Law Commons^™

Public Health Regulation: Convergence, Divergence, And Regulatory Tension: An Asian Perspective, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Regulatory issues relating to public health, including regulation of access to medicines and tobacco control have increasingly been the source of tension in recent trade and investment negotiations, treaties and disputes. The ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which include a number of developing Asian states, are an example that brings some of these issues to the fore and show a divergence of negotiating views.

The intersection between public health regulation and trade and investment treaties has given some Asian states significant pause for thought; it has further led the international system to a critical need to confront the overlap of legal …

Territorial Exclusivity In U.S. Copyright And Trademark Law, Christine Farley

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Currently, U.S. trademark and copyright law both adopt employ a regime of international exhaustion of rights with respect to parallel importation after the Supreme Court ruled in Kirtsaeng last term. This agreement belies the fact that these two areas of law have developed in nearly divergent directions and have resulted in faltering intellectual property and trade policies. Currently, interpretation of the first sale doctrine hinges on the particular legal characteristics of both trademarks and copyrights. When dealing with trademarks, courts ultimately focus on the source of origin, taking into account consumer expectations or, instead, focusing on the business relationship, if …

Trips-Plus Trade And Investment Agreements: Why More May Be Less For Economic Development, Christine Farley

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Conventional wisdom -- but not empirical research -- maintains that strong intellectual property (“IP”) rights trigger not only foreign direct investment, but also local innovation. Thus investors seek, and developing countries compete to offer, the highest levels of IP protections. But evaluating the level of IP protection in any given country has become increasingly complex. A proliferation of bilateral agreements, such as free trade agreements (“FTAs”) and bilateral investment treaties (“BITs”), intended to enhance the minimum standards set forth in The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”), have created uncertainty about precisely what IP protections are …

The Anxiety Of Influence: The Evolving Regulation Of Lobbying, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

Lobbying has long been a source of anxiety. As early as the mid-nineteenth century courts expressed concern about the “designing and corrupt men” who sought to wield “secret influence.” Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar business today, but the association of “lobbying” with improper influence is so strong that the American League of Lobbyists – the lobbyists’ trade association – recently renamed itself to drop the word “lobbyist.” Yet, courts have also long recognized that people have a legitimate interest in being able to influence government action, and that they may need to be able to hire agents to help them, …

The Capture Of International Intellectual Property Law Through The U.S. Trade Regime, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

For years, the United States has included intellectual property ("IP") law in its free trade agreements. This Article finds that the IP law in recent U.S. free trade agreements differs subtly but significantly from U.S. IP law. These differences are not the result of deliberate government choices, but of the capture of the U.S. trade regime.

A growing number of voices has publicly criticized the lack of transparency and democratic accountability in the trade agreement negotiating process. But legal scholarship largely praises the 'fast track" trade negotiating system. This Article reorients the debate over the trade negotiating process away from …

The Looming War On Trade Unions, Rowan Cahill

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

In October 2013, the right-wing journal Quadrant published the book Australia’s Secret War, an account by Hal Colebatch of homefront industrial disruptions by Australian trade unions during the Second World War. Described as a secret history rescued from ‘folk memory’ – and one previously suppressed by leftists – it detailed ‘treacherous’ industrial actions by unionists that denied/delayed vital war materials to the frontlines between 1939 and 1945, resulting in the deaths of service personnel. These actions, the argument went, pointed to a deliberate and coordinated attempt at sabotaging the war effort courtesy of the communist leaderships of the unions involved. …

The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman

Faculty Scholarship

A major shift is transforming the trade and environment field, triggered by governments’ rising use of industrial policies to spark nascent renewable energy industries and to restrict exports of certain minerals in the face of political economy constraints. While economically distorting, these policies do produce significant economic and environmental benefits. At the same time, they often violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, leading to increasingly harsh conflicts between trading partners.

This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of these emerging conflicts, arguing that they represent a sharp break from past trade and environment disputes. It examines the causes of the shift …

Trade Secrets, Trade, And Extraterritoriality, Elizabeth A. Rowe, Daniel M. Mahfood

UF Law Faculty Publications

When a foreign individual or company misappropriates the trade secrets of an American company, and the acts of misappropriation occur entirely outside of the United States, the trade secret law of the United States generally will not apply. This represents the principle of extraterritoriality, and identifies a major vulnerability for companies that choose to conduct operations or engage in other business abroad. In such situations, the substantive and procedural laws of another country are likely to define whether the allegedly misappropriated information is protected and has been misappropriated.

Providing a domestic forum to prosecute extraterritorial infringement would substantially benefit domestic …