Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical issue of legal interpretation on the “development question” as they arise before WTO panels and Appellate Body, in view of the benefits inherent in a more‐rounded consideration of the development needs and concerns of WTO developing country Member States.

The introduction sets out the background to the challenges of developing countries in utilising the dispute settlement process effectively and using existing support. By analysing relevant cases, Section 2 analyses the “development question” and how it has been so far considered in legal interpretation. Section 3 addresses WTO jurisprudence on development, examining situations wherein “development” arises in the course of WTO dispute settlement. An examination as to how this aspect of WTO jurisprudence may be revisited including the potential aid of trade policy review mechanisms, and procedures for enforcement is then undertaken. It concludes on the position that the WTO judicial review process can work better by providing the much‐needed balance between binding global trade rules and the domestic progress of its developing country membership at the level of dispute settlement.

This paper establishes the importance of recognising and addressing the fact that core challenges and concerns facing developing countries can and should be factored into the legal interpretation of issues in dispute settlement.

A decisive enquiry into WTO development jurisprudence, this paper addresses developing country capacity to pursue the legal opportunities promised by the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and how this can be redressed.

One of the core objectives of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is to maintain a practice of legality, including guaranteeing state and non-state actors interact based on the world trade norms. In seeking to achieve this objective, the WTO aims to uphold the trade rule of law by emphasising compliance with specified rules and procedures during the accession process, dispute settlement and trade policy review. This study aims to review these compliance procedures by invoking the interactional international law concept of a community of legal practice. Second, it briefly illuminates Chad Bown’s proposal to establish an institute for assessing WTO commitments to improve member states’ remit to detect, challenge and deter noncompliance.

This paper is based on Jutta Brunnée and Stephen Toope’s Interactional Theory of International Law.

There is a strong link between transparency and enforcement in WTO law. The efficacy of the WTO law depends not only on its role in adjudication, but also on facilitating interactional legal practices, within and outside the WTO.

This paper offers an original analysis of the practices of compliance with WTO obligations and illuminates a new proposal for improving compliance. To attract and maintain compliance, the WTO needs to facilitate transparent interactional legal practices for states and non-state actors.

In spite of the extensive literature on the regulation of air transport services, until the development of the Quantitative Air Services Agreements Review (QUASAR) methodology no systematic review existed of the degree of liberalization granted through air services agreements. The chapter lays out QUASARs key features, and presents the main results its application has generated. It then elaborates on how the methodology could be further refined and extended to other segments of the air transport industry yet uncovered. Based on QUASAR, the chapter critically evaluates some commonly held beliefs about the liberalization of international passenger transport and then moves on to explore the technical feasibility of creating a liberal multilateral regime for air transport services. QUASAR has demonstrated that, although the air transport sector has experienced some liberalization over the past few years, this has been, overall, rather marginal. The skies are not truly open.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the stringency of different types of public financing institutions' safeguard mechanisms in the financing of large dams in developing countries. It seeks to do so by examining: the institutional strategies and policies currently in place in a set of key public financing institutions; and project‐level case studies of dams financed by these institutions and the stringency with which existing policies are applied by the key financing institutions. It aims then to cite the key factors determining why the “safeguard‐performance” between these types of financing institutions differs and what the implications are for leaders working to effect improvements in these areas.

The study compares the safeguard mechanisms of two types of financing institutions by applying a set of benchmark criteria to both existing strategy and policy documents and to the actual application of those policies at the project level, through correspondence, interviews, and site visits.

The study argues that leaders may make a difference on improving the sustainability performance gap in the financing of large dams – with more difficulty in those cases where the current gap is mainly to be explained by “systemic” factors; and arguably with more ease in cases where the current gap is caused mostly by other factors.

The study leads to the above findings for the case of public financing institutions and large infrastructure projects (with a focus on dams). To make for greater generalisability of the findings, future research should complement this work by focusing on private financing institutions and on the financing of other types of projects.

Large infrastructure projects have massive social and environmental impacts, and public financial institutions have a large stake in determining the sustainability (or otherwise) of these projects. The paper seeks to help make large infrastructure investments more sustainable by providing guidance to leaders as to where and how sustainability aspects could best be integrated in financing decisions for these projects.

The value added lies in helping leaders define where sustainability efforts in large infrastructure finance are warranted – and where, conversely, they represent largely wasted efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical underpinnings and practical implications of gender‐sensitizing trade strategies aimed at export‐led poverty reduction, where capitalizing on market‐oriented structures and optimizing existing resources become the drivers for making trade work efficiently and equitably.

The paper is based on an in‐depth literature review and the author's own practical experience as an international business consultant specialized in helping public institutions, corporations and non‐profit organizations to integrate a gender perspective into their planning and decision making processes, strategies, programs, and projects.

The paper concludes that the existing gender gap in trade strategy formulation indirectly hinders trade performance and that pro‐poor trade strategies require more inclusive decision making processes and the use of gender impact assessments.

Further research into the links between CSR, gender sensitivity and value chain analysis is needed to explore the potential of specific engagement between corporations and women‐led MSEs.

The paper proposes that policy and strategy makers can produce more coherent and effective programs by capitalizing on existing market structures and women's entrepreneurial drive, incipient integration into the export value chain, and MSE networks and clusters.

The paper provides a response to how export‐led poverty reduction strategies can systematically maximize market opportunities and, at the same time minimize the risks inherent to implementing counter‐mainstream actions and decisions aimed at creating gendered value‐enhanced market opportunities.

The Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum has only recently included investment liberalization on its agenda. A review of actions since the Bogor declaration of 1994 reveals that critical components of an investment liberalizing strategy are already being assembled within APEC. For example, an investment experts group has been meeting regularly and it has undertaken work on impediments to investment and on implementing the non‐binding investment liberalizing procedures endorsed by members at Bogor in 1994. Investment is also now a required component of each member's annual individual action plan. It would be useful to formalize this process and then move towards adoption of the rules‐based investment provisions of NAFTA, especially the national treatment principle. Then the process developing within APEC to liberalize investment as well as trade by 2020 would help to speed up the economic integration of APEC.

This essay sheds light on the problems arising from trade between asymmetric countries, particularly when associated with a different degree of power. At present, when the importance of external trade is clearly increasing and different countries of different size, wealth and stage of economic development establish even more extensive commercial links with one another, this raises fresh policy issues, but also theoretical challenges.

This research examines the dynamic interrelationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and the inflows of foreign direct investment (IFDI) in China.

This research used the Granger causality and sub-sample time-varying rolling window causality method.

The empirical results reveal that EPU tends to have a negative impact on the IFDI in most periods that have been taken into consideration. However, there has been a positive relationship observed between the periods of the US subprime crisis. That is to say that the uncertainty of the Chinese economic policy does not always impede the IFDI. These results are supported by the general equilibrium model, which states that there are certain influences that come into play when moving from EPU to IFDI. On the other hand, the IFDI exert a positive influence on EPU during times of economic crisis and trade war, which indicates that the uncertainty in the economy may increase due to the sudden soar of foreign investment.

During tense global trade situations and complicated economic scenarios, the results suggest the Chinese government should dedicate itself to expanding its initiatives to open up and improve the domestic business environment in order to increase the foreign investors' confidence and prevent the decline in the IFDI. In addition to this, it also suggests that multinational companies pay attention to the policy environment of the host country, especially when they decide to invest there.

This bibliography is intended to be selective with each entry focusing on a practical resource for doing business internationally. Each entry contains evaluative and descriptive annotations. There are numerous Web sites and resources on how to do business internationally and some of them are shallow if not misleading. The author has examined many resources prior to making a decision for inclusion in this bibliography. Entries are from sources such as the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Department of Commerce Web sites, as well as reference sources, books, government documents, international etiquette, legal requirements, trade regulations, and other Web sites. The purpose is to increase awareness of quality resources. This guide will help reference librarians to better serve their patrons on international matters.