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Articles 1 - 27 of 27
Full-Text Articles in Law
How To Treat The Wto's Problem With Precedent, Timothy Meyer
How To Treat The Wto's Problem With Precedent, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article argues that the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body (AB), or a successor body, must become more transparent in justifying its decision to rely (or not) on prior decisions. The AB's practice of precedent-which the United States cited as a cause of its decision to paralyze the AB by blocking new appointments-is similar to how it has approached "likeness" in nondiscrimination cases. It placed a lot of weight on whether two cases (or products) are sufficiently similar to be compared, and it spent relatively less time substantively justifying its treatment of prior cases. Because the WTO does not have …
Leveling The Playing Field: Industrial Policy And Export-Contingent Subsidies In India-Export Related Measures, Timothy Meyer, Swati Dhingra
Leveling The Playing Field: Industrial Policy And Export-Contingent Subsidies In India-Export Related Measures, Timothy Meyer, Swati Dhingra
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In India–Export Related Measures, the United States challenged a range of Indian measures as prohibited export-contingent subsidies, and a WTO panel largely agreed. This article examines the factors at play in the United States’ decision to bring the challenge. At the level of policy, the United States case reflects India’s graduation from the protections afforded developing nations’ export-contingent subsidies under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. A closer examination, however, shows that India ramped up its export-contingent subsidies just as the SCM Agreement required it to wind those subsidies down. Moreover, the expanded Indian subsidies led to increased import …
Fintech And International Financial Regulation, Yesha Yadav
Fintech And International Financial Regulation, Yesha Yadav
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article shows that fintech exacerbates the difficulties of standard setting in international financial regulation. Earlier work introduced the "Innovation Trilemma" (the Trilemma). When seeking to balance the goals of achieving market integrity and innovation through clear and simple rulemaking, regulators can-at best-achieve only two out of these three objectives. Fintech's unique characteristics- a reliance on automation and artificial intelligence, novel types of big data, as well as the use of disintermediating financial supply chains comprising a mix of traditional firms as well as technology specialists and newcomers-complicates the application of the Trilemma. Rulemaking struggles to achieve needed clarity where …
Misaligned Lawmaking, Timothy Meyer
Misaligned Lawmaking, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article makes three contributions. First, it introduces the Misalignment Thesis in the context of U.S. trade policy. The Misalignment Thesis is a descriptive claim about how the structure of a legislative bargain influences the long-term stability and effectiveness of that bargain. Second, the Article introduces the normative corollary to the Misalignment Thesis: if political stability hinges on respecting the legislative bargain, interdependent policies should be subject to renegotiation on the same timeline and implementation on the same terms. In light of this prescription, I offer three concrete proposals for aligning trade liberalization and trade adjustment assistance in order to …
The Law And Politics Of Socially Inclusive Trade, Timothy Meyer
The Law And Politics Of Socially Inclusive Trade, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
American ambivalence toward international institutions is nothing new. In his farewell address, George Washington famously warned against foreign entanglements. After World War I, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, leaving the United States outside the formal post-war order it helped establish and neutering the new League of Nations. Throughout the late twentieth century, the United States refused to ratify multilateral agreements ranging from the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to a host of human rights agreements. Nor did the dawn of the twenty-first century change the …
Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman
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 …
A Blueprint For A New American Trade Policy, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman
A Blueprint For A New American Trade Policy, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In recent years, it has become clear that American trade policy needs to change. For decades, U.S. policy has reflected the implicit assumption that trade liberalization is beneficial for everyone, with few distributional downsides over time. But this assumption hasn’t been borne out. Instead, decades of trade liberalization have led to a backlash that resulted in both 2016 presidential nominees opposing the Obama Administration’s proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). And since 2017, President Donald Trump has begun a trade war with China; raised tariffs on the grounds of protecting national security; renegotiated NAFTA, though on terms that do not obviously …
Restoring Trade's Social Contract, Timothy Meyer, Frank J. Garcia
Restoring Trade's Social Contract, Timothy Meyer, Frank J. Garcia
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
As we write, the United States, Canada, and Mexico are renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These talks—and their possible failure—represent the biggest shift in U.S. economic policy in a generation. Since NAFTA came into force in 1994, it has transformed the North American economy. NAFTA has made possible continent-wide supply chains, in industries like the auto sector, that have reduced costs and allowed American automakers to remain competitive; it has opened markets for American agriculture; it has greatly increased the standard of living in Mexico; and it has reduced consumer prices across the continent. Despite these gains, …
Saving The Political Consensus In Favor Of Free Trade, Timothy Meyer
Saving The Political Consensus In Favor Of Free Trade, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
2016 is the year that the political consensus in favor of liberalized international trade collapsed. Across the world, voters’ belief that international trade agreements lead to economic inequality threatens to derail ratification of the next generation of trade agreements and undo the substantial gains made under existing arrangements. The United States elected Donald Trump president on a platform of rolling back or renegotiating trade agreements. President Trump has moved to fulfill that promise immediately upon taking office by “unsigning” the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the most recent major effort to liberalize global trading rules, and initiating efforts to renegotiate the North …
Plain Packaging And The Interpretation Of The Trips Agreement, Daniel J. Gervais, Susy Frankel
Plain Packaging And The Interpretation Of The Trips Agreement, Daniel J. Gervais, Susy Frankel
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Plain packaging of cigarettes as a way of reducing tobacco consumption and its related health costs and effects raises a number of international trade law issues. The plain packaging measures adopted in Australia impose strict format requirements on word trademarks (such as Marlboro or Camel) and ban the use of figurative marks (colors, logos, etc.). As a result, questions have been raised as to plain packaging’s compatibility with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).
WTO members can validly take measures to protect and promote public health, but in doing so they …
Plain Packaging And The Trips Agreement: A Response To Professors Davison, Mitchell And Voon, Daniel J. Gervais
Plain Packaging And The Trips Agreement: A Response To Professors Davison, Mitchell And Voon, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The issue of plain packaging is at the very core of the intersection between trade law, intellectual property and public health. Unlike the issue of export of generic pharmaceuticals, which was addressed in the World Trade Organization by the adoption of a specific Declaration and notification system, it seems that plain packaging will be addressed by the WTO Dispute-Settlement Body. A report prepared by the author in 2010 discussing the intellectual property aspects of plain packaging was critiqued by Professors Davison, Mitchell and Voon in several publications and submissions, including a recent book. In this article, the author responds to …
The Google Book Settlement And The Trips Agreement, Daniel J. Gervais
The Google Book Settlement And The Trips Agreement, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The proposed amended settlement in the Google Book case has been the focus of numerous comments and critiques. This "perspective" reviews the compatibility of the proposed settlement with the TRIPS Agreement and relevant provisions of the Berne Convention that were incorporated into TRIPS, in particular the no-formality rule, the most-favored nation (MFN) clause, national treatment obligations, and the so-called three-step test.
Golan V. Holder: A Look At The Constraints Imposed By The Berne Convention, Daniel J. Gervais
Golan V. Holder: A Look At The Constraints Imposed By The Berne Convention, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
One of the central issues in the Golan v. Holder litigation is the extent to which the United States had flexibility to tailor the protection of existing works that had fallen in the public domain when it joined the Berne Convention. This Essay argues that the Berne Convention obligates the United States as a Berne Union member to provide some degree of protection, but otherwise leaves wide latitude to set the conditions under which works in the public domain receive retroactive copyright protection. The Convention itself does not mandate that any particular level of protection be granted to such works …
Reinventing Lisbon: The Case For A Protocol To The Lisbon Agreement (Geographical Indications), Daniel J. Gervais
Reinventing Lisbon: The Case For A Protocol To The Lisbon Agreement (Geographical Indications), Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The Doha Development Agenda (Doha Round) of multilateral trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) may fail unless a solution to the establishment of a multilateral register for geographical indications on wines and spirits (GIs) foreseen in the TRIPS Agreement is found. Failure of the Doha Round would entail serious intended and unintended consequences for the world trading system. Europe’s insistence on a Doha deal on GIs in now accompanied by demands from several developing countries for an extension of GI protection to products other than wines and spirits. Those demanders consider the current emphasis on alcoholic beverages to …
The 1909 Copyright Act In International Context, Daniel J. Gervais
The 1909 Copyright Act In International Context, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The passage of the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act was embedded in a significant period of evolution for international copyright law. Just a year before, the Berne Convention had been revised for the second time. This Berlin (1908) Act of the Convention in remembered in particular for the introduction of a broad prohibition against formalities concerning the "exercise and enjoyment" of copyright. 1909 was also just one year before a new copyright bill was brought before the Brit-ish Parliament. This Copyright Act, finally adopted in December 1911 and which entered into force in July 1, 1912, greatly influenced laws in many …
Micro-Offsets And Macro-Transformation: An Inconvenient View Of Climate Change Justice, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Brooke A. Ackerly, Fred E. Forster
Micro-Offsets And Macro-Transformation: An Inconvenient View Of Climate Change Justice, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Brooke A. Ackerly, Fred E. Forster
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
We have been asked to examine climate change justice by discussing the methods of allocating the costs of addressing climate change among nations. Our analysis suggests that climate and justice goals cannot be achieved by better allocating the emissions reduction burdens of current carbon mitigation proposals — there may be no allocation of burdens using current approaches that achieves both climate and justice goals. Instead, achieving just the climate goal without exacerbating justice concerns, much less improving global justice, will require focusing on increasing well-being and inducing fundamental changes in development patterns to generate greater levels of well-being with reduced …
The Protection Of Databases, Daniel J. Gervais
The Protection Of Databases, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
In Parts I and II of this Paper, the author analyzes the legal protection of databases first in international treaties, in particular the Berne Convention and the WTO TRIPS Agreement, and second under national and regional copyright, sui generis, or other (e.g., tort) law in Europe (both the European Directive on the legal protection of databases of 1996, which was under review, and a number of relevant national laws), the United States, and a number of foreign jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, China, Nigeria, Russia, and Singapore). In Part III, the author provides a critical analysis of the effort to expand the …
Intellectual Property, Trade & Development: The State Of Play, Daniel J. Gervais
Intellectual Property, Trade & Development: The State Of Play, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article considers, first, available economic, social, and cultural analyses of the impact of intellectual property protection in developing countries. Economics provides a useful set of analytical tools and are directly relevant, in particular since the successfully arranged marriage of IP and trade rules after which it became inevitable that IP rules would be measured using an economic yardstick. The Paper also considers the claim that making proper intellectual property policy is impossible or inherently unreliable because theoretical models are inadequate or valid empirical data unavailable. Against this backdrop, the Article then examines the emergence of the World Trade Organization …
Towards A New Core International Copyright Norm: The Reverse Three-Step Test, Daniel J. Gervais
Towards A New Core International Copyright Norm: The Reverse Three-Step Test, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This paper argues that international copyright treaties, such as the WTO TRIPS Agreement, should no longer be developed as sets of minimum standards with a standardized exception filter, namely the three-step test, but rather include a normative standard for the copyright rights themselves. In seeking harmony between rights and exceptions, and in light of copyright haphazard evolution (by simply adding new rights when a new way of using protected content was invented), a single new core norm is proposed: the reverse three-step test.
Symposium: International Legal Dimensions Of Art And Cultural Property, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Symposium: International Legal Dimensions Of Art And Cultural Property, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The market for art and cultural property is international. Demand is intense and not particularly local in terms of consumer preference. 2 Supply responds to this intense international demand. Like most anything else, art finds its way to whomever is prepared to pay for it. Regulation affects how it arrives at its ultimate destination, but generally does not prevent it from getting there. Apart from this international market, legal and policy aspects of art and cultural property have a distinctly international flavor due to historical circumstance. Since many works over time have been removed from their source by way of …
Explaining The International Ceo Pay Gap: Board Capture Or Market Driven?, Randall Thomas
Explaining The International Ceo Pay Gap: Board Capture Or Market Driven?, Randall Thomas
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
If we look at convergence through the lens of the Risk Adjustment Theory, then international pay convergence will only occur if U.S. and foreign CEOs' firm-specific risk levels converge. Empirically, this is a difficult claim to test because of the paucity of data available on CEOs' individual wealth levels and stockholdings. The one component we can most easily observe, stock option usage, is presently quite different, with U.S. levels far exceeding those abroad. For the near future, this trend seems likely to continue, making it difficult to forecast convergence any time soon. The international executive pay gap is one of …
Fragmented Copyright, Fragmented Management: Proposals To Defrag Copyright Management, Daniel J. Gervais, Alana Maurushat
Fragmented Copyright, Fragmented Management: Proposals To Defrag Copyright Management, Daniel J. Gervais, Alana Maurushat
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The collective management of copyright in Canada was conceived as a solution to alleviate the problem of inefficiency of individual rights management. Creators could not license, collect and enforce copyright efficiently on an individual basis. Requiring users to obtain permission from individual copyright holders for the use of a work was equally inefficient. Collectives, therefore, emerged to facilitate the clearance of rights between creators and users. Even with the facilitation of collectives in the process, clearing rights remains an inherently difficult and convoluted process. This is especially so in the age of the Internet where clearing rights for multimedia products …
The Dangers Of Deference: International Claim Settlement By The President, Ingrid Wuerth
The Dangers Of Deference: International Claim Settlement By The President, Ingrid Wuerth
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
During the final months of the Clinton administration, the State Department entered into a trio of unprecedented international agreements with France (the "French Agreement"), Germany (the "German Agreement"), and Austria (the "Austrian Agreement"). These "sole" executive agreements, designed to resolve litigation pending in the U.S. courts that arose out of World War II and the Holocaust, were made without Senate ratification(as required for a treaty) or congressional authorization (as in a congressional- executive agreement). Although executive branch settlement of claims without Senate or congressional approval has a long history, these executive agreements mark an important departure from prior practice by …
Collective Management Of Copyright And Neighboring Rights In Canada: An International Perspective, Daniel J. Gervais
Collective Management Of Copyright And Neighboring Rights In Canada: An International Perspective, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
It is a generally held view that copyright in civil law countries is a child of the French Revolution and should be considered an inalienable right of the author, a human right in other words. In fact, it is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Granted, in several cases the economic component of the right is transferred to, e.g., a publisher or a producer, but it remains, at source, a right of the author, the creator of the protected work (or object of a related right). By contrast, one often hears that, in common law jurisdictions, …
The Internationalization Of Intellectual Property: New Challenges From The Very Old And The Very New, Daniel J. Gervais
The Internationalization Of Intellectual Property: New Challenges From The Very Old And The Very New, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Intellectual property concepts embodied in international treaties and national laws date back to the eighteenth century. Many fundamental concepts (originality in copyright law; confusion in trademark law; novelty or inventiveness in patent law) vary from one country's national legislation to another. Yet, many critics of the intellectual property system recognize that solutions to the problems, ranging from database protection to the Internet, should ideally be the same worldwide. In today's globalized economy, it makes sense to adopt rules to protect that take account of the laws and practices of other nations and of the work of international organizations. Protecting only …
Electronic Rights Management And Digital Identifier Systems, Daniel J. Gervais
Electronic Rights Management And Digital Identifier Systems, Daniel J. Gervais
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The new world of digital information requires a new way of providing access to that information — while keeping the copyright backbone. It might be technically easier to create a digital infrastructure without copyright: Just throw works up on the Internet, and let anyone get to them for any purposes. But such systems have been suggested and roundly rejected by those who create and own works of value. So we need to build an electronic infrastructure that works with copyright and takes advantage of the digital environment. This paper looks at the attempts to build part of that infrastructure — …
Symposium: The Rise Of The International Trust, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Symposium: The Rise Of The International Trust, Jeffrey Schoenblum
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The international trust, the subject of the Symposium, is experiencing an extraordinary reception worldwide. It is being utilized by individuals from countries with legal cultures that traditionally have not known this form of ownership. In fact, there is no formal legal construct known as the "international trust." Rather, the term as used in the Symposium and as used herein, is intended as an organizing principle to explore the various implications of trusts with international or transborder linkages. The focus is on private trusts, those utilized to manage the wealth of individuals and their families, although much of the discussion pertains …