International Trade Law Commons^™

Three Structural Changes For A New System Of International Climate Change Mitigation Agreements Based On The Wto Model, Samara Spence

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Past policy approaches to achieving international climate change mitigation have restricted the means for achieving mitigation to broad emissions caps. These policies have ignored the true nature of the climate change mitigation problem and have failed. This Note proposes a new design for a climate change mitigation system. It begins by analyzing the basic assumptions of the current cursory approach and by reviewing structural problems with those assumptions. It then reviews the successful World Trade Organization (WTO) model as a possible alternative structure and uses realities of the climate change problem to show why such an alternative could work in …

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta): An Assessment, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (‘ACTA’) is motivated by the perceived lack of progress of multilateral enforcement of intellectual property rights. Building on the equivalent provisions in EU and US bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs), the ACTA parties sought to establish best practice international standards to which other countries could aspire or adhere. Proponents stressed the need to combat the increase in global piracy and counterfeiting, drawing on estimates of the scale of the problem, such as those from the OECD that suggested international trade in counterfeit and pirated products amounted to some $200 billion in 2005 (excluding domestically …

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: New Paradigm Or Wolf In Sheep's Clothing?, Meredith Kolsky Lewis

Journal Articles

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is currently negotiating with seven other countries to form a new trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP has the potential to expand into a Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). At present there are several competing models for Asia-Pacific economic integration that exclude the United States entirely. In such an environment, the TPP presents the United States with a welcome opportunity, not only to participate, but also to take a leadership role in establishing the terms for a region-wide agreement. Nevertheless, the USTR must make the TPP …

The Prisoners' Dilemma Posed By Free Trade Agreements: Can Open Access Provisions Provide An Escape?, Meredith Kolsky Lewis

Journal Articles

This article explains why free trade agreements (FTAs) that are not compliant with the spirit of GATT Article XXIV’s requirement that such agreements cover “substantially all the trade” between the parties pose serious challenges for the multilateral trading system. It notes the paradoxical behavior of WTO members in continuing to negotiate such free trade agreements to the detriment of the WTO. It characterizes this paradox as a form of Prisoners’ Dilemma, in that although members would be better off pursuing trade liberalization via the WTO, their dominant strategy is to pursue FTAs. The article goes on to propose a pragmatic …

Effects Of Free Trade Areas In Trade Promotion: Gravity Model Approach, Mona Jit Mui Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Since the early 1990s, the world has seen a proliferation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). One of the key objectives of FTAs is to expand trade between or amongst its signatories. This study explores the intra-FTA and extra-FTA trade expansion capability of 3 types of FTA: North-North FTA (European Union (EU)-15 as a representative), North-South FTA (North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as a representative) and South-South FTA (Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN ) Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) as a representative). The study made an attempt to address the spread of such FTA-led trade expansion amongst the members and …

The Status Of Recognition And Enforcement Of Judgments In The European Union, Michael D. Larobina, Richard L. Pate

WCBT Working Papers

International trade and the free movement of people are inevitably followed by legal disputes. Such litigants require an efficient and predictable dispute resolution mechanism capable of handling cases between diverse nationals. An essential part of such mechanism is a clearly defined process of judgment enforcement across national boundaries. In the past several decades, the European Union (“EU”) has necessarily addressed judgment enforcement across the boundaries of its member nations (“Member States”). Citizens of the EU need to prosecute and defend their legal rights in their home and in other EU member states. Presently, the EU is, again, considering such issues …

East Meets West: Introducing Sharia Into The Rules Governing International Arbitrations At The Bcdr-Aaa, Elana Levi-Tawil

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

As the size and complexity of international commercial transactions grow, parties to international commercial transactions are increasingly utilizing Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") methods, specifically international commercial arbitration, to resolve the disputes that arise. However, since international commercial players first began to use international commercial arbitration to resolve these disputes, transnational recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards has been a major issue. Since 1958, the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the "New York Convention"), an agreement executed by the United Nation's General Assembly, has vastly expanded the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral …

Reframing Indigenous Cultural Artifacts Disputes: An Intellectual Property-Based Approach, Cortelyou C. Kenney

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Google Book Settlement And The Trips Agreement, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The proposed amended settlement in the Google Book case has been the focus of numerous comments and critiques. This "perspective" reviews the compatibility of the proposed settlement with the TRIPS Agreement and relevant provisions of the Berne Convention that were incorporated into TRIPS, in particular the no-formality rule, the most-favored nation (MFN) clause, national treatment obligations, and the so-called three-step test.

Golan V. Holder: A Look At The Constraints Imposed By The Berne Convention, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

One of the central issues in the Golan v. Holder litigation is the extent to which the United States had flexibility to tailor the protection of existing works that had fallen in the public domain when it joined the Berne Convention. This Essay argues that the Berne Convention obligates the United States as a Berne Union member to provide some degree of protection, but otherwise leaves wide latitude to set the conditions under which works in the public domain receive retroactive copyright protection. The Convention itself does not mandate that any particular level of protection be granted to such works …

Overcoming Babel’S Curse: Adapting The Doctrine Of Foreign Equivalents, Jonathan Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

What's In A Name?: Predictably Regulating Cyberfraud To Protect The Democratic Political Process, Whitney C. Boshers

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In recent elections, political candidates have capitalized on the Internet as a central organizing resource. As a result of the low-cost, high-reward nature of campaign websites, some candidates have begun to register Web addresses--or domains--in opponents' names in order to disrupt the democratic political process. Engaging in a practice known as cyberfraud, these individuals register for domains containing the candidate's name, such as 'firstnamelastname.com." Then, instead of finding themselves on the candidate's official campaign website, voters access a website operated by the candidate's opponent that contains misleading or outright false information. Unfortunately, most political candidates have little recourse for such …

No. 7 - The Future Of International Trade: An American Perspective, Rebecca H. White, C. Donald Johnson, Mark Laplante, John Sheppard, Chris Papageorgiou, Charles Hunnicutt, William Gillon, Marisa Pagnattaro, John Cobau, Audrey Winter, Theodore Kassinger, Demetrios Marantis, Shanker Singham, Frank Samolis, Andrew Shoyer, Ayesha Khanna

Occasional Papers Series

Organized and sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy and the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, along with the Business Law Society and Graduate Business Association, The Future of International Trade was a daylong conference exploring issues related to the business aspects of international trade, future challenges for trade, and the future of multilateral trade negotiations. Ambassador Demetrios Marantis, deputy U.S. trade representative, served as the keynote speaker for the event.

L'Interprétation Systémique: Le Liant Du Droit International, Giovanni Distefano, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

Systemic Interpretation in International and WTO Law: The Glue of the International Legal Order

The authors endeavour to emphasis the paramount role of systemic interpretation, provided for and codified in Article 31 (3) c) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, in the light of both general international and WTO Law. This short essay ultimately leads to the confirmation that this hermeneutics method accrues by all means to the cementation of the international legal order.

The Wto Dispute Settlement System 1995-2010: Some Descriptive Statistics, Henrik Horn, Louise Johannesson, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

The Dispute Settlement (DS) system is a central feature of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement. This compulsory and binding two-level mechanism for the adjudication of disputes between WTO Members is the most active among international courts. The functioning of the DS system has attractive research interest among both lawyers and economists. This paper reports some descriptive statistics of the working of the DS system based on the recently updated Horn and Mavroidis WTO Dispute Settlement Data Set. The data set covers all 426 WTO disputes initiated through the official filing of a Request for Consultations from January 1, 1995, …

Gender-Classified Imports: Equal Protection Violations In The Harmonized Tariff Schedule Of The United States, Jason Lewis

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that gender-based classifications in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) likely violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It critiques the Federal Circuit's application of a lower level of scrutiny in Totes-Isotoner Corp. v. United States and advocates for courts to apply intermediate scrutiny, as established by Craig v. Boren, to such classifications. The analysis also examines the role of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in trade negotiations and asserts that international agreements cannot override constitutional protections.

Foreign States Are Foreign States: Why Foreign State-Owned Corporations Are Not Persons Under The Due Process Clause, Frederick W. Vaughan

Georgia Law Review

If foreign states are not "persons"under the Due Process
Clause, do foreign state-owned corporations still enjoy the
same protections as their privately owned counterparts?
This is an important question because state-owned entities
are a prevalent fixture in an increasingly global economy.
Courts confronted with the issue, however, have attempted
to resolve it by resorting to a policy-based analysis. In
doing so, they have distorted fundamental constitutional
principles.
This Note explains this distortion by discussing the
trend among leading courts of not recognizing states as
"persons" under the Due Process Clause and by examining
the meaning of "foreign state" under the …

An Empirical Analysis Of Wealth Disparities In Wto Disputes:
 Do Poorer Countries Suffer From Strategic Delay During Dispute Litigation?, Geoffrey Antell, James W. Coleman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A long-standing debate questions whether the World Trade Organization’s (“WTO”) formal dispute settlement procedures level the playing field for lower income countries in international trade disputes, or instead, merely give opportunistic and sophisticated countries complex rules that they can use to exploit these lower income countries. Using a database of cases decided under the WTO, this article examines whether there is evidence that developing countries suffer strategic delay when they sue developed countries. Strategic delay is a crucial consideration in WTO proceedings because, unlike in typical litigation, the WTO dispute settlement process does not offer backward-looking remedies. As a result, …

The Genesis Of The Gats (General Agreement On Trade In Services), Juan A. Marchetti, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

The Uruguay Round services negotiations saw the light of day amidst pressures from lobbies in developed countries, unilateral retaliatory actions, and ideological struggle in the developing world. The final outcome, the GATS, certainly characterized by a complex structure and awkward drafting here and there, is not optimal but is an important first step towards the liberalization of trade in services. This article traces the GATS negotiating history, from its very beginning in the late 1970s, paying particular attention to the main forces that brought the services dossier to the multilateral trading system (governments, industries, and academics), and the interaction between …

The Surprising Benefits To Developing Countries Of Linking International Trade And Intellectual Property, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

The World Trade Organization's Trade Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement is controversial, requiring WTO members to establish a host of domestic institutions to support intellectual property rights, including substantive laws creating rights and a host of enforcement procedures. Trade scholars and development advocates frequently criticize the agreement as economically harmful to developing countries. This Article does not argue that the TRIPS Agreement is beneficial for developing states, but highlights how the agreement has produced some surprising benefits over the last decade and a half. First, the TRIPS Agreement's requirement that developing states make the domestic enforcement of intellectual property rules …