International Trade Law Commons^™

The Effects Of Domestic Legal Institutions On International Trade Flows, Yu Wang

ExpressO

The effects of institutions on international trade relations are of theoretical and practical interest. By following the research perspective that interprets institutions as the “rules of the game”, I suggest and study three domestic legal institutions---tenure system for judges, precedent law, and judicial review that supposedly have significant effects on international trade flows. My empirical tests show that both precedent law and judicial review have independent effects on bilateral trade volume while the proposed independent effect of tenured judge is unsupported. Moreover, my empirical evidences suggest that precedent law introduces its effect in a monadic fashion while judicial review (measured …

Using Ethanol As A Fuel To Reenergize Free Trade Area Of The Americas Negotiations, Marcel De Armas

ExpressO

Currently the United States imposes a 2.5 percent ad valorem tax along with a 14.27 cents per liter tax on imported ethanol from countries with normal trade relations under the harmonized tariff schedule. However, the United States exempts many countries from this tariff or reduces the tariff under various free trade agreements or initiatives. The issues that resulted in Doha’s failure also caused FTAA negotiations to temporarily stall since both Brazil and the United States wanted certain FTAA issues negotiated at the WTO level. The United States could initiate this process with a discussion of reducing or eliminating its ethanol …

Culture, Sovereignty, And Hollywood: Unesco And The Future Of Trade In Cultural Products, Christopher M. Bruner

ExpressO

On October 20, 2005, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted a treaty – by a vote of 148-2, with 4 abstentions – that legitimates domestic legal measures aimed at the protection of local producers of "cultural activities, goods and services." Opposed by the United States and Israel, the Convention represents a major diplomatic victory for Canada and France – its principal proponents – and a major blow to Hollywood and the United States, audiovisual products being among America's most lucrative exports. Both Canada and France, like many countries around the world, have …

Beyond Doha’S Promises: Administrative Barriers As An Obstruction To Development, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

This article articulates the potentially fatal consequences of administrative barriers to the goal of developing poor countries and suggests retooling the current trade norms and policies in a developmentally-friendly manner. The article constructs the concept of administrative barriers centering on domestic regulations, i.e., antidumping measures, regulatory standards, and rules of origin, which have the most potential to obstruct development. It then highlights developmental hazards of these administrative barriers. It observes that both protectionist antidumping duties and the excruciating investigative procedures tend to offset developing countries' comparative advantages in favor of developed countries' domestic producers. It then argues that under-capacitated developing …

Doha’S Development, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay argues that the current development crisis within the Doha Round is inextricably linked to the nature of modern day trade negotiations. This Round reveals a bargaining process in which the powerful can too easily exploit and prevail over the powerless. This process is also vulnerable to domestic political maneuvers such as capture. Under these circumstances, poor countries' development concerns are not well represented, which accounts, despite years of talks, for the current sorry state of the negotiational outcome on agricultural subsidies and tariffs. To overcome these flaws of trade negotiation, this Essay suggests that certain core legal precepts, …

Toward A New Economic Constitution: Judicial Disciplines On Trade Politics, Sungjoon Cho

All Faculty Scholarship

This article first observes that protectionism is an icon of trade politics and thus likely to gather fresh momentum as a domestic election approaches. The paper then problematizes protectionism beyond mere seasonal election politics by revealing its fatal pathologies both to the United States and to the rest of the world. Protectionism basically caters to the special interest at the expense of the larger public interest, which may be coined as a Madisonian constitutional failure. It also deviates from global trading norms, which the United States hypocritically continues to preach adherence to for the rest of the world. This double …

Is The Lack Of Trusts An Impediment For Expanding Business Opportunities In Latin America?, Dante Figueroa

ExpressO

The trust is considered one of the most useful legal structures for promoting business in the United States. In Latin America, in contrast, the trust ("fideicomiso") has been used only in limited circumstances in the commercial and financial realms. While the Anglo-American trust is an exceedingly flexible and pragmatic legal tool, the Latin American fideicomiso has been described as a rigid and outdated institution. Business and legal experts have determined that the lack of an Anglo-American-type trust in Latin America is one of the major obstacles that investors face when attempting to do business in the region. In order for …

Internationalizing Copyright: How Claims Of International, Extraterritorial Copyright Infringement May Be Brought In U.S. Courts, Elliot Cook

ExpressO

This Comment assesses the use of the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) as a jurisdictional basis for claims of international copyright infringement occurring outside of the United States. Under the ATS, aliens may sue in United States district courts for torts that amount to violations of treaties or the law of nations.

Given that copyright infringement is a tort, an alien may only be able to establish ATS jurisdiction in a suit of extraterritorial infringement if the infringement violated a treaty or the law of nations. This comment argues that extraterritorial copyright infringement does indeed amount to a violation of the …

Settlement Of Disputes Under The United States-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement, David A. Gantz

ExpressO

The U.S. – Central America – Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement is one of nearly a dozen post-NAFTA FTAs that have been concluded by the United States since 2000 with nations in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. All of these newer agreements are based on NAFTA, but they differ in significant respects, particularly in the chapters relating to dispute settlement. The changes reflect, most significantly, U.S. government experience with NAFTA dispute settlement, particularly with regard to actions brought by private investors against the United States and other NAFTA governments under NAFTA’s investment protection provisions (Chapter 11). However, they …

Space Program And Business In India - Legal Perspectives, Shashi Sharma

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

International Trade Decisions Of The Federal Circuit: 2006 Cases And Highlights Of 2003-2005, Alexandra E.P. Baj

American University Law Review

Over the past four years, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) has, as it has done since its establishment in 1982, exercised its jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(5) to review decisions of the United States Court of International Trade (“CIT”) regarding U.S. regulation of international trade. While trade cases currently make up only about six percent of the docket of the Federal Circuit, decisions in these cases can have a significant discernable impact on the day-to-day investigation and regulation of trade matters of the three U.S. agencies featured most prominently in the trade …

Foreign Direct Investment, Investment Treaty Arbitration, And The Rule Of Law, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In the last decade, there has been a surge in the number of multi-lateral and bilateral investment treaties governments have signed; meanwhile there have been dramatic increases in the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI); and, more recently, the number of claims brought under investment treaties has spiked. This Article examines the relationship amongst these factors and is the first to review the emerging empirical economic literature investigating whether investment treaties achieve their goal of promoting FDI. The Article then specifically evaluates the impact that the procedural right to arbitrate investment claims plays in the process of promoting FDI and …

The Gats And Legal Services In Limerick, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

One of the most significant regulatory developments for legal services is their inclusion in the 1994 General Agreement on Trade in Services or GATS. The GATS was the first world trade agreement to cover services rather than goods and it applies to legal services. The GATS in Limerick is a light-hearted but nonetheless serious effort to address the most important legal services-related GATS developments in the last twelve years. These verses cover the basic principles of the GATS, the ongoing market access negotiations and the efforts to develop disciplines on domestic regulation.

Mission Possible: Reciprocal Deference Between Domestic Regulatory Structures And The Wto, Elizabeth Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

One of the goals of Article III of GATT is to invalidate domestic regulatory measures, including taxes and non-fiscal policies that amount to non-tariff barriers to trade (NTB) and therefore violate the principles of national treatment. While internal policies that directly discriminate between products based on nationality or origin are clearly in violation of national treatment principles, it is the facially neutral regulatory measures with protectionist and discriminatory effects that are more difficult to assess, even within transparent regulatory processes. However, with their emphasis on the likeness of the products in question, WTO panels run the risk of alienating member …

Taming The Dragon: China's Experience In The Wto Dispute Settlement System, Henry Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

To many observers, a major challenge raised by China's accession to the WTO is whether the WTO dispute settlement system could cope with China, one of the major traders in the world with an economy that is halfway between a planned economy and a market economy. In this article, the author tries to answer this question by reviewing China's experience in the WTO dispute settlement system. Historically, the senior leadership in China attached disproportionate importance to the WTO dispute settlement system and preferred to avoid using the system. Thus, in the first four cases in which China was sued or …

Realism And Transnationalism: Competing Visions For International Security, Nathan A. Canestaro

ExpressO

This paper is a multidisciplinary study of two competing theories of states’ motives and behavior in international relations, realism and transnationalism. The first theory, realism, suggests that states are constantly competing for security and power within an anarchical international system incapable of preventing aggression or conflict. A competing philosophy, transnationalism, (also known as liberalism) suggests that cooperation, not competition, is the defining characteristic of international relations and that democratization and global economic interdependence reduce the benefits of interstate conflict and encourage long-term cooperation.

This paper seeks to explain the apparent disparity of states competing for power in security matters while …

Patent Political Economy - Indian Lessons On Pharmaceutical Patent, Julien L. Chaisse, Samira Guennif

ExpressO

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime adopted by any country is essentially a tool that strives to ensure both the growth of the domestic pharmaceutical industry and people’s access to medicines. But, contrary to the very easily advanced theory, there is no paradox between the two. From this perspective, the Indian experience has shown that it is precisely the relaxation of its national IPR regime that promoted the growth of its domestic industry, thereby ensuring a better patient access to medicines. However, the globalisation process does not overlook any sector, which means that medicines too are submitted to the new …

Fighting Corruption Through Regional And International Conventions: A Satisfactory Solution?, Indira M. Carr

ExpressO

While considering the current legal frameworks adopted by the regional and international anti-corruption conventions this article aims to show (1) that the lack of a unified approach is unlikely to further the fight against corruption in any meaningful way, (2) that regulation is unlikely to be efficient results unless there are robust enforcement mechanisms in place, and (3) that anti-corruption legislation provides only a partial answer and that we need to engage in what I call a process of re-socialization. Part 2 (How Widespread is Corruption?) critically assesses the methodology adopted by Transparency International (TI) for compiling its perception index. …

Charting Developments Concerning Punitive Damages: Is The Tide Changing?, John Y. Gotanda

Working Paper Series

This essay discusses a number of developments outside of the United States concerning punitive damages, which may ultimately signal a change in the way other countries view American awards of such damages.

To date, courts in many countries have refused to recognize and enforce American punitive damages awards on the ground that they violate the host country’s public policy. In most civil law countries, such as France and Germany, penal damages can only be ordered in criminal proceedings; a civil award of such damages has been viewed as contrary to ordre public. In common law countries, while punitive damages generally …

Trade Barriers In Service/Investment Markets Erected By Korea And Japan, Eun Sup Lee

ExpressO

This study analysis shows that the anti-competitive practices in the service market of the two countries have almost identical characteristics even though there are differences in the degree of the criticism against those barriers from their trading partner countries. These practices reflect the policy objectives of both government to emphasize consumer protection or stability of financial institutes rather than the institutes’ competitiveness or operative of efficiency, somewhat different from developed western countries. Such policy objectives reflect the overall social and cultural environments of the two countries which stress stability rather than productivity or efficiency of any institute. Considering the over-all …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Through The Looking Glass: Runaway Productions And "Hollywood Economics", Adrian H. Mcdonald

ExpressO

This paper uses the issue of runaway production as a looking glass into the complex world of Hollywood economics and politics. As such, a broad overview of Hollywood's business practices, history, and technology are discussed so the reader can understand how runaway production (a major issue itself) is one piece of the Hollywood puzzle. Specifically, this paper attempts to study runaway productions from the Law and Economics approach described in Judge Richard Posner's text on the subject. Events in 2006 illustrate the continuing importance of runaway productions and CEIDR's August 2006 report is discussed in this paper.

Recently expanded, this …

The Wto Appellate Body Gambles On The Future Of The Gats: Analyzing The Internet Gambling Dispute Between Antigua And The United States Before The World Trade Organization, Kelly Ann M. Tran

ExpressO

The World Trade Organization’s recent Appellate Body decision in the Antigua – United States dispute found that U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling qualified for an exception under Article XIV of the GATS. This paper criticizes the Appellate Body’s decision to overturn the WTO Panel on two grounds. First, it argues that the Appellate Body erred when it concluded that U.S. gambling restrictions are necessary to protect public morals or maintain public order. Second, it argues that the Appellate Body failed to adhere to previous WTO measures dealing with similar jurisprudence and both panels did not adequately explain the significance of …

The Death Of The Doha Round. What Next For Services Trade?, Rafael Leal-Arcas

ExpressO

With the indefinite suspension of the WTO multilateral trade negotiations in July 2006 by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, the world trading system must now find ways and means to unblock what is perceived as a danger to the world order. This article analyzes the legal and policy implications of the currently fatal Doha Round for the two main developed WTO Members, i.e., the U.S. and the EC, and the most relevant developing countries of the WTO. The specific focus of attention will be mainly on services trade. Thoughts on alternative ways to move forward in the multilateral trading system are …

Article 17 And The Scope Of Trademark Protection Afforded Under The Trips Agreement, Katja G. Weckstroem

ExpressO

The protection of trademarks, when it raises a conflict with the protection of geographical indications is one of the most contested issues on the international trade and intellectual property arena. In European Communities - Protection of Trademarks and Geographical Indications for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs a WTO panel was faced with this issue. The panel report gives some insight into what international trademark law mandates as well as some pointers on how conflicts between different IP rights should be solved. This article attempts a deeper analysis of the coexistence of rights in the framework of the TRIPS Agreement that will …

Choice Of Jurisdiction In International Trade Disputes: Going Regional Or Global?, Rafael Leal-Arcas

ExpressO

This article is a legal and policy analysis of two international trade disputes fora, namely the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for countries that have standing in both jurisdictions, i.e., the United Mexican States, the United States of America, and Canada. Both fora are judicially compared from the perspective of the respondent and of the complainant, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each forum. The chosen time-frame of judicial analysis is between 1995 and 2001. The article concludes with two cases which may have been brought in either forum, Broomcorn and Canada – …

China’S Market Participation: The Case For A Paradigm Shift In Analyzing China’S Capital Market Regulation, David P. Finn

ExpressO

This paper deals with recent reforms governing China’s state owned enterprises and how those reforms affect both the domestic and international markets

China-Australia Free Trade Agreement New Icing On An Old Cake-An Opportunity For Fair Trade?, Benedict Sheehy, Jackson N. Maogoto

ExpressO

The on-going challenge in economic development and globalization, particularly for developing countries, is the issue of development and equality in society. The issue becomes particularly problematic when confronted in matters of international trade. Often misnamed anti-globalization activists and pro-globalization activists fail to take note of the underlying assumptions that lead them to conflict—namely, the actual costs and benefits to society that result from their particular positions. In essence, both activists are searching for ways to improve the lives of people in the domestic context and to minimize the damage to their society and environment. China’s impressive economic record is threatened …

Corporations And Social Costs: The Wal-Mart Case Study, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

This article examines the role of the corporate vehicle in the creation of social costs. The article identifies some of the political commitments and philosophies behind the differing notions of corporations. Social costs are those activities which result from business activity and cause uncompensated harm to society. The founding contribution to the law and economics discussion by Ronald Coase is given a thorough treatment. The paper next, turns to the dominant explanation of corporate structure, namely the law and economics model developed expounded by Easterbrook and Fischel. It then applies the theoretical discussion in a case study of the world’s …

Un-Fair Trade As Friendly Fire: The Australia-Usa Free Trade Agreement, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

Trade, economists and trade theorists advise, is a mutually beneficial exercise. Among this group, a particular set of advocates, claim that “Free Trade” is in the interest of all parties. As will be demonstrated, Free Trade is not truly “free” but an exercise of foreign policy and the implementation of policies favouring wealthy corporate interest groups. Free Trade is controlled by wealthy nations who have stacked the rules in favour of themselves, and in particular their corporate interests, and against the poor producers in poor nations. This control is used contrary to fairness, economic and ecological logic. Fair trade, by …