International Trade (Law)

This article examines whether the recent peace agreements, signed between Israel and the Gulf states: The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in September 2020, form a 'honey trap', meant to use the economic benefits they offer as leverage to affect Israel's political position towards the Middle East conflict. Recalling that the EU exercises such an approach for many years, the article tries to assess its current and potential effectiveness to the parties involved.

This paper examines the question of whether it is ethical for company officials to use the force of government to reduce or eliminate foreign competition, using the antidumping laws as a case study. This paper begins with a brief examination of the U.S. antidumping laws, then examines several ethical questions related to the antidumping laws. The main question to be addressed is whether, and under what circumstances, it is ethical for domestic producers to ask government to launch an antidumping investigation against a foreign competitor. Related questions to be examined include (1) Whether it is ethical to ask the government to launch an antidumping investigation even when the domestic company making the request knows that dumping has not occurred; (2) Whether it is ethical to ask for an antidumping investigation in cases where dumping (according to the definition of dumping) has occurred, where the effect is to help domestic producers at the expense of the general public. This paper will examine these questions by applying both utilitarian and non-utilitarian approaches. A bibliography with links to more than 100 articles on trade is also included. The full paper may be downloaded here. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2861273 BIO Robert W. McGee is an accounting professor and best-selling novelist who has published 58 nonfiction books and more than 700 scholarly articles. He is an attorney and CPA who has lectured or worked in more than 30 countries, and has earned 13 doctorates from universities in the United States and four European countries. The Social Science Research Network has ranked him as high as #2 in the world All-Time among accounting professors and #30 in the world All-Time among all social scientists. Various studies have ranked him #1 in the world for both business ethics and accounting ethics scholarship. He has won 19 gold medals in

Using objective measures of investor protections in 170 countries, I establish that the level of investor protection matters for cross-country differences in GDP growth: countries with stronger protections tend to grow faster than those with poor investor protections.

This paper examines the Buy Malawi Strategy through the lenses of international agreements that Malawi is party to. The Buy Malawi Strategy seeks to increase the consumption of Malawian made goods and services through enhancing the competitiveness of local firms and stimulating local production.

To achieve this, the Strategy employs local content requirements among other measures.
Given that some multilateral, regional and investment agreements prohibit domestic products and services being treated more favorably than foreign ones, this paper set out to examine how select provisions of the Strategy square with Malawi’s international obligations.

Using the IRAC (issue, rule, application and conclusion) method to analyze measures of the Strategy, this assessment finds that the Strategy does not raise particular issues with regard to Malawi’s obligations.

Nevertheless, this assessment finds that the Strategy’s local content requirements and relaxed prequalification conditions would have otherwise been discriminatory if it were not for government procurement exemptions contained in the various agreements. 

Alternatively, to achieve the countries objectives in a manner that does not adversely affect trade, this article recommends that Malawi should improve infrastructure and the regulatory environment with a view to removing productivity bottlenecks faced by existing sectors, which may also facilitate the establishment of new sectors.

The transfer of data across borders supports trade in most service industries around the world as well as the growth of traditional manufacturing sectors. However, several countries have begun to adopt laws impeding the cross-border transfer of data, ostensibly in pursuit of policy objectives such as national security, public morals or public order, and privacy. Such domestic measures create potential concerns under both international trade law and international investment law. Accordingly, recent trade and investment negotiations such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) include specific provisions mandating the permissibility of cross-border data transfer and prohibiting data localization in certain circumstances. Although World Trade Organization law contains no such specific provisions, restrictive data transfer measures could breach the non-discrimination and market access disciplines under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), except to the extent that they are justified under the general exception in GATS art. XIV. International investment law may also apply to measures restricting data transfer, particularly if investment arbitrators take into account holistic changes in the digital economy to interpret the scope of covered investments and the meaning of investment obligations. The application of general trade and investment law disciplines to data transfer restrictions and localization requirements * The authors would like to thank Neha Mishra for her extensive research assistance, Jane Kluske for helpful research assistance and comments in the initial stages, Gary Horlick and Tania Voon for their insights, and the participants of the 'Regulating Cross-Border Transfer of Data' conference held at the Faculty of Law, University of Basel on 7 April 2016 for their comments.

A rapid scale-up and deployment of sustainable energy sources is a critical for climate change mitigation. Expanding sustainable energy, however, requires a holistic approach to global energy governance. The Energy Charter Treaty and the World Trade Organization are two important regimes that affect trade and investment activity in the energy sector, with consequent implications for climate change mitigation efforts. This paper examines the evolution of the relationship between both institutions, aims to identify the nature of the ever-changing nexus between the two treaties and discusses three possible scenarios for their interaction with an eye to strengthening future energy governance.

Although export restriction was applied since the 1920s-30s and is regulated under WTO laws, scholars and lawyers alike have labelled it as an “under-regulated” or “legally-deficient” issue to date. This paper examines this issue by analyzing key provisions – applicable to the world food 2007-08 and Covid-19 pandemic crises – particularly Articles XI and XX of GATT1994 and Article 12 of Agreement on Agriculture 1995. The finding revealed that export restriction, irrespective of its legal status, may be justifiably applied by Members if it satisfies such exemptions or exceptions as, inter alia, temporary application for preventing or relieving critical shortage, necessity for human health or life protection, exhaustible natural resource preservation, and essentialness to acquisition or distribution in short supply. However, key legal concepts such as necessity, preventing or relieving, critical shortage, essentialness, exhaustible natural resources, and short supply remain undefined in WTO laws, thus posing many legal questions on the measures’ legitimacy during the two crises. Moreover, the transparency objective in such measures remains remote from its expected success since related provisions lack operational substance and enforcement mechanisms. Reforms have been proposed at WTO since 2008 to limit the Members’ ability to adopt such measures and promote more transparency, yet they failed to earn agreement. The paper suggests three policy reforms: developing more specifics in controversial legal terms in separate protocols or side agreements, considering inverse-exception in extraordinarily challenging circumstances, and regulating the hidden culprit – export tax.

Keywords:
Export restrictions or prohibitions, WTO, GATT 1994, and Agreement on Agriculture 1994

This study offers a quantitative valuation of the possible effects on trade creation, trade diversion, exports, imports, tariff revenue, and welfare effects of the European Partnership Agreement (EPA) on Tanzania. The study applies the Software for Market Analysis and Restrictions on Trade (SMART) partial equilibrium model for its analysis. The study makes a finding that approximately, US $ 144.76 million would be created, which represents 0.27 percent of Tanzania’s GDP. However, there would be trade diversion estimated at US $ 0.00000034 million, which represents 0.0000% of Tanzania’s GDP. In terms of welfare, the study estimates a welfare gain of US$ 15.24 million for Tanzania, which is 0.03 percent of the GDP. The welfare gain would be typified by a consumer surplus gain of US$ 15.24 million. Estimates further reveal a loss in tariff revenue estimated at US $ 205.18 million per annum (0.38% of GDP).  The study recommends that the Government needs to plan for alternative sources of revenue if the EPAs are to be implemented. The trade creation effects might not be sufficient to cover up for the influx of imports in Tanzania which might suffocate domestic production.

This is the text of the address made by Justice Saleem Marsoof, PC at the 50th Session of the Afro-Asian Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO) held in Colombo from 27th June to 1st July 2011. In his address under the title “Recent Developments relating to in the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration and the New York Convention on the Enforcement and Recognition of Foreign Arbitral Awards”, Justice Marsoof adverted to his experience with the Afro-Asian Legal Consultative Organization and went on the deal with the 2010 revision to the UNCITRAL Rules of Arbitration. The focus of his address was on the changes introduced to the UNCITRAL Rules in 2010 to make the rules more efficacious and user friendly, and also how the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards had contributed to the popularity of the UNCITRAL Rules.

Various presidential candidates over the years have promised to reduce the U.S. trade deficit. Such arguments are based on the mistaken belief that trade deficits are bad. This paper explains why the United States is doomed to have trade deficits, and why it doesn't matter. The paper also includes a bibliography of more than 100 articles about trade, with links that will take the reader to the article.

Foreign trade is an area about which much has been written. The majority of economists, going back to Adam Smith, have generally concluded that trade is good, and that it should be free and unhampered, at least most of the time. The reasoning behind their conclusion is almost always utilitarian-based. Free and unrestricted trade is good because the majority benefits, or because the gains from trade exceed the losses. In economic terms, one would say that trade is a positive-sum game. Economists-or more likely, politicians-who say that trade should be restricted generally try to make a special case for some special interest that has come to the legislature seeking protection. The approach in this chapter is distinctively different from what one would find in a standard economics textbook. While utilitarian approaches will be used to illustrate various points, the flaws inherent in any utilitarian approach are many. In fact, utilitarian arguments will be shown to be fatally flawed. Ethical arguments based on utilitarian approaches will be shown to be inferior to a rights approach. I will show that trade protectionism, in any form, must necessarily violate individual rights. I will also attempt to fill a gap in the trade literature which, until now, has almost always failed to view trade from the perspective of individual rights. A bibliography with links to more than 100 articles on international trade is also included.

Recent literature tried to explain the Indian growth miracle in different ways, ranging from trade liberalization to industrial reforms. Using data on Indian manufacturing firms, this paper analyzes the relationship between firm's productivity and export market participation during 1991–2004. While it provides evidence of the self-selection hypothesis by showing that more productive firms become exporters, the results do not show that entry into export markets enhances productivity. The paper examines the explanation of self selection hypothesis for total factor productivity differences across 33,510 exporting and non-exporting firms. It uses propensity score matching to test the learning-by-exporting hypothesis. In line with the prediction of recent heterogeneous firm models of international trade, the main finding of the paper is: more productive firms become exporters but it is not the case that learning by exporting is a channel fuelling growth in Indian manufacturing.

This study proposes that, for the purposes of assessment, the term market accessibility be defined as the combination of tariffs, non-tariff measures and ease of doing business.  A simple and transferrable framework and scoring mechanism is introduced, which can be used to compare and contrast different countries (in terms of market accessibility, from the viewpoint of non-preferential trade partners).  Using Thailand as a case study, interested stakeholders are provided with a worked example of this suggested approach - an approach that can act as a foundation for establishing a tool-kit for the assessment of market accessibility or the broader subject matter concerning a partner's trade policy environment.

Over the past several decades, enormous technological, economic and political changes have transformed the U.S. economy and the application of U.S. export controls. Technological advances have revolutionized the types of products available and the ways they can be exported. Software and technical data have become articles of commerce in their own right and can be exported electronically, not just physically. As a result, electronic activities defined as "exports" have increased exponentially, far in excess of economic growth.

Yet despite these revolutionary changes, the basic structure of U.S. export controls has remained unaltered. The regime is outdated, but efforts at reform have ignored the controls' most fundamental structural aspect: that they look to individual export transactions as the events to be regulated. The regulation of individual transactions is so embedded in the system that many observers see it as an indelible feature. Form supersedes substance, and the system meets neither its expressly stated goal of facilitating trade nor its primary goal of promoting national security objectives.

In order to reconcile these two seemingly incompatible goals, this article recommends that U.S. commercial export controls focus primarily on the identity of the exporter and the scope of the exporter's export activities, and only secondarily on specific export transactions. This "account-based" approach to export controls would reduce many current difficulties faced by U.S. exporters, by deemphasizing the often artificial and burdensome focus on discrete transactions. An account-based approach would more accurately reflect activities taking place in international commerce and allow them to be vetted for the end user/end use concerns that have become so important in export controls - and thus both address U.S. national security concerns and improve export efficiency.

Keywords: Export Controls Technology, International Business

Question. "While Preferential Trade Agreements [PTAs] embody discrimination against non-member countries, MFN requires countries not participating in PTAs themselves to treat PTA participants in a non-discriminatory fashion" --Critically Evaluate the statement with the help of practical instances.

Answer :
Preferential Trade Agreements [PTAs]
Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) or Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is a special status given in trade by various countries. In the United States, it is designed to promote economic growth in the developing country, the agreement provides duty-free entry for up to 4,800 products from 129 designated beneficiary countries and territories. GSP was instituted on January 1, 1976, by the Trade Act of 1974, mentioned US government. India government, however, thinks the plan has been proliferating since the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1994.

In a three-country model of endogenous trade agreements, we study the implications of the Most Favored Nation Clause (MFN) when countries are free to form discriminatory preferential trade agreements (PTAs). While PTA members discriminate against non-member countries, MFN requires non-members to treat PTA members in a non-discriminatory fashion. We show that MFN reduces the potency of a country’s optimal tariffs and therefore its incentive for unilaterally opting out of trade liberalization. Thus, MFN can be a catalyst for trade liberalization. However, when PTAs take the form of customs unions, the efficiency case for MFN as well as its pro-liberalization effect is weaker since one country finds itself deliberately excluded by member countries as opposed to staying out voluntarily.

With the stunning growth of international trade in the last half century, the distinction between public international law and private international law has become increasingly blurred. The effect of this definitional blurring is of particular importance in the area of state and government succession. Yet post-Cold War succession events clearly illustrate that international law doctrine on state and government succession does not reflect state practice.

With this in mind, Professor Tai-Heng Cheng's book, STATE SUCCESSION AND COMMERCIAL OBLIGATIONS, proposes a reconceptualization of state and government succession doctrine. The book manages to address this complex subject from a variety of detail-specific angles without losing sight of the larger, complex picture of globalization. It also recommends a new legal approach to state and government succession that is more consistent with actual state practice, and it meshes this approach, to the extent possible, with existing doctrine.

This book review first summarizes and discusses the book's key principles and observations, and then analyzes Professor Cheng's reconceptualization of state and government succession from two perspectives not explored in the text - namely, economic theory concerning the identification and allocation of rights, and virtual state theory - that might be useful avenues for further inquiry. The review closes with comments regarding how Professor Cheng's reconceptualization might be applied to the 2003 invasion and subsequent reconstruction of Iraq, and future succession events as well.

Keywords: succession, state succession, government succession, international law, debt, odious debt, commercial obligation, globalization, Vienna Convention, Iraq

La négociation du « Partenariat transatlantique de commerce et d'investissement » (PTCI/TTIP) montre qu'entre deux grandes entités politiques comme les Etats-Unis et l'Union européenne (UE), il y a en réalité deux négociations : celle qui a lieu entre elles et dont on ne sait pas grand-chose, et celle qui a lieu à l'intérieur de chacune d'elle, et où l'on voit les populations et certains de leurs représentants essayer d'empêcher que surviennent les ennuis qu'ils devinent pouvoir bientôt pleuvoir du niveau supérieur. Au niveau inférieur de la négociation, 2014 fut l'année où les populations européennes manifestèrent leur rejet massif du principe même du règlement des différends investisseur-Etat (RDIE) au sein du PTCI (97% de réponses négatives à la consultation organisée par la Commission européenne). 2015 fut quant à elle l'année…des tentatives de réforme du RDIE afin de le faire accepter malgré tout ! Depuis l'origine (v. p.e. les ambiguïtés des § § 22, 23, 32 et 45 du mandat de la Commission : Directives de négociation concernant le PTCI entre l'UE et les États-Unis d'Amérique, 17 juin 2013, 11103/1/13 REV 1 (fr)), c'est là une des principales pierres d'achoppement des négociations : l'administration des Etats-Unis tient absolument à ce mécanisme, de même que les lobbies de part et d'autre, mais les populations états-uniennes et plus encore européennes le rejettent...

En juin 2016, Donald Trump, affirme que s'il est élu, il renégociera l'Accord de Libre-Échange Nord-Américain (ALENA/NAFTA) et, en cas de refus de ses partenaires, en retirera les États-Unis. Conformément à cette promesse, une demande officielle est formulée sur le site de la Maison Blanche le jour de l'investiture du nouveau Président, le 20/02/17, avant d'être acceptée par les deux autres parties à l'accord, le Mexique et le Canada. Aujourd'hui, sept tables-rondes sont censées se tenir et aboutir à un accord au début de l'année 2018. Suivant ce programme, des négociations ont déjà eu lieu du 16 au 21 août à Washington, du 1 er au 5 septembre à Mexico, et les prochaines devraient se dérouler à Ottawa du 23 au 27 septembre. La délégation canadienne est dirigée par Steve Verheul, qui sort tout juste de la négociation de l'AECG/CETA...

How was ‘international trade’ between former European empires and their former colonies in Africa governed after decolonisation? In the 1960s, the vast majority of African countries became independent, and so a new arrangement was necessary to govern their economic relations with Europe. The Yaoundé Conventions were then concluded between the European Community (EC) and the bloc of postcolonial African countries.
Specialised literature provides comprehensive accounts of the Yaoundé Conventions. However, little is known about the role of law and lawyers in their making and governance. Part of this story concerns political and intellectual struggles in the legal profession about which projects, ideas, and norms would be applicable. Another part concerns the work of lawyers to organise those policies, theories and visions into an emerging conception and to employ it to influence the production and management of the Yaoundé Conventions.
This article combines historical and socio-legal approaches to show that a distinct legal conception of regional trade agreements – called here the ‘development framework’ – was pivotal to the design and application of the Yaoundé Conventions. This conception was primarily advanced and persuasively used by European and African lawyers. This contrasts with the conventional view that trade agreements are variations on a single legal concept. It is concluded that EC-Africa regionalism was a singular experiment, due significantly to the unique features of this legal conception.

L a Convenzione Riveduta di Kyoto è uno strumento volta a favorire il ravvicina-mento e l'armonizzazione del-le procedure e tecniche do-ganali a livello mondiale. Adottata dall'Organizzazione Mondiale delle Dogane (OMD) il 18 maggio 1973 ed entrata in vigore il 25 settem-bre 1974, è stata modificata il 26 giugno 1999 da un Proto-collo aggiuntivo che ne ha adeguato i contenuti alle nuove esigenze del commer-cio internazionale ed in parti-colare all'uso delle nuove tecnologie informatiche e metodi di controllo innovativi, come le audit contabili o le analisi dei rischi. La nuova versione della Con-venzione, denominata Con-venzione "Riveduta" di Kyoto, è entrata in vigore il 3 feb-braio 2006, a seguito del rag-giungimento del numero mini-mo di 40 ratifiche richieste perché questa potesse avere efficacia. La sua struttura è composta da tre parti princi-pali: il Corpo della Convenzione, che contiene il Preambolo ed altre disposizioni fonda-mentali relative al suo cam-po di applicazione, alle procedure di adesione da parte degli Stati e territori doganali ed alle procedure di emendamento del testo della Convenzione stessa; un Allegato Generale, divi-so in 10 capitoli, contenen-te le definizioni e i principi fondamentali sui quali si ba-sa la Convenzione, rag-gruppati in Standard e Standard Transitori applica-bili a tutti i regimi doganali; 10 Allegati Specifici, nume-rati con lettere dalla A alla K, ognuno dei quali tratta una procedura o un regime doganale specifico e che è ulteriormente articolato in Standard e Pratiche Rac-comandate. Per diventare parte della Convenzione, una nazione o un territorio doganale deve accettare il corpo della Con-venzione e l'Allegato Genera-le nella loro interezza, mentre l'accettazione di uno o più degli Allegati Specifici (o di capitoli separati degli Allegati Specifici) può essere sogget-ta a riserve. Qualora una parte con-traente decida di aderire ad un Allegato specifico o ad uno o più capitoli di un Alle-gato specifico, gli Standard in esso contenuti diventano ob-Il principio di proporzionalità delle sanzioni doganali Il principio di proporziona-lità delle sanzioni doganali è uno dei principi fonda-mentali della Convenzione Internazionale per la Sem-plificazione e l'Armonizza-zione dei Regimi Doganali, me glio nota come Conven-zione Riveduta di Kyoto, che ad esso dedica lo Standard 23 dell'Allegato Spe-cifico H, Capitolo 1.

Unlike inbound trade regulation, which is characterized by deep multilateralism, the regulation of export trade is characterized by significant unilateralism. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the United States’ export control laws. Since at least 1982, the United States has claimed the power to regulate the use and reexport of U.S. origin goods, software, and technologies located abroad, based primarily on the fact that these items are of U.S. origin (or are foreign-origin items with some U.S. content). These “item origin-based” jurisdictional claims, which in 1982 arose from a trade dispute with European countries over a proposed natural gas pipeline from the Soviet Union, resulted in a flurry of academic commentary in the 1980s, with most commentators condemning this U.S. assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction. Attention to the issue has waned since then, but the United States’ problematic assertion of item origin-based export control jurisdiction remains in place.

This Article asserts that the United States’ longstanding claim of extraterritorial export control jurisdiction is an under-appreciated but vitally important issue in need of resolution. Exponential growth in international trade means that the United States’ asserted jurisdictional reach is vastly broader today. This Article explains the nature and mechanics of the United States’ jurisdictional claim, provides a summary of the 1982 Soviet gas pipeline trade dispute, reconsiders the justifiability of the United States’ jurisdictional claim under prescriptive jurisdictional principles of international law, and finds the current approach legally awkward and strategically insufficient. It then considers the issue through the lens of more recent scholarship on transnational networks, mutual recognition arrangements, and unilateral trade actions, and concludes by recommending a multilateral approach that offers greater promise of both policy effectiveness and legality under international law.

Keywords: exports, export controls, outbound, jurisdiction, extraterritorial, extraterritoriality, sanctions, embargoes, WTO, world trade organization, networks, wassenaar