International Trade Law Commons^™

The New Frontier For Labor In Trade Agreements, Alvaro Santos

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the spring of 2015, I took my students of international trade law to visit the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva. It was a two-day trip, organized around lectures and discussions with staff from different divisions of the organization, the Advisory Centre of WTO Law and the permanent missions of two countries. None of my students had been there before, and even though I had taught international trade law for several years, it was also my first time visiting the headquarters of the organization. We were excited and curious. The building looked big and majestic. The back side opened …

World Trade And Investment Law In A Time Of Crisis: Distribution, Development And Social Protection, David M. Trubek, Alvaro Santos, Chantal Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

World trade and investment law is in crisis: new and progressive ideas are needed. Rules that facilitated globalization and supported global economic growth are being challenged. A system of global governance that once seemed secure is now at risk as the US ignores the rules while developing countries struggle to escape restrictions. Some want to tear global institutions and agreements down while others try desperately to maintain the status quo. Rejecting both options, we convened a group of trade and investment law experts from 10 countries South and North who have proposed ideas for a new world trade and investment …

An Asian View On The Ceta Investment Chapter, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement (CETA) has been completed and awaits ratification against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which includes five Asian parties among its signatories, has lost the support of the United States and its fate is uncertain as well. The CETA is significant for Asian countries given that one of its parties -- the EU -- has signalled strongly that it wishes to negotiate a number of free trade agreements in the Asian region. The agreement offers valuable insight into the thinking of the EU in terms of investment protection guarantees, its …

Building Toward The Rcep? Reflections On The Asean-China Fta, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Among the ASEAN’s external FTAs, the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) is ofgreat significance to both the ASEAN and China. The ACFTA was one of the earliest trade pactsconcluded by China. It is also part of the ASEAN’s broader push toward concluding FTAs outside themultilateral trading system, in line with the proliferation of regional trade pacts. This chapter willanalyze the following questions: what is the approach of the ACFTA? What are the implications ofthe ACFTA for the the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)? What nationalimplementation issues are involved with the ASEAN? The potential implications of the AHKFTA willbe explored. The …

Open Plurilateral Agreements, International Regulatory Cooperation And The Wto, Charles F. Sabel, Bernard Hoekman

Faculty Scholarship

Sustained high growth in many developing countries (‘the rise of the rest’) combined with long-standing WTO working practices hampers the ability of the WTO to perform its routine functions and paralyzes efforts to adapt to new circumstances. Preferential trade agreements have taken up some of the slack in addressing differences in domestic regulation of product safety, environmental and social conditions, but are exclusionary and inefficient from a global perspective. In this paper, we argue that a new type of agreement based on open plurilateral cooperation offers better prospects for groups of countries to explore and develop their potential common interests …

Trends In Fashion Law: Striking The Proper Balance Between Protecting The Art Form And Sustaining A Thriving Online Market, Elisabeth Johnson

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Implementing A Portable Reciprocity Passport To Crowdfund Real Estate Across Borders, Raymond Tran

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

No abstract provided.

Review Of Double Taxation And The League Of Nations, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Reviews

Should we continue adapting the OECD Model to address tax challenges arising from digitalization of the economy or has the time come for radical reform? Sunita Jogarajan asked that question in her last study of the League of Nations' work on double taxation in the 1920s. The historical analysis provided in her book seems to suggest that the international tax regime will continue to inevitably evolve and the OECD Model can adapt. Her extensive archival research, conducted at the League of Nations Archives, the United Kingdom National Archives (London) and the Seligman Archives, Columbia University (New York), clearly demonstrates that …

Bringing The European Eel Back From The Brink: The Need For A New Agreement Under The Convention On Migratory Species, Chris Wold

Pace Environmental Law Review

The European eel is considered “Critically Endangered.” Its population has been declining due to overutilization, barriers to migration such as dams, pollution, and climate change. The international community has responded by including the European eel in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (“CITES”) to regulate international trade and Appendix II of the Convention on Migratory Species (“CMS”) to help improve the species conservation status. The EU has taken regional action to prohibit imports into and exports from EU Member States, although intra-EU trade is permissible. Despite these actions, the eel’s conservation status might not be …

Super Unleaded Malbec? A Case Study In Flawed International Standard Setting At The Codex Alimentarius, Justin Schwegel

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) provides rules on the adoption and enforcement of SPS measures. It also presumes that food safety regulations adopted by WTO Members that conform to relevant international standards are consistent with the SPS Agreement. The relevant international standard setting body for food safety is the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which conducts most of its food safety risk management work through subsidiary bodies such as the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Food (CCCF). CCCF establishes maximum limits for food contaminants and codes of practice for reducing food …

Defining 'Diversity' In Corporate Governance: A Global Survey, Askhaya Kamalnath

Journal of Legislation

This Article explores the connotation of the term “diversity” in the corporate governance sphere and the utility of such a connotation. To explore what the term has come to mean, this Article conducts a comparative analysis of how the term is used in the corporate governance context in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, India, and Malaysia. Based on this analysis, this Article argues that the push for “diversity” (in the way it has come to be understood) on company boards needs to be re-examined and recommends that the SEC needs to define the term in accordance with its policy goals.

Against Populist Isolationism: New Asian Regionalism And Global South Powers In International Economic Law, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article provides the most up-to-date examination of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is poised to become the world’s largest free trade agreement (FTA). It argues that the 16-country mega-FTA will galvanize the paradigm shift in Asian regionalism and build a normative foundation for the Global South in international economic law. Based on intertwined theoretical and substantive claims, this article opens an inquiry into the assertive legalism of developing nations in the new regional economic order. It further manifests the pivotal force of emerging economies against populist isolationism in the Trump era that undermines the neoliberal foundation of …

The Impact Of The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement On Australia's Education Exports To China: A Legal And Economic Assessment, Junfang Xi, Weihuan Zhou, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As a landmark achievement in the development of the China-Australia bilateral economic relations, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (“ChAFTA”) achieves a higher level of liberalisation in education services compared with China's commitments under the World Trade Organisation and its other free trade agreements. However, the ChAFTA fails to relax the major regulatory barriers in China, which will remain the key obstacles to Australia's education services exports to China. Through a preliminary study and a regression analysis of the impacts of the ChAFTA on Australia's education exports to China based on available data, we show that the ChAFTA did not play …

Arms And The Man: Strategic Trade Control Challenges Of 3d Printing, Arjun Banerjee

International Journal of Nuclear Security

3D printing is on the verge of confronting Customs and other security agencies with a whole new set of mind-boggling problems. With the tremendous reach of the Internet worldwide, virtual blueprints to weapon parts, components and accessories of drones, narcotic drugs and psychoactive substances, all strategic trade items, as well as other restricted items such as pornographic material, can be proliferated and printed out swiftly by any individual or organization with access to a 3D printer. Intellectual Property Rights are also endangered by these machines. Technology is forever outpacing fast antiquating legal institutions, and security systems, which require revamping to …

Multilateral Economic Institutions And U.S. Foreign Policy: Hearing Before The Subcomm. On Multilateral Int'l Dev., Multilateral Insts., & Int'l Econ., Energy, & Envtl. Pol'y Of The S. Comm. On Foreign Relations, 115th Cong., Nov. 27, 2018 (Statement Of Jennifer A. Hillman), Jennifer A. Hillman

Testimony Before Congress

Virtually every major international gathering of world leaders recently has ended in failure—or at least failure to reach enough agreement to issue a concluding statement or communique. These failures come at a time when many have been looking for signs that world leaders would come together to address the most pressing problems facing the world—including climate change, the breakdown in the rules of the international trading system, the need everywhere for good jobs that pay a living wage, and rapidly growing income inequality.

The failure of these meetings to produce formal agreements—or even specific paths to reaching agreements in the …

Remote Control: Treaty Requirements For Regulatory Procedures, Paul Mertenskotter, Richard B. Stewart

Cornell Law Review

Modern trade agreements have come to include many and varied obligations for domestic regulation and administration. These treaty-based commitments aim primarily to improve the freedom of firms to operate in the global economy by aligning the ways in which governments regulate markets and private actors engage governments through administrative law. They therefore strike at the core of how economies are ordered and entail important distributional questions. An increasingly prevalent and diverse—but hitherto largely neglected—type of treaty obligation prescribes specific procedures for domestic administrative decision-making. This Article frames such requirements as tools of powerful states to control regulatory decision-making by government …

Global Investment Rules As A Site For Moral Inquiry, Steven R. Ratner

Articles

The legal regime regulating cross-border investment gives key rights to foreign investors and places significant duties on states hosting that investment. It also raises distinctive moral questions due to its potential to constrain a state’s ability to manage its economy and protect its people. Yet international investment law remains virtually untouched as a subject of philosophical inquiry. The questions of international political morality surrounding investment rules can be mapped through the lens of two critiques of the law – that it systemically takes advantage of the global South and that it constrains the policy choices of states hosting investment. Each …

Against Populist Isolationism: New Asian Regionalism And Global South Powers In International Economic Law, Pasha L. Hsieh

Cornell International Law Journal

This Article provides the most up-to-date examination of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is poised to become the world’s largest free trade agreement (FTA). It argues that the 16-country mega-FTA will galvanize the paradigm shift in Asian regionalism and build a normative foundation for the Global South in international economic law. Based on intertwined theoretical and substantive claims, this Article opens an inquiry into the assertive legalism of developing nations in the new regional economic order. It further manifests the pivotal force of emerging economies against populist isolationism in the Trump era that undermines the neoliberal foundation of …

The User Rights Database: Measuring The Impact Of Opening Copyright Exceptions, Sean Flynn, Michael Palmedo

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

International and domestic copyright law reform around the world is increasingly focused on how copyright exceptions — a.k.a. “user rights” —should be expanded to promote maximum innovation, creativity, and access to knowledge in the digital age. These efforts are guided by a relatively rich theoretical literature. However, few empirical studies explore the social and economic impact of expanding user rights in the digital era. One reason for this gap has been the absence of a tool measuring the key independent variable – changes in copyright user rights over time and between countries. We are developing such a tool, which we …

Transparency In Corporate Groups, Jay Lawrence Westbrook

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Article addresses a remarkable blind spot in American law: the failure to apply the well-established principles of secured credit to prevent inefficiency, confusion, and fraud in the manipulation of the webs of subsidiaries within corporate groups. In particular, “asset partitioning” has been a fashionable subject in which the central problem of non-transparency has been often mentioned but little addressed. This Article offers a concept for a new system of corporate disclosure for the benefit of creditors and other stakeholders. It would require disclosure of corporate structures and allocations of assets among affiliates to the extent the affiliates are to …