This book analyzes the investment chapter of a new type of trade agreement between Canada and the European Union to help readers gain a better understanding of this mega-regional deal, which includes foreign investment protection. It first provides background information on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), particularly focusing on the chapter on foreign investment, including the rules on the entry of investments, their protection and the stringent dispute settlement mechanism. It goes on to explore whether these provisions are a further step toward reforming the current international investment law regime. It also examines the highly innovative part of the agreement: the inclusion of crosscutting issues, such as sustainable development. In addition, it examines the CETA investment chapter from the perspective of non-contracting parties, including Africa, Asia and Latin America. The book is of interest to academics and students in the field of international investment law. It is also an essential resource for government legal advisers, policymakers, business practitioners, and others dealing with international investment law.
Based on original research, and bringing together expert contributors, this book provides a critical analysis of the current law and policy between the EU and China, both internally and internationally. Covering key topics on the subject, this book draws together diverse perspectives into a single collection, and is an invaluable tool for both scholars and practitioners of trade and investment law, as well as human rights and environmental law and policy.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada (CETA), proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the US (TTIP), and the plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) between the EU and 22 other States have sparked a great deal of academic and public interest. This edited collection brings together leading experts in the field of international economic law to address the legal complexities of these treaties and provide an explanation of their core principles. In the first two chapters, this book examines changing conceptions of international economic law and the main motivations for negotiating mega-regional agreements. In nine further contributions, international experts examine sectoral issues such as the trade, investment, and dispute settlement procedures envisaged in these 'mega-regional' agreements. The book goes on to consider the progress made in intellectual property protection, the problems associated with data protection, human rights, labour, and environmental standards, issues of transparency and legitimacy, and the relationship between CETA, TTIP, and TiSA on the one hand and EU law on the other. It concludes with four chapters that discuss globalization and other fundamental questions surrounding these mega-regional agreements from economic, political science, and legal perspectives.
This comprehensive and clearly written textbook offers a long-awaited introduction to the trade policy of the European Union, the world's largest trading entity. Gstöhl and De Bièvre provide a comprehensive assessment of the common commercial policy, its relationship with other policies, like development policy, and of the EU's multi-level policy-making and international bargaining in this area. As well as providing a broad overview of the nature and development of the EU's trade policy, the authors analyse how relevant institutions and decision-making processes are organized and how this set-up fosters particular policy outcomes. Gstöhl and De Bièvre show how the thorough and critical study of EU trade policy can be conducted from an interdisciplinary viewpoint, enabling the student to tackle the ever-evolving political, economic, and legal questions that arise. Given the accessible writing, this book is recommended for both undergraduate and Master's students studying the EU and Europe in their Politics, International Relations, Economics or Law degrees, as well as those focusing on international trade policy.
The European Union (EU) is at the forefront of engaging in external trade relations outside of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with entire regions and economic powerhouses. Understanding why and how the EU engages in one of the most active fields of external relations is crucial. This book fills a gap in the literature by analysing motives on the modes – bilateralism, inter-regionalism, or multilateralism - of EU external trade relations towards regional organizations in Asia and Latin America outside of the WTO. In particular, it examines why the EU turned from interregional to bilateral external trade relations towards these world regions – a question that is, to date, under-researched. By developing and testing an original approach rooted in realist theorizing coined ‘commercial realism’, it examines systematically the explanatory power of commercial realism against liberal-institutionalist approaches dominant in the literature on EU external relations through five in-depth case studies. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in EU Politics/Studies, EU external relations, inter-regionalism and more broadly to International Relations and International Political Economy.
In today’s increasingly complex and interdependent world, the role of parliaments in external affairs remains a relatively under explored topic of research. The multiple patterns of global governance are mostly dominated by the executive branches of government, with parliaments relegated to the sidelines. This insightful book aims to challenge this dominant perspective and demonstrate the increased networking of parliaments both within the EU and with external actors outside the EU. It not only sheds light on EU parliamentary cooperation and networking, but also reveals the growing scope and role of parliamentary scrutiny, control and conflict mediation.
Investment treaties are some of the most controversial but least understood instruments of global economic governance. Public interest in international investment arbitration is growing and some developed and developing countries are beginning to revisit their investment treaty policies. The Political Economy of the Investment Treaty Regime synthesises and advances the growing literature on this subject by integrating legal, economic, and political perspectives. Based on an analysis of the substantive and procedural rights conferred by investment treaties, it asks four basic questions. What are the costs and benefits of investment treaties for investors, states, and other stakeholders? Why did developed and developing countries sign the treaties? Why should private arbitrators be allowed to review public regulations passed by states? And what is the relationship between the investment treaty regime and the broader regime complex that governs international investment? Through a concise, but comprehensive, analysis, this book fills in some of the many "blind spots" of academics from different disciplines, and is the first port of call for lawyers, investors, policy-makers, and stakeholders trying to make sense of these critical instruments governing investor-state relations.
Deep trade agreements (DTAs) cover not just trade but additional policy areas, such as international flows of investment and labor and the protection of intellectual property rights and the environment. Their goal is integration beyond trade or deep integration. These agreements matter for economic development. Their rules influence how countries (and hence, the people and firms that live and operate within them) transact, invest, work, and ultimately, develop. Trade and investment regimes determine the extent of economic integration, competition rules affect economic efficiency, intellectual property rights matter for innovation, and environmental and labor rules contribute to environmental and social outcomes. This Handbook provides the tools and data needed to analyze these new dimensions of integration and to assess the content and consequences of DTAs. The Handbook and the accompanying database are the result of collaboration between experts in different policy areas from academia and other international organizations, including the International Trade Centre (ITC), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and World Trade Organization (WTO).