International Trade Law Commons^™

Sovereignty By Subtraction: The Multilateral Agreement On Investment, Robert Stumberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAl) represents a major step in the evolution of "sovereignty," which includes the power of a nation-state to govern without external controls. A panelist at the 1998 Cornell International Law journal Symposium introduced the MAl as an example of "multilateral sovereignty" to achieve commonly held goals of global economic integration. This perspective posits that the MAl is an exercise in sovereignty by subtraction, aiming to limit governing power rather than promote its joint exercise.

Its critics call the MAl a "slow motion coup d'etat," a "bill of rights for investors," a threat to sovereignty, …

Book Review, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Foundation-Building For Western Hemispheric Integration, Frederick M. Abbott

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The United States is embarked upon an ambitious program of western hemispheric economic integration about which its domestic body politic is decidedly ambivalent. The process in which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was approved in 1993 re- vealed deep divisions between the major political parties and their various interest group constituencies concerning the appropriate scope of an economic integration agenda. The Mexican peso crisis that began in December 1994 provoked a deep crisis of confidence regarding Mexico's readiness to participate in a mature economic partnership with the United States and Canada. Subsequent revela- tions relating to corruption infecting …

The Dispute Settlement Systems Of Wto And Nafta - Analysis And Comparison, Patrick Specht

LLM Theses and Essays

The aim of this thesis is to determine whether the dispute settlement institutions of the WTO and the NAFTA meet the standard, to compare the two systems, and to evaluate them. An issue that should be dealt with first is the question of comparability. Is it possible to compare the WTO and the NAFTA regarding their conflict resolution procedures? Or are they too different because one agreement works on the global level and the other on a regional one? Their institutions and their scope may differ, but they are still conducive to comparison because the underlying structure of these two …

The Role Of United States Trade Laws In Resolving The Florida-Mexico Tomato Conflict, Stephen J. Powell, Mark A. Barnett

UF Law Faculty Publications

For discussion purposes, we have been asked to assume that the agreement entered into in October 1996 between the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) and Mexican tomato exporters, which resulted in suspension of an antidumping investigation of tomatoes from Mexico, has ended. The new owner of many of Florida's winter vegetable producers, concerned with the continuing rise in market share represented by Mexican imports, is considering further action under the trade remedy and other laws. This article will discuss the potential role of the antidumping and countervailing duty laws in these deliberations, as well as the operation of the dispute …

Battling International Piracy Of The Copyright Industries Through Nafta, Donna L. Eng

UF Law Faculty Publications

The scope of this paper will cover the United States' attempts to protect its copyright industries of computer software, movie, and music under the auspices of NAFTA. Specifically, coverage will discuss the general scope of copyright protection given to the software, music, and movie industries under NAFTA, and then focus on United States relations with Canada and Mexico under NAFTA.

Cooperative Standard Setting: The Road To Compatibility Or Deadlock? The Nafta's Transformation Of The Telecommunications Industry, Karen E. Lee

Federal Communications Law Journal

In an effort to reduce nontariff barriers, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) directs its three member nations to utilize product standards set by international standard-setting organizations. What were once considered "permissible standards" are now mandatory standards as Articles 904-906 of the NAFTA mandate the telecommunications industry to adopt cooperative standard-setting by these organizations as the sole method to achieve standardization. Currently, the International Telecommunications Organization and the International Organization for Standardization are the two principal cooperative standardization organizations in the telecommunications industry.

This Note argues that the NAFTA should allow members to "opt out" of the requirement for …

Constructing Democracy In The North American Free Trade Area, Alexandra Maravel

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

This paper focuses on the implementing mechanisms, examining their character and implications for regional government as the possibility of a hemisphere-wide free trade area looms across the Americas. The essential problem is how to define the political framework that Canada, Mexico, and the United States are creating. It is not clear that it is an inherently demo- cratic regime. The regime, created to oversee the complex system of trading rules, is arguably (and paradoxically) necessary to ensure "free" trade, but it may undermine the very emergent regional democ- racy it seeks to empower.

Nafta And The Changing Role Of State Government In A Global Economy: Will The Nafta Federal-State Consultation Process Preserve State Sovereignty?, A.J. Tangeman

Seattle University Law Review

Both state and federal leaders will need to work together to preserve state sovereignty in the face of challenges posed by trade agreements. Greater federal-state communication will balance the struggle between the federal government's goal in promoting free trade and individual state governments' interests in protecting their sovereignty. Part II of this Comment examines the federalist principles that influence the existing federal-state framework of authority. Part II also discusses the federal government's constitutional authority over state compliance with U.S. trade obligations and whether states have any constitutional or legal authority to demand more autonomy in conducting their trade and commerce. …

Preferential Trade Agreements: The Wrong Road, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The nature of FTAs is to offer free trade only to members, not to non-members. Thus, FTAs are two-faced: they ensure free trade for members and (relative) protection against non-members. First-year students of international economics would be asked to shift to a different field if they could not grasp this elementary and elemental distinction, and yet today's politicians imagine themselves to be statesmen endorsing free trade when they embrace these inherently discriminatory PTAs.

As PTAs proliferate, the main problem that arises is the accompanying proliferation of discrimination in market access and a whole maze of trade duties and barriers that …

'Jurassic' Trade Dispute: The Exclusion Of The Audiovisual Sector From The Gatt, Jonas M. Grant

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Puzzling Relationship Between Trade And Environment: Nafta, Competitiveness, And The Pursuit Of Environmental Welfare Objectives, Ileana M. Porras

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is often claimed to be a "promising beginning" for the reconciliation of trade and environment. Professor Porras, however, suggests that the form that "reconciliation" takes in NAFTA is extremely problematic. Harmonization of standards to facilitate the free flow of trade is a familiar trade goal. NAFTA's provisions regarding environmental standards, however, are not a straightforward requirement to harmonize standards. Rather, NAFTA recognizes state autonomy in standard setting, on the one hand, while requiring a form of upward harmonization, on the other. According to Professor Porras, the result of such an arrangement is the …

Environmental Standards Within Nafta: Difference By Design And The Retreat From Harmonization, Jeffrey Atik

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Professor Atik argues that NAFTA, in legitimating regulatory differences among the NAFTA parties, represents a repudiation of standard harmonization. He states that while NAFTA and its environmental side agreement "have been described as the 'greenest' trade agreement to date," it marks a significant retreatfrom efforts to harmonize global environmental standards. This rejection is a product of "ajealous retention of sovereignty" by the NAFTA parties, as well as the careful maintenance of the parties' distinct production roles and specialities. Thus, Professor Atik argues that a convergence of standards will likely remain elusive within NAFTA. Both highstandard and low-standard parties may prefer …

Border Crossings: Nafta, Regulatory Restructuring, And The Politics Of Place, Ruth Buchanan

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Professor Buchanan begins her paper by questioning whether

recent economic and political shifts towards notions of

"globalization" (e.g., the NAFTA) have failed to consider the

politics or economics of change in particular places. Her prime

example of a "place" where integration is illogically forced against

a background of differentiation is the U.S.-Mexico border region.

Through the scope of a "regulatory complex" (a complex of legal,

institutional, regulatory, and social orderings), she departs from the

common view of the NAFTA as a productive tool of North American

integration, and instead views the NAFTA as exacerbating

"differences between localities, industries, and labor …

Apec As A New Model Of Regional Economic Cooperation: Compatibility With Gatt, Bing Ding

LLM Theses and Essays

Today’s driving forces in world trade are private trade, investment flows, technological progress, and job creation. These forces create momentum towards the further integration of economy within their respective regions. The challenge for governments today is to reinforce these trends in favor of long-term economic benefits, while resisting the temptation to make short-term adjustments for growth. Regionalism is being considered as a solution to contemporary international economic problems; with the division of the world into the three major trading blocs of the EC, NAFTA, and APEC, regionalism seems to be the fastest road to multilateral free trade. This paper proposes …

Priority Of Invention In United States Patents: From The Paris Convention To Gatt, John F. Carroll Iv

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Imagine the following: It's New Year's Eve, 1994, and as twilight falls you start to clean off your desk and get ready to go home. On top of your "Out" tray is a copy of a patent application for American Corporation that you filed with the Patent and Trademark Office last week. A-Corp., one of your largest clients, is the nation's largest manufacturer of business office furniture. The patent application is for A-Corp's new "Security Cabinet," a device that protects sensitive computer disks and video- tapes from electromagnetic contamination. The Security Cabinet was unveiled at an office supply trade show …

International Trade Relations And The Separation Of Powers Under The United States Constitution, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Carbbean Basin Initiative: Ten Years Of Trade Preference, James E. Stamps

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Free Trade As An Extremist Ideology: The Case Of Nafta, Robert W. Benson

Seattle University Law Review

This article purports that free tradism has become such a classic extremist ideology, just as, until recently, Marxism-Leninism was. Free tradism is fairly described as fitting the two criteria that characterize extremist ideologies: (1) their adherents are oblivious to cognitive dissonance contradicting their analyses, and (2) their adherents are willing to plunge themselves and others into great risks in the name of the ideology. This article adduces evidence in these two categories, using NAFTA as an example, analyzing concrete issues of trade theory, jobs, the environment, human rights, and democracy.

Preface, Geoffrey R. Watson

Seattle University Law Review

This issue includes one article from each panel: Professor Clarke's article on whether China should become a member of the GATT, Professor Benson's article on NAFTA as "extremist ideology," Mr. Kawachi's article on securitization in Japan, and Professor Green's article on MFN status for China. In addition, the editors have included a spirited defense of NAFTA by Ms. Rebecca Reynolds Bannister. To set the stage, I offer a few comments on each article below.

The Nafta Investment Chapter And Foreign Direct Investment In Mexico: A Third World Perspective, Gloria L. Sandrino

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The investment provisions of NAFTA, which establish a liberal investment regime and a hospitable atmosphere for foreign investment amongst its signatories, the United States, Canada, and Mexico, represents a new chapter in Mexico's approach to foreign investment. This Article examines the significance of Mexico's shift to welcoming foreign investment and its concomitant acquiescence to traditional notions of expropriation and compensation espoused by more developed states. The author explores Mexico's historical love-hate relationship with foreign investment and its role over the years as leading voice for Third World concerns regarding the potentially exploitive nature of such investment. In this article, a …

The Mexican Market And Nafta, Rebecca Reynolds Bannister

Seattle University Law Review

In the face of European integration and strategic partnerships in the Pacific Rim, it is vitally important for the United States to strengthen our ties with our North American commercial partners and with the rest of the Western Hemisphere. NAFTA is an historic agreement. It is an ambitious effort to eliminate barriers to agricultural, manufacturing, and services trade, to remove investment restrictions, and to protect intellectual property rights. And, NAFTA is the first agreement in the history of U.S. trade policy that directly addresses envi- ronmental concerns. United States' strategic policy must be focused on that which builds security for …

The World Trading System, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The Uruguay Round is closing this week after a marathon of negotiations stretching well over seven years; so the timing of this panel is exquisite, from my viewpoint. The ceremony, besides, is in Marrakech, an exotic place that sets our minds racing with thoughts of "Casablanca," Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Indeed, one can imagine a movie being made of this historic occasion that will transform the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GAIT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO), with Peter Ustinov cast as Peter Sutherland, the brilliant and portly new director general of the GAIT who finally brought …

Motor Freight Brokers: A Tale Of Federal Regulatory Pandemonium, Jeffrey S. Kinsler

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Most brokerage problems are traceable to the troubled history of freight brokers, which has been a constant struggle between regulation and deregulation. Arguably, brokers have been subjected to more extremist regulation than any other industry during the last fifty years. The pattern of extremism began when Congress imposed massive regulations on freight brokers as part of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935. The 1935 regulations completely stifled the U.S. brokerage industry. Forty-five years later, Congress moved to the other regulatory extreme when it passed the Motor Carrier Act of 1980,6 which virtually deregulated the brokerage industry The eased entry controls …

Challenges To The Doctrine Of Free Trade, Jagdish N. Bhagwati

Faculty Scholarship

The doctrine of free trade is facing new challenges today. As one surveys the policy arena, questions are raised about free trade by those who worry about Japan (and today this includes many more than the "revisionists") and who argue that free trade with Japan is not gainful. Several environmentalists as well oppose free trade with passion. These concerns relate to what now is called the absence of "level playing fields": "fair trade" as a precondition of free trade is the battle cry.

There is also the fear that free trade, even if efficient, hurts the unskilled and thus immiserizes …

Can Buckley Clear Customs?, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Providing Fair Conditions Of Competition Under The Free Trade Agreements Of The European Economic Community, E.J. Mestmacker

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Professor Mestmacker analyzes the competition provisions of the Free Trade Agreements that the Community has negotiated with many of its trading partners. The direct applicability of these provisions by reference to the standards of Community law is considered and rejected Professor Mestmacker then develops the relevant standards for applying these provisions to commerce between the Community and its trading partners.