This book presents a new framework for the 'trade and environment' debate and discusses the ways in which the EU and the WTO address this topic: positive, negative and non-integration. It analyses areas like food safety and renewable energy from the perspectives of legal and political science, and economics, and includes contributions focusing on various approaches, such as harmonisation, regulatory cooperation and judicialisation. In the 21st century, especially in our current times, where free trade and economic integration are increasingly being called into question, it is even more vital to find convincing normative answers and ways to address the very complex relationship between trade and environmental policies. Debunking some of the myths concerning positive and negative integration and the relationship between the two, this book is a valuable contribution to the debate on globalisation.
Human rights and environmental protection are closely intertwined, and both are critically dependent on supportive legal opportunity structures. These legal structures consist of access to the courts; 'legal stock' or the set of available standards and precedents on which to base litigation; and institutional receptiveness to potential litigation. These elements all depend on a variety of social, political, and economic variables. This book critically analyses the complexities of uniting human rights advocacy and environmental protection. Bringing together international experts in the field, it documents the current state of our environmental human rights knowledge, strategically critical questions that remain unanswered, and the initiatives required to develop those answers. It is ideal for researchers in environmental governance and law, as well as interested practitioners and advanced students working in public policy, political science and environmental studies.
Shadow Negotiators is the first book to demonstrate that United Nations (UN) organizations have intervened to influence the discourse, agenda, and outcomes of international trade lawmaking at the World Trade Organization (WTO). While UN organizations lack a seat at the bargaining table at the WTO, Matias E. Margulis argues that these organizations have acted as "shadow negotiators" engaged in political actions intended to alter the trajectory and results of multilateral trade negotiations. He draws on analysis of one of the most contested issues in global trade politics, agricultural trade liberalization, to demonstrate interventions by four different UN organizations—the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (SRRTF). By identifying several novel intervention strategies used by UN actors to shape the rules of global trade, this book shows that UN organizations chose to intervene in trade lawmaking not out of competition with the WTO or ideological resistance to trade liberalization, but out of concerns that specific trade rules could have negative consequences for world food security—an outcome these organizations viewed as undermining their social purpose to reduce world hunger and protect the human right to food.
International Arbitration Law Library The fragility of the relationship between international law and European Union (EU) law comes to the fore when a dispute arises between an EU Member State and a multinational corporate investor. This book analyzes the legislative and jurisprudential backbone affecting both policy and practice in this area, showing in the process how both the autonomy of the EU legal order and the sovereignty of Member States can be strengthened through a common investor protection policy inside the EU with an efficient adjudication mechanism promised by the EU’s “new generation” agreements. With a thorough analysis of the parameters that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) arbitral tribunals have set for the interplay between EU law and international investment law, the following salient issues and topics and more are covered: operation of the EU’s exclusive competence regarding foreign direct investment; EU rules on capital movements related to investments; potential conflicts between EU law and extra-EU bilateral investment treaties; intra-EU bilateral investment treaties viewed from the perspectives of both international and EU law primacy; role of arbitral tribunals in intra-EU dispute settlement and ramifications in the light of applicable law; and problems arising when the lex arbitri in the proceedings is the law of a non-EU state. The relevant jurisprudence of the CJEU is analyzed against ISDS case law, and detailed attention is paid to scholarship in the relevant fields. The author presents substantial and procedural solutions that will prevent the violation of EU law without sacrificing the substantial protection that arbitration provides for the protection of investments. The book goes largely beyond existing literature and is the first to jointly address EU law, international investment law, and integration theories with actionable solutions. It will allow all concerned with international judicial decision-making to acquire an arsenal of available normative responses to issues raised by EU law’s autonomy, primacy of EU law, EU competences, international EU responsibility, compatibility of ISDS with EU law, and other issues, addressing all the challenges likely to be raised in arbitral or court proceedings. Practitioners will discover viable ways to identify, prevent, or resolve legal impasses stemming from the overlap of EU law and other international law regimes when structuring an investment inside the EU.
Trade flows and trade policies need to be properly quantified to describe, compare, or follow the evolution of policies between sectors or countries or over time. This is essential to ensure that policy choices are made with an appropriate knowledge of the real conditions. This practical guide introduces the main techniques of trade and trade policy data analysis. It shows how to develop the main indexes used to analyze trade flows, tariff structures, and non-tariff measures. It presents the databases needed to construct these indexes as well as the challenges faced in collecting and processing these data, such as measurement errors or aggregation bias. Written by experts with practical experience in the field, A Practical Guide to Trade Policy Analysis has been developed to contribute to enhance developing countries' capacity to analyze and implement trade policy. It offers a hands-on introduction on how to estimate the distributional effects of trade policies on welfare, in particular on inequality and poverty. The guide is aimed at government experts engaged in trade negotiations, as well as students and researchers involved in trade-related study or research. An accompanying DVD contains data sets and program command files required for the exercises. Copublished by the WTO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
The essays in this volume attempt to explore and elucidate some of the legal and constitutional complexities of the relationship between the EU and the WTO,focusing particularly on the impact of the latter and its relevance for the former. The effect of WTO norms is evident across a broad range of European economic and social policy fields, affecting regulatory and distributive policies alike. A number of significant areas have been selected in this book to exemplify the scope and intensity of impact, including EC single market law, external trade, structural and cohesion funding, cultural policy, social policy, and aspects of public health and environmental policy. Certain chapters seek to examine the legal and political points of intersection between the two legal orders, and many of the essays explore in different ways the normative dimension of the relationship between the EU and the WTO and the legitimacy claims of the latter.
The History and Future of the World Trade Organization is a comprehensive account of the economic, political and legal issues surrounding the creation of the WTO and its evolution. Fully illustrated with colour and black-and-white photos dating back to the early days of trade negotiations, the publication reviews the WTO's achievements as well as the challenges faced by the organisation, and identifies the key questions that WTO members need to address in the future. The book describes the intellectual roots of the trading system, membership of the WTO and the growth of the Geneva trade community, trade negotiations and the development of coalitions among the membership, and the WTO's relations with other international organisations and civil society. Also covered are the organisation's robust dispute settlement rules, the launch and evolution of the Doha Round, the rise of regional trade agreements, and the leadership and management of the WTO.
This new book highlights the multifaceted effects of regional trade agreements and outlines the strategic options for EU trade policy. It points out what is new about this most recent phase of regionalism and analyzes the effects on economic welfare and trade transaction costs. The authors draw upon elements of game theory to explore a self-reinforcing mechanism that is resulting in a potentially damaging race for markets. They focus in particular on the multiple impacts of regionalism on the WTO and the multilateral trading order. The book arrives at an opportune time, as the Doha Round is reaching a critical phase.
Trade costs and inclusive growth looks at how implementation of the WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) can help to reduce trade costs and promote growth. The publication rings together contributions from ten participants in the WTO Chairs Programme, which supports trade-related activities by academic institutions in developing countries. The book looks into how the Aid for Trade initiative can assist with implementing the TFA, the importance of mainstreaming trade into national development strategies, and the potential impact of the TFA in various regions.
