International Trade Law Commons^™

Economic Development, Competition Policy, And The World Trade Organization, Bernard Hoekman, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

At the recent WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, WTO members called for the launch of negotiations on disciplines relating to competition, on the basis of explicit consensus on modalities to be agreed at the 5th WTO ministerial in 2003. Discussions in WTO since 1997 have revealed little support for ambitious multilateral action. Proponents of WTO antitrust disciplines currently propose an agreement that is limited to ‘core principles’ – nondiscrimination, transparency, and provisions banning ‘hard core’ cartels. We argue that an agreement along such lines will create compliance costs for developing countries while not addressing the anticompetitive behavior of firms …

Afterword: The Question Of Linkage, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

Commenting on the papers in this symposium is paradoxically a difficult task. The authorsare remarkably distinguished and one can only learn from what they write. Indeed, I have learned much from them (especially from Dean David Leebron's splendid clarification of several aspects of linkage, a paper that shows that he should have been an Oxford philosopher if only he had not been such a successful legal scholar). Yet it is easy for an invited commentator to be overwhelmed by despair because the authors write for the most part as if in a research vacuum. There is little attempt at relating …

It's A Question Of Market Access, Kyle W. Bagwell, Robert W. Staiger, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we argue that market access issues associated with the question of the optimal mandate of the World Trade Organization should be separated from nonmarket access issues. We identify race-to-the-bottom and regulatory-chill concerns as market access issues and suggest that the WTIO should address these concerns. We then describe ways that WTO principles and procedures might be augmented to do so. As for nonmarket access issues, we argue that as a general matter these are best handled outside the WTO, and that, while implicit links might be encouraged, explicit links between the WTO and other labor and environmental …

Corporate Governance And The Global Social Void, Lee A. Tavis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article argues that the components of globalization--economic integration, democratization, and global governance networks--are changing the nature of corporate governance and the prospects for peace. Multinational enterprises are the instruments of economic integration. As such, multinationals as a group deserve credit for the positive productivity-related wealth effects of the process. As the implementing institutions, these enterprises are also inextricably related to the inequality--the social void--resulting from globalization that threatens peace.

Hyper competition in the global product markets and the demands of the financial markets determine, to a large extent, the activities of the multinational. Alternatively, there is an evolving opportunity …

"Super Jumbo" Problem: Boeing, Airbus, And The Battle For The Geopolitical Future, Daniel L. Fisher

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The commercial aircraft industry is important to the United States for both economic and political reasons. Economically, commercial aviation has been the linchpin of the military-industrial complex and a positive actor on many other segments of U.S. industry. Politically, Boeing has ensured the lead of the United States in the aviation industry and aviation exports, which have a beneficial effect on the ability of the United States to export geopolitical power.

Cognizant of this salutary effect of a successful aviation industry on the United States, Europe created and financed Airbus as a direct competitor to Boeing, hoping it would play …

Table Talk: Around The Table Of The Appellate Body Of The World Trade Organization, James Bacchus

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, James Bacchus describes his experiences as a "faceless foreign judge" of the World Trade Organization. In this capacity, Bacchus and his six colleagues on the WTO Appellate Body hear appeals in international trade disputes among the 144 member countries and other customs territories that are Members of the WTO. Bound by the WTO Rules of Conduct, he cannot comment on cases or the specific deliberation process, but rather comments on the processes and role of the Appellate Body relative to the WTO.

Persuasion And Resistance: The Use Of Psychology By Anglo-American Corporate Governance Advocates In France, James A. Fanto

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Author argues that in the 1990s Anglo-American corporate governance became the dominant model for large, public firms in the international business world, and that corporate governance professionals relentlessly promoted and exported Anglo-American corporate governance throughout the developed and developing world. Contending that it is an appropriate time--if only because the U.S. recession and international hostilities have tempered the "irrational exuberance" of capital market proponents--to examine critically the advocacy of Anglo-American corporate governance, the Author proposes that an important part of the critical assessment is to explain the momentum of the dominant model: to understand why Anglo-American corporate governance appeared …

Corrections To Laurel S. Terry, Gats' Applicability To Transnational Lawyering, Laurel S. Terry

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In October 2001, the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law published an article I wrote entitled GATS' Applicability to Transnational Lawyering and its Potential Impact on U.S. State Regulation of Lawyers, 34 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 989 (2001). (This article was part of an April 2001 Symposium on Lawyer Ethics in the 21st Century: Global Legal Practice.) After my article was published, I came to discover several mistakes in it. The pages that follow are my corrections to that October 2001 article. I am very grateful to the editors of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law for the opportunity to publish …

Health Versus Trade: The Future Of The Who's Framework Convention On Tobacco Control, Alyssa Woo

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On October 16, 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) began the first session of negotiations of its first international health treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Scheduled for adoption in May 2003, the FCTC is a comprehensive multilateral treaty that will cover everything from tobacco smuggling to tobacco advertising and the extent of the liability of tobacco companies.

This Note argues that even-handed domestic measures implementing the FCTC will be protected from international, trade-based complaints because the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement system has given sufficient and appropriate content to the health exception to the normal trade rules …

Chinese Business And The Internet: The Infrastructure For Trust, Timothy L. Fort, Liu Junhai

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Although the Internet and E-commerce revolutions have clearly taken hold in the United States and Europe, the Chinese culture has been slow to adopt the Internet as a marketplace. The Authors cite a lack of trust on the part of both potential consumers and potential merchants as the primary obstacle to a robust Chinese E-commerce community. To remedy this lack of trust, the Article proposes the nation seek a middle way between reforms guided by Western rule of law and Eastern rule of ethics, thus incorporating effective regulatory strategies and the philosophical resources already within the Chinese cultural consciousness. The …

Foreign Sales Corporations--Subsidies, Sanctions, And Trade Wars, Candace Carmichael

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The largest sanctions in the history of the World Trade Organization, the need to stabilize an ailing economy, and the need to maintain strong alliances in the face of a new global war on terrorism are all issues the United States currently faces in deciding how to resolve its dispute with the European Union regarding U.S. tax policy. In 1997, the European Union filed a complaint with the WTO claiming that the then-current U.S. tax regime violated U.S. international trade agreements. The European Union contended that the U.S. tax system gave rise to export-contingent subsidies, in violation of U.S. trade …

Perceptions About The Wto Trade Institutions, John H. Jackson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article, based on a lecture given at the inauguration ceremony for the new Advisory Centre on WTO Law, describes the broader world trading landscape into which this new Centre emerges. Taking into account the possible implications of the events on September 11, this article provides a brief analysis of the current trade policy climate, asserting the necessity of institutions for the successful functioning of markets. After a short institutional history of the GATT/WTO, the author describes the importance of institutional rules, treaty text, and practice for the success of the WTO and presents the current debate over what the …

World Trade Organization's Anti-Discrimination Jurisprudence: Free Trade, National Sovereignty, And Environmental Health In The Balance, The , Ari Afilalo, Sheila Foster

Faculty Scholarship

A discussion of how the World Trade Organization (WTO) resolves disputes centering on the tension between the free trade commit ment of the General Agreement on the Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and domestic policies regarding such matters as environmental, health, consumer, and labor protection. This article describes this evolving jurisprudential framework and the cases that comprise it, and illustrates how this framework articulates and applies an anti-discrimination norm that pervades the GATT. If properly articulated and applied, we argue, the anti-discrimination jurisprudence of the WTO will foster the trade interests that underlie the GATT up to the point where the …

Afterword: The Linkage Problem – Comments On Five Texts, John H. Jackson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The problem of linkage between "non trade" subjects and the World Trade Organization is certainly one of the most pressing and challenging policy puzzles for international economic relations and institutions today. It is extensively and harshly debated by political leaders and diplomats, at both the national and the international levels of discourse, and is one of several issues that derailed the WTO Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle in late 1999. It also posed problems for the Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November of 2001, and it threatens to derail the successful functions of the WTO itself. With the …

Introduction: Globalization Of Administrative And Regulatory Practice, Charles H. Koch Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Economics Of Private Law Harmonization, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

International Antitrust At The Crossroads: The End Of Antitrust History Or The Clash Of Competition Policy Civlizations, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

This Review will suggest a theoretical explanation for the essentially pragmatic conclusion that the United States should continue to oppose negotiations at the WTO. This explanation has the virtue of drawing on the special quasi-constitutional role of antitrust policy in U.S. history, one that is in fact deeply connected to the political economy of U.S. federalism and which, therefore, leaves less room for U.S. acquiescence in the institutionalization of competition policy at the WTO than does even the pragmatic argument for continued U.S. opposition to multilateral and institutional approaches.

This argument draws on the continuing centrality of federalism as a …

International Labor Standards In The Wto's New World Order: Towards Development-Based Standard Setting, Carlin Meyer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Greening Of The World Trade Organization, Sydney M. Cone Iii.

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Privacy, Eh! The Impact Of Canada's Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act On Transnational Business, Juliana M. Spaeth, Mark J. Plotkin, Sandra C. Sheets

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In 2002, the requirements imposed by PIPEDA will extend to encompass all personal health information. PIPEDA will ultimately extend to the collection, use, or disclosure of all personal information in the course of any commercial activity within a province in 2004. This change in Canadian law carries significant consequences for the general business practices of American companies that conduct, or may conduct, business with Canadians. It is therefore crucial for lawyers with clients collecting personal data on- and offline to familiarize themselves with its requirements in order to counsel clients effectively about their current and future obligations under this privacy …

Foreign Direct Investment In Latin America Overview And Current Status, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Martin B. Tittle

Other Publications

More firms than ever, and in more industries and countries, are expanding abroad through [foreign] direct investment [FDI]. Although FDI in 1980 was equivalent to only 5% of world GDP, by the end of the 1990's, that percentage had more than tripled to 17%. In 1993, the total US dollar value of world FDI was only US$ 200 billion, but by the year 2000, it had risen to US$ 1.3 thousand billion. Developing countries received around 25% of these inflows, mostly in the form of "greenfield" investments, where a new enterprise is essentially created from scratch.

World Trade, Intellectual Property, And The Global Elites: An Introduction, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

Extract:

Traditionally, intellectual property lawmaking is a matter of domestic affairs. Without external interference, governments make value judgments as to what would best promote the creation and dissemination of intellectual works in their own countries. Combined together, these disparate judgments form an intellectual property system that is tailored to the country's level of wealth, economic structure, technological capability, political system, and cultural tradition.

To protect authors and inventors, governments sometimes need to make adjustments to their intellectual property systems in exchange for better protection abroad. In those scenarios, policymakers often evaluate the adjustments carefully to make sure that they correspond …

(How) Should Trade Agreements Deal With Income Tax Issues?, Joel Slemrod, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

What is the relationship between the international tax regime, as embodied in bilateral international tax treaties, and multilateral free trade agreements like the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATr)?' Are their fundamental goals consistent or inconsistent? If they are inconsistent, should the tax treaties or the GATT be changed to remedy the inconsistency? If they are consistent, should the scope of either be expanded to include the other?

Trademark Exhaustion In The European Union: Community-Wide Or International?The Saga Continues, Irene Calboli

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This Article analyzes the principle of "trademark exhaustion" or "first-sale rule" in the European Union (EU), with particular attention to the language and different interpretations of Article 7(1) of the First Council Directive 89 104 EEC of December 21, 1988. Traditionally, most jurisdictions define the extent of trademark exhaustion as either "national" or "international" exhaustion, depending on whether the rights granted by a mark are considered exhausted only in the domestic territory or also in foreign jurisdictions. Because of its nature as a regional integration of sovereign countries, the EU has historically favored a compromising approach toward the issue, and …