.