International Trade Law Commons^™

Uruguay Round Trips: A Bibliographic Essay, William M. Walker

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations began with a special ministerial meeting of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, on September 20, 1986. "Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Including Trade in Counterfeit Goods" (TRIPs) is a designated subject for negotiation in the Uruguay Round. The inclusion of intellectual property rights in the Uruguay Round is the culmination of a process that began during the Tokyo Round. While the Tokyo Round was in progress, the United States and the European Community reached a tentative accord on various …

Intellectual Property And International Trade: Merger Or Marriage Of Convenience?, R. Michael Gadbaw

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines the interaction between trade and intellectual property rights policies through certain key developments in United States law, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). While this brief review is not intended to provide a definitive analysis, it will offer worthwhile insights into the prospects for, and implications of, such a merger. For this purpose, this Article considers the efforts in GATT to negotiate a code on intellectual property rights and the parallel efforts in WIPO to negotiate a treaty for the protection of semiconductor designs. While the GATT talks …

The Economics Of Intellectual Property Rights And The Gatt: A View From The South, Carlos A.P. Braga

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article explores the attitude of less developed countries (LDCs) with respect to the debate on TRIPs at the Uruguay Round. Part II addresses the evolution of the debate at the GATT level. Part III presents the economics of intellectual property rights protection from the point of view of LDCs. Finally, Part IV summarizes the main conclusions and recommendations of the Article.

Hidden Agenda: The Expansion Of Product Scope In International Trade Proceedings, Timothy A. Harr

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part II of this Article examines current legal standards. It concludes that U.S. product scope rulings are nominally made pursuant to a set of objective legal/factual standards, but that because of the breadth of these standards, the Commerce Department has considerable discretion in making such decisions. Part III examines recent Commerce Department product scope rulings, which highlights a policy goal of prevention of evasion by foreign suppliers. The Department, which technically has no authority to expand the product scope and no formal authority to consider evasion, is uncomfortable with this current situation. This has caused the Administration to propose amendments …

International Trade And The "Rule Of Law", Phillip R. Trimble

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Implementing the Tokyo Round: National Constitutions and International Economic Rules by John H. Jackson, Jean Victor Louis, and Mitsuo Matsushita

Gatt As A Framework For Multilateral Negotiations On Trade In Legal Services, Dean N. Menegas

Michigan Journal of International Law

While a number of commentators have discussed the adaptability of the GATT to problems of trade in services, none have specifically addressed its applicability to lawyering or other professional services. Part I considers the GATT's progress on services issues to date. Part II identifies and classifies the barriers to transnational legal practice. Part III explores the possibility of liberalizing many of these barriers through the application of GATT substantive concepts and the use of GATT procedural mechanisms.

Trade Friction With Japan And The American Policy Response, Thomas J. Schoenbaum

Michigan Law Review

In Toyko recently I called upon an official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to discuss trade frictions between the United States and Japan. On the way to my appointment I passed by Hibiya Park in the center of the city. About 10,000 people were gathered in a peaceful demonstration against any lifting of Japan's quotas on imports of agricultural products. Inside the MIT! building I asked the official whether the quotas on beef and oranges would be abolished soon. He told me they would eventually be liberalized or abolished to please the United States, but that …

The Interrelationship Between United Nations Law And The Law Of Other International Organizations, Richard H. Lauwaars

Michigan Law Review

The question regarding the interrelationship between UN law and the law of other international organizations acquired actual significance in the Netherlands in the spring of 1983. At that time, the Dutch Government published a Note stating that, due to the strictures of international law embodied in the law of the European Economic Community (EEC) and European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the Benelux Economic Union, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it could not impose unilateral sanctions against South Africa. In response to this Note, a group of public international law professors in the Netherlands issued a …

Restrictions On Trade In Communication And Information Services, Geza Feketekuty, Jonathan David Aronson

Michigan Journal of International Law

Section one highlights some of the changes that the revolution in information exchange is producing. It also argues that transborder data flows could help facilitate international economic adjustment. Section two analyzes the types of reasons used to justify policy measures that inhibit the integration of the world communication network or prevent information from flowing across national borders. It also discusses the implication of restrictions on transborder data flows for the world trading system and for world economic growth. The final section discusses strategies for halting the proliferation of barriers to trade in communication and information services and for reducing existing …

The Gatt-Mtn System And The European Community As International Frameworks For The Regulation Of Economic Activity: The Removal Of Barriers To Trade In Government Procurement, Mark L. Jones

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Reciprocity In International Telecommunications Trade: A New Trade Barrier?, Sheryl Powers

Michigan Journal of International Law

To those advocating its use, reciprocity legislation is especially appropriate for the telecommunications industry. Only 5 percent of telecommunications equipment manufactured in the United States is exported for sale in other nations. Trade barriers, loyalty to domestic manufacturers and the importance of telecommunications to national defense systems have combined to restrict access to foreign markets in the telecommunications sector. To persuade other nations to increase market access in telecommunications, United States legislators added a requirement of reciprocity to two proposed bills, S.898 and H.R.5158. This note will examine these two bills, concluding that reciprocity is an inappropriate solution to United …

The U.S. Commitment To The Gatt System: A Reappraisal Of Basic Assumptions, Thomas R. Howell, R. Michael Gadbaw

Michigan Journal of International Law

The GATT system was established by a fairly homogeneous group of 24 countries in the late 1940s. With the exception of the U.S., the signatory nations were, for the most part, European or British Commonwealth countries with market economies. These governments shared a rough consensus on the fundamental goals of an international trading system. They intended to avoid the economic warfare that had characterized international trade in the late 1930s. Trading relationships were to be governed by a mutual commitment to commonly understood notions of fairness and equity. This meant allowing producing enterprises to compete, according to a set of …

State Trading: Its Nature And International Treatment, Edmond M. Ianni

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

At least six considerations compel a review of the international practice of state trading. First, state trading is practiced widely throughout the world and embraces at least one quarter of world trade. From a domestic perspective, United States trade with state trading countries continues to grow and, therefore, is directly relevant to the United States national interest. Second, increasing international economic interdependence has augmented the role of state trading in international trade by the inducements of economic necessity and efficiency. Third, recent Eastern European trends toward greater private economic autonomy have facilitated trade relations between free market countries and state …

Legal Problems In Expanding The Scope Of Gatt To Include Trade In Services, Philip H. Gold

Maryland Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Implementing The Tokyo Round: Legal Aspects Of Changing International Economic Rules, John H. Jackson, Jean-Victor Louis, Mitsuo Matsushita

Michigan Law Review

International economic and political interdependence has increased dramatically since the close of World War II. We now watch foreign wars on our living room television sets, move billions of dollars worth of funds across national borders daily, and feel the effects of political violence in the Mideast throughout our domestic farmlands. A corollary to economic and political interdependence, however, is the less visible but equally pervasive problem of legal interdependence. Any attempt, in the contemporary world, to create new international rules or institutions necessarily depends on the national legal and constitutional systems of a number of countries. This Article analyzes …

Brazil's Profit Remittance Law: Reconciling Goals In Foreign Investments, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Promoting foreign investment is a goal of many developing nations. Along with the benefits of that investment, however, foreign participation in development creates problems such as balance of payments deficits caused by the repatriation of profits earned by the foreign investor. Brazil's profit remittance law is one effort to reconcile these problems. By providing for the registration of foreign investment and using a system of reinvestment incentives, the Profit Remittance Law seeks to promote foreign investment while avoiding the loss of capital which results when profits are remitted abroad. The author of this article describes and explains the Profit Remittance …

Subsidies, Countervailing Duties And Antidumping After The Tokyo Round, John J. Barceló Iii

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

United States Compliance With The 1967 Gatt Antidumping Code, Robert E. Hudec

Michigan Journal of International Law

The 1967 GATT Antidumping Code (hereinafter the Code) may be viewed as an attempt to state an international consensus about the correct policy and practice of national antidumping laws. It is important to be clear about the nature of that consensus. National antidumping laws are not an expression of accepted economic theory about international trade. Rather, they tend to rest on more pedestrian value judgments about things such as "fair competition." These underlying value judgments are not necessarily the same from one country to another, and in some countries antidumping laws are not even considered particularly useful or necessary. In …

Gilmore: An Antidumping Proceeding As Cost-Price Comparison, Fred A. Rodriguez

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the usual dumping case, a producer sells his product abroad at prices lower than those at which the same product is sold in the domestic market (country of origin). But dumping is also possible in other circumstances. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (hereinafter GATT) and the Antidumping Code (hereinafter the Code) recognize dumping where, in the absence of a domestic price, the price in the export market is lower than the price for a comparable product in a third country market. If neither a domestic nor a third country price is available, these international agreements provide that …

Introduction: Perspectives On Antidumping Law And Policy, John J. Jackson

Michigan Journal of International Law

The successful dismantling of most high tariffs of the noncommunist industrialized world over the last thirty years has revealed other trade measures which previously posed relatively little risk to the flow of trade. One such measure is "antidumping duties," which each year seems to grow more prominent as a cause of tension between trading nations. Although in recent months front-page news stories have focused considerable attention on the problems of dumping and the response of antidumping duties, it is probably safe to assume that the general public, and even most laymen, have little understanding of the practice and concept of …

European Antidumping Law And Procedure, Dieter Oldekop, Ivo Van Bael

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article is adapted from the presentations made by Messrs. Oldekop and Van Bael at the Symposium on Antidumping Law held at the University of Michigan Law School on November 3 and 4, 1978.

Subsidies And Countervailing Duties--Analysis And A Proposal, John J. Barceló Iii

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The author recommends a new scheme for regulating the use of government subsidies and countervailing duties in international trade, an area presently regulated by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He contends that these rules should be based to a large extent on principles of free trade and economic efficiency. In addition to setting out proposed regulations, the author analyzes the strength and weaknesses of free trade theory and of the present GATT rules regarding subsidies and countervailing duties.

Canada And The United States: A Changing Relationship In A Changing World, Panel Discussion And Prognostications, John J. Barceló Iii

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effective Pollution Control In Industrialized Countries: International Economic Disincentives, Policy Responses, And The Gatt, Frederic L. Kirgis Jr.

Michigan Law Review

It is generally recognized that efforts toward meaningful pollution control by an industrialized nation or group of nations raise economic problems at the international level. Discussion has touched upon the balance of trade and the effects for developing countries. Yet there seems to have been little attempt to analyze how these problems will manifest themselves and how they may be resolved within the current international legal-economic ordering system. This Article cannot deal with them all, but will examine closely the international competitive disincentives to truly effective pollution-control efforts in the industrialized countries, where environmental imperatives bear heavily on national decision-makers. …

Adjustment To Hardship Caused By Imports: The New Decisions Of The Tariff Commission And The Need For Legislative Clarification, Carl H. Fulda

Michigan Law Review

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, known as GATT, embodies the commitments of its contracting parties, now numbering eighty countries, to enter "into reciprocal and mutual advantageous arrangements directed to the substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and to the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international commerce."

The Regulation Of Subsidies Affecting International Trade, Warren F. Schwartz, Eugene W. Harper Jr.

Michigan Law Review

We will begin by examining the basic contours of the present GATT regulation of subsidies. We will then consider the theory of comparative advantage underlying the GATT regime and introduce the complications of externalities and the governmental process designed to take account of them. Finally, we will make some tentative suggestions for changes in rules and institutions that might serve to improve the present state of affairs.

Antidumping Laws As Barriers To Trade--The United States And The International Antidumping Code, John J. Barceló Iii

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dam: The Gatt, Law And International Economic Organization, Carl H. Fulda

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The GATT, Law and International Economic Organization by Kenneth Dam

The General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade In United States Domestic Law, John H. Jackson

Michigan Law Review

This article will undertake a two-step analysis. First, in Part II, the question whether GATT is legally a part of United States domestic law will be examined. Then, assuming GATT is part of this law, Part III will examine the extent of GATT's domestic law effect and its general relationship to other law, both federal and state. The chosen focus of this article thus excludes treatment of substantive obligations under specific GATT clauses. It also excludes intensive development of the myriad details of the scope of executive authority to negotiate particular trade concessions under legislation such as the Trade Expansion …

Non-Tariff Import Restrictions: Remedies Available In United States Law, Craig Mathews

Michigan Law Review

Since World War II, a fundamental objective of the foreign policy of the United States has been to strengthen political and economic relationships among free-world nations. An integral element of this policy has been the expansion of international trade on mutually beneficial terms. The legal and practical problems of reducing or eliminating restrictions on the international movement of commodities have therefore assumed a major importance.

International commodity transactions have traditionally been subject to a wide range of such restrictions. In the case of imports, the most familiar barriers are tariffs and formal quotas or embargoes imposed by national governments. In …