Revisiting The Economic Community Of West African States: A Socio-Legal Analysis,
2017
Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law
Revisiting The Economic Community Of West African States: A Socio-Legal Analysis, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Recent years have seen a growing scholarly interest in the conditions of emergence of regional trade agreements in Africa. These analyses have advanced our knowledge on a range of technical issues, from specific institutional transformation of regional economic communities such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to broad legal issues relating to the provisions of the regional trade agreements. Most literature on ECOWAS is, however, informed by legal formalism that interprets the text of the treaties strictly and without context, leading to a dominant interpretation of failure.
By contrast, this thesis adopts a socio-legal approach and argues …
Background: Towards A Critical Assessment Of Canadian-Nigerian Bilateral Relations,
2017
Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law
Background: Towards A Critical Assessment Of Canadian-Nigerian Bilateral Relations, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Although the diplomatic relations between Canada and Nigeria is almost six decades old, the nature of this bilateral relationship has not been the subject of rigorous academic research. While a recent body of research by international relations scholars has taken up the broad critical study of Canadian-African relations, a significant gap exists with respect to studies that focus on the context of Canada’s engagement with individual African countries. Against this background, this paper briefly examines the bilateral trade and investment engagements between Nigeria and Canada. The modest aim is to highlight the existing framework that guides the relations of both …
Saving The Political Consensus In Favor Of Free Trade,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
Saving The Political Consensus In Favor Of Free Trade, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
2016 is the year that the political consensus in favor of liberalized international trade collapsed. Across the world, voters’ belief that international trade agreements lead to economic inequality threatens to derail ratification of the next generation of trade agreements and undo the substantial gains made under existing arrangements. The United States elected Donald Trump president on a platform of rolling back or renegotiating trade agreements. President Trump has moved to fulfill that promise immediately upon taking office by “unsigning” the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the most recent major effort to liberalize global trading rules, and initiating efforts to renegotiate the North …
Paris, Panels, And Protectionism: Matching Us Rhetoric With Reality To Save The Planet,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
Paris, Panels, And Protectionism: Matching Us Rhetoric With Reality To Save The Planet, Abbey Stemler, Scott Shackelford, Eric Richards
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
US rhetoric has not matched reality in the free trade or sustainability contexts, as may be seen by the ongoing debates surrounding a range of behaviors that violate international trade rules. The US government's failure to adhere to the rules that it was instrumental in crafting sets a particularly troubling precedent. These trade distortions reduce trust and respect among countries and undermine efforts to combat climate change. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a growing preference for "minilateral" agreements, as may be seen in the Obama Administration's push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and US-EU Trade Pact. This trend is likely to continue …
The Road Not Taken: A Comparison Of The E.U. And U.S. Insider Trading Prohibitions,
2017
Pacific McGeorge School of Law
The Road Not Taken: A Comparison Of The E.U. And U.S. Insider Trading Prohibitions, Franklin A. Gevurtz
McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles
This essay, written for a symposium on insider trading in the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, explores the different paths taken by the United States and the European Union with respect to who is subject to the prohibition on insider trading. After providing an overview of the difference between the U.S. and the E.U. prohibition, the essay explores the different outcomes that would occur under U.S. versus E.U. law in several high profile insider trading cases of recent years. The essay also addresses the jurisdictional reach of each regime’s prohibition and considers the normative lessons of this …
Transparency Evolution: More Than The Right To Know,
2017
Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia
Transparency Evolution: More Than The Right To Know, Ljiljana Biuković, Pitman B. Potter
All Faculty Publications
Providing an analysis of global regulation and the impact of international organizations on domestic laws, this collection grew out of a central objective to explore methods of domestic engagement with international trade and human rights norms, and the inherent difficulties in establishing balanced links between these two international law regimes. The common thread of the papers in this collection is a focus on the application of socio-legal normative paradigms in building knowledge and policy support for coordinating local performance with international trade and human rights standards in ways that are mutually sustaining.
The Investment-Related Aspects Of Intellectual Property Rights,
2017
Texas A&M University School of Law
The Investment-Related Aspects Of Intellectual Property Rights, Peter K. Yu
American University Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Investment Protection Chapter Of The Eu-Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Model For The Post-Brexit Uk Iias,
2017
Singapore Management University
The Investment Protection Chapter Of The Eu-Singapore Free Trade Agreement: A Model For The Post-Brexit Uk Iias, Siraj Shaik Aziz
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
The impending British exit (Brexit) from the European Union has placed the UK's investment policy at a crossroads. A post-Brexit UK will now have to reorganise its investment relationships with its economic partners through bespoke UK IIAs. This exercise will have to accommodate the shifting Zeitgeist concerning the balance of investors' rights and the right to regulate IIAs that is expected. This paper examines the continued relevance of the recently minted Investment Protection Chapter in the EU-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, acknowledged by Britain's power brokers, as a persuasive model for the UK to emulate for this purpose. This is notwithstanding …
A Plurilateral Investment Treaty: Marrying Trade And Investment To Re-Establish A Customary International Norm,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
A Plurilateral Investment Treaty: Marrying Trade And Investment To Re-Establish A Customary International Norm, Kellie Travis
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
Despite some inherent risks, foreign direct investment (FDI) is for some the preferred method of investment. The rising number of bilateral investment treaties governing FDI is merely reflective of this investment vehicle's popularity. Since the early-nineteenth century, developed countries have sought to gain protection for investors engaging in these investment opportunities. One such protection, the Hull Doctrine, requires national governments to fully compensate investors in cases of unlawful expropriation. Until World War II, when developing countries began applying their own domestic eminent domain law to foreign investors, the Hull Doctrine was considered binding, customary international law. This Note analyzes the …
Ex Parte Seizures Under The Dtsa And The Shift Of Ip Rights Enforcement,
2017
Saint Louis University School of Law
Ex Parte Seizures Under The Dtsa And The Shift Of Ip Rights Enforcement, Yvette Joy Liebesman
All Faculty Scholarship
The ex parte seizure provision of the Defend Trade Secrets Act is another step in a long line of legislation that shifts the costs of private enforcement to the public, which already has a toehold in copyright and trademark law. The ex parte provision — which is not incorporated into any state trade secret law — relieves rights owners of two “burdens.” First, it relieves the trade secret owner of the burden of actually having to compete in the marketplace. Second, it relieves the trade secret owner of the burden of the costs associated with the discovery process of a …
China's And India's Differing Investment Treaty And Dispute Settlement Experiences And Implications For Africa,
2017
Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
China's And India's Differing Investment Treaty And Dispute Settlement Experiences And Implications For Africa, Won Kidane
Faculty Publications
This Article examines China’s and India’s differing investment treaty and dispute settlement experiences and the resulting implications for Africa. It attempts to answer the question of whether there is evidence of China’s and India’s attempt to take advantage of the default structural imbalance enabled by centuries of international investment laws and institutions that favor the investor. The Article begins by presenting the background of the current economic reality and trends that necessitate the evaluation of the existing rules and institutions. It then presents a detailed assessment of this phenomenon by focusing on the investment cases brought against India for context, …
Supernational Law,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
Supernational Law, Frederic G. Sourgens
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
Should the United States continue to enter into free trade agreements containing sovereign commitments to resolve regulatory disputes with qualifying multinational corporations before international arbitral tribunals? This question has gained public prominence due to the vocal opposition of Senator Elizabeth Warren and President Donald Trump to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), denouncing it as disastrous and corrupt.' Public outcry has focused in particular on the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism included in the treaty. Public criticism submits that ISDS suffers from a fatal systemic asymmetry--it favors the profit interests of multinationals over the public policy concerns of the host states in …
Tribunalizing Sovereign Debt: Argentina's Experience With Investor-State Dispute Settlement,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
Tribunalizing Sovereign Debt: Argentina's Experience With Investor-State Dispute Settlement, Stephen K. Park, Tim R. Samples
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
The global sovereign debt market, lacking a formal bankruptcy regime or binding regulatory oversight, is fundamentally shaped by the specter of conflicts between debtors that refuse to pay and holdout creditors that refuse to settle. Never was this more evident than in Argentina's most recent sovereign debt crisis, which spurred daring, innovative, and often controversial legal strategies. This Article focuses on one of the legacies of Argentina's sovereign debt crisis: the use of investor-state arbitration under international investment law to enforce sovereign bond contracts. Following Argentina's financial collapse in 2001, private creditors brought dozens of cases against Argentina before the …
A Look Into The Data Privacy Crystal Ball: A Survey Of Possible Outcomes For The Eu-U.S. Privacy Shield Agreement,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
A Look Into The Data Privacy Crystal Ball: A Survey Of Possible Outcomes For The Eu-U.S. Privacy Shield Agreement, Emily Linn
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
The trade relationship between the European Union and the United States, the largest cross-border data flow in the world, is in a state of uncertainty. Operating under different notions of what privacy should look like and divergent legal protections for personal data, the European Union and United States have struggled to reach a mutually acceptable agreement in the past. This Note analyzes their latest attempt, the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, with specific emphasis on (1) the way it has improved upon its predecessor, the EU-U.S. Safe Harbor; (2) the weaknesses that still remain; and (3) the external factors that threaten the …
How Countries Should Share Tax Information,
2017
Vanderbilt University Law School
How Countries Should Share Tax Information, Arthur J. Cockfield
Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
Offshore tax evasion, international money laundering, and aggressive international tax planning significantly reduce government revenues. In particular, for some low-income countries the amount of capital flight (where elites move and hide monies offshore in tax havens) exceeds foreign aid. Governments struggle to enforce their tax laws to constrain these actions, and they are inhibited by a lack of information concerning international capital flows. The main international policy response to these developments has been to promote global financial transparency through heightened cross-border exchanges of tax information. The Article examines elements of optimal cross-border tax information exchange laws and policies by focusing …
Issues Concerning Enforcement And Dispute Resolution,
2017
American University Washington College of Law
Issues Concerning Enforcement And Dispute Resolution, Sean Flynn
Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals
No abstract provided.
From Territorial To Monetary Sovereignty,
2017
Columbia Law School
From Territorial To Monetary Sovereignty, Katharina Pistor
Faculty Scholarship
State sovereignty is closely intertwined with, but not limited to, control over territory and people. It has long been recognized that control over monetary affairs is a critical part of genuine sovereignty. In this Article, I go a step further and argue that the relevance and importance of territorial versus monetary sovereignty has shifted in favor of the latter. This shift goes hand in hand with the rise of credit-based financial systems. Such systems depend, in the last instance, on backstopping by an entity with control over its own money supply and no binding survival constraints. Only states with monetary …
The Next Generation Of U.S.-Africa Trade Instruments,
2017
University of Miami School of Law
The Next Generation Of U.S.-Africa Trade Instruments, Kathleen Claussen
Articles
No abstract provided.
Free Markets, State Involvement, And The Wto: Chinese State Owned Enterprises (Soes) In The Ring,
2017
Columbia Law School
Free Markets, State Involvement, And The Wto: Chinese State Owned Enterprises (Soes) In The Ring, Petros C. Mavroidis, Merit E. Jano
Faculty Scholarship
The WTO has struggled with the treatment of nonmarket economies (NMEs). What was a nonissue in the original GATT (because of the homogeneity of participants) became quite an issue with the accession of formally centrally planned economies, which were not transformed to market economies, at least not in the eyes of the incumbents. Contracting this issue has proved to be so far always wanting, and leaving it to adjudicators has not produced good results either. With respect to Chinese SOEs this risks continuing to be an issue, since the contractually agreed deadline (2016) after which China should not be treated …
The Black Hole Problem In Commercial Boilerplate,
2017
New York University School of Law
The Black Hole Problem In Commercial Boilerplate, Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, Robert E. Scott
Faculty Scholarship
Rote use of a standard form contract term can erode its meaning, a phenomenon made worse when the process of encrustation introduces various formulations of the term. The foregoing process, when it occurs, weakens the communicative properties of boilerplate terms, leading some terms to lose much, if not all, meaning. In theory, if a clause is completely emptied of meaning through this process it can create a contractual “black hole.” The more frequent and thus potentially more pervasive problem arises when, as the term loses meaning, random variations in language appear and persist, resulting in what we term a “grey …
