Detailed notes for the 3rd year course International Trade and Investment Law, part of the Business Minor at Tilburg University. The summary includes notes from lectures and readings.
Course Notes International Trade and Investment Law
Class 1
Questions
- What is the role of the WTO in international trade?
- What is the historical background and economic rationale of the WTO and the WTO Agreements?
- What is the organisational structure of the WTO?
Reading
- Mavroidis, pp. 1-54
Cases
- Appellate Body Report, US – Gasoline
LECTURE NOTES
- Social dilemmas - protectionism a considerer choice
- Increasing market access, but -
- Distributional dilemma
- Value dilemma
- State goals dilemma
- Choices for individuals
- As consumer
- As worker
- As member of economic class
- As resident of community
- As citizen
- Personal values
- Changing shape of global trade
- 1992 - e.g. north america - asia, north america - EU significant trade
- 2014 - world trade more multidimensional e.g.:
- Developed and developing europe - important trade
- North america - trade flows more dispersed
- World trade remains highly concentrated
- Small group of ‘connected’ countries dominate world trade
- China and India - biggest world economies by 2050
- One belt one road (OBOR) initiative
, - Chinese plan to dominate world trade
- Infrastructure to reach critical markets
- WTO Economic Rationale
- Economic theory is the basis for WTO law
- Comparative/absolute advantage
- Protectionism/special interest groups
- Terms of trade/prisoner’s dilemma
- (nuanced by Blanchard)
- Embedded liberalism?
- The Advent of GATT (General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade) 1947
- Bretton Woods Institutions 1944
- International Monetary Fund
- International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now the World Bank)
- And what about beggar-thy-neighbour policies?
→ ITO/Havana Charter
- Prep Conference London 1946, New York 1947, Geneva 1947
- GATT 47 was conceived as an interim Agreement, pending entry into force ofITO, no status
of international organization
- Entry into force only by means of Provisional Protocol of Application (PPA), later Protocols of
Accession
- WTO goals
- Raising standards of living
- Ensuring full employment, growing volume of real income and demand, and increasing
production
- Allowing for sustainable development
- Function
- Facilitative function: facilitates the negotiation and conclusion of commercial agreements
- Constraint function: spurs compliance and policies or restraint by Members with an evolving
code of trade conduct
- Diffusion of influence function: offers to smaller Members a first-rate opportunity to
influence, depending on their bargaining power, the regulation of international trade
- Promotion of interaction function: promotes trade growth, diminishing at the same time the
inherent systematic uncertainty through the development of a system for resolving and
avoiding trade disputes
- WTO structure
- 3 basic components
- Members
- Secretariat
, - Judiciary with standing appellate body
- Powers unevenly distributed (member-driven organisation)
- WTO members
- Members compose the main Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Bodies
- 4 Roles of Members
- Ministerial Conference
- General Council
- Dispute Settlement Body
- Trade Policy Review Body
- Secretariat
- Headed by General Director
- Chosen by Ministerial Conference
- Term determined by MC
- Chooses Secretariat staff
- Staffed by International Civil Servants
- Loyalty is with Organization, not with home country
- Oversees administrative functioning of WTO
- Possesses “Organizational Memory”
- Assists dispute settlement panels
- Membership
- 2 types of WTO membership → Articles XI and XII WTOA
- Original Membership (Art. XI)
- Membership through accession (Art. XII)
- Membership gained but not automatic
- 2 aspects
- Fulfilling criteria of membership
- Completing process of accession
- Membership not limited to ‘States’
- “States Plus” (EU)
- “States Minus” (Hong Kong, Taiwan)
- Decision making
- By 3 agents
- Ministerial conference
- General council
- Dispute settlement body
- Typically by consensus even if the WTOA provides otherwise
- Voting Procedures
- One Member, One Vote with the exception of EC
- EC - as many votes as Member States in WTO
, - The DOHA Round
- Ministerial Conferences Seattle (1999) fails
- Ministerial Conference Doha (Qatar) December 2001: Launch of DDA
- Ministerial Conference Cancun (2003) fails
- Ministerial Conference Hong-Kong (2005)
- July Packages (2006 and 2008)
- 2 Geneva MCs
- Room for optimism? The Bali package and the plurilaterals (multinational legal or trade
agreement between countries)
- The trade facilitation agreement (2017) and the Nairobi package
- The Buenos Aires MC
- The e-commerce launch of negotiations in Davos (2019)
- The 16-member interim appeal mechanism (Davos 2020)
- Pledge for reform in the MC Outcome Document (2022)
- New agreements on fisheries subsidies (2022), on investment facilitation (2024)
- Contemporary problems
- Little interest in additional market access after Uruguay Round (Agriculture, NAMA,
Services)
- Single undertaking backfired: deadlock in one area led to comprehensive failure
- Remaining relevant!
- Recovery after a pandemic
- Addressing food security amidst a war
- The boundaries of securitization of economic policy (geoeconomics)
- WTO dispute settlement reform
- PTAs continue to grow
- CPTPP
- Japan-EU
- CETA
- RCE
- Status of Private Sector and NGOs
- Main beneficiaries of WTO rules and commitments are consumers and the private sector
(traders, companies)
- Non-Governmental Organizations
- Lobbying in trade negotiations
- Rights and obligations are derived
- Role in dispute settlement (amicus curiae; public hearings)
- Sources of WTO law
- Authoritative (3.2 DSU)
- Texts of the Agreements
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