International Trade Law And Domestic Policy

Critics of the World Trade Organization argue that its binding dispute settlement process imposes a neoliberal agenda on its member states with little to no input from their citizenry or governments. If this is the case, why would any nation agree to participate? In International Trade Law and Domestic Policy, Jacqueline Krikorian explores this question by examining the impact of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism on domestic policies in the United States and Canada. She demonstrates that the WTO's ability to influence domestic arrangements has been constrained by three factors: judicial deference, institutional arrangements, and strategic decision making by political elites in Ottawa and Washington. In this groundbreaking assessment of whether supranational courts are now setting the legislative agenda of sovereign nations, Krikorian brings the insights of law and politics scholarship to bear on a subject matter traditionally addressed by international relations scholars. By doing so, she shows that the classic division between these two fields of study in the discipline of political science, though suitable in the postwar era, is outdated in the context of a globalized world.

Critics of the World Trade Organization argue that its binding dispute settlement process imposes a neoliberal agenda on member states. If this is the case, why would any nation agree to participate? Jacqueline Krikorian explores this question by examining the impact of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism on domestic policies in the United States and Canada. She demonstrates that the WTO's ability to influence domestic arrangements has been constrained by three factors: judicial deference, institutional arrangements, and strategic decision making by political elites in Ottawa and Washington.

Introduces the rules and institutions that govern international trade. This new edition has been fully up-dated to take account of the most recent developments.

This 2004 book aims at advancing our understanding of the influences international norms and international institutions have over the incentives of states to cooperate on issues such as environment and trade. Contributors adopt two different approaches in examining this question. One approach focuses on the constitutive elements of the international legal order, including customary international law, soft law and framework conventions, and on the types of incentives states have, such as domestic incentives and reputation. The other approach examines specific issues in the areas of international environment protection and international trade. The combined outcome of these two approaches is an understanding of the forces that pull states toward closer cooperation or prevent them from doing so, and the impact of different types of international norms and diverse institutions on the motivation of states. The insights gained suggest ways for enhancing states' incentives to cooperate through the design of norms and institutions.

The primary objective of most trade agreements is to restrain members' use of trade policies for protectionist purposes. But it would be pointless to restrict the application of border instruments without regulating the possible use of domestic policies for protectionist purpose. To this end, most agreements include an obligation for National Treatment (NT) of foreign products. The NT provision in the GATT appears in Art. III, which applies to most government actions that have impact trade. It requires that imported products be treated as favorably by domestic policy as similar, indigenous products. This study offers suggestions based on legal and economic analysis about how this vaguely-formulated provision ought to be interpreted. The study first examines the purposes of Art. III, as it appears from an economic point of view, as well as from its negotiating record. It also examines the case law, arguing that the absence of a coherent methodology implies that it is often unclear whether case law interpretations of the key terms promote the intended objectives of the provision. The study then identifies two alternative approaches that might be used to interpret Art. III, and its interplay with the general exceptions clause in Art. XX GATT. The first approach only requires that the products are in sufficiently close potential or actual competition in the market, in a case where an imported product is given a less favourable treatment than a domestic product. The second approach requires additionally that the importing country has no policy rationale other than protectionism for treating the two products differently. The main difference between the two approaches is that under the former, the protectionism test occurs if/when an Art. XX exception is requested, while the latter approach mandates that the protectionism test should be performed as part of the evaluation of the alleged violation of Art. III. As discussed in the study, the second, and favored, approach provides a more permissive regime for domestic policy instruments.

Preferential trading arrangements (PTAs) play an increasingly prominent role in the global political economy, two notable examples being the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement. These agreements foster economic integration among member states by enhancing their access to one another's markets. Yet despite the importance of PTAs to international trade and world politics, until now little attention has been focused on why governments choose to join them and how governments design them. This book offers valuable new insights into the political economy of PTA formation. Many economists have argued that the roots of these agreements lie in the promise they hold for improving the welfare of member states. Others have posited that trade agreements are a response to global political conditions. Edward Mansfield and Helen Milner argue that domestic politics provide a crucial impetus to the decision by governments to enter trade pacts. Drawing on this argument, they explain why democracies are more likely to enter PTAs than nondemocratic regimes, and why as the number of veto players--interest groups with the power to block policy change--increases in a prospective member state, the likelihood of the state entering a trade agreement is reduced. The book provides a novel view of the political foundations of trade agreements.

The Domestic Politics of International Trade considers the issues surrounding intellectual property rights in international trade negotiations in order to examine the challenges posed to domestic policy-makers by the increasingly broad nature of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Throughout the book the author demonstrates the importance of domestic politics in understanding the nature and outcome of international negotiations, particularly as they relate to international economic diplomacy. The book looks in detail at the intellectual property negotiations which formed part of the US-Peru and US-Colombia Free Trade Agreements and analyses the extent to which public health authorities and other parties affected by the increased levels of intellectual property protection were integrated into the negotiation process. The book then juxtaposes these findings with an analysis of the domestic origins of US negotiation objectives in the field of intellectual property, paying particular attention to the role of the private sector in the development of these objectives. Based on a substantial amount of empirical research, including approximately 100 interviews with negotiators, capital based policy-makers, private sector representatives, and civil society organisations in Lima, Bogotá and Washington, DC, this book offers a rare account of different stakeholders’ perceptions of the FTA negotiation process. Ultimately, the book succeeds in integrating the study of domestic politics with that of international negotiations. This book will be of particular interest to academics as well as practitioners and students in the fields of international law, economic law, intellectual property, political economy, international relations, comparative politics and government.

International experts from law, economics and political science provide in-depth analysis of international trade issues. Attorneys, economists and political scientists adopt a common viewpoint, entitled 'transcending the ostensible'. This approach directs particular attention to the possibility that WTO legal institutions, like other international legal institutions, will function in unexpected ways due to the political and economic conditions of the international environment in which they have been created, and in which they operate. A range of trade problems are considered here. Topics include the constitutional dimensions of international trade law, adding subjects and restructuring existing subjects to international trade law, the legal relations between developed and developing countries, and the operation of the WTO dispute settlement procedure. This will be an essential volume for professionals and academics involved with international trade policy.