\u3cem\u3eReformulated Gasoline\u3c/em\u3e Under Reformulated WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures: Pulling Pandora Out of a Chapeau?

Part I of the article begins by outlining existing GATT/WTO provisions concerning trade-related environmental measures which were relevant to the Reformulated Gasoline case. Part II then outlines the facts in the dispute and gives a brief introduction to the decisions at the Panel and Appellate Body stages. Part III deals with the present and potential implications for the appellate process in terms of the substance of the dispute, the methodology and procedure adopted, and the wider issues that the case brings to attention. This Part also addresses some of the theoretical and practical issues that affect the question of the role of law and legal adjudication within the WTO

Tax Evasion, Tax Avoidance and Tax Planning in Australia: The participation in mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the 1990s

This paper will examine the development of mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes in Australia. It will consider changes in approach to tax avoidance from the ‘bottom of the harbour’ schemes of the 1960s and 1970s to the mass-marketed tax avoidance schemes of the 1990s. It will examine the changing structure of tax avoidance from individually crafted tax avoidance structures designed by accountants and lawyers used by high wealth individuals to mass produced structures targeted at highly paid, and therefore highly taxed, blue collar workers in Australia’s mining industry in the 1990s. In the latter half of the twentieth century ‘unacceptable’ tax planning went from highly expensive, individually ‘tailor made’ structures afforded and used only by the very wealthy, to inexpensive replicated structures marketed to skilled and unskilled tradespeople and labourers. By 1998 over 42 000 Australian taxpayers were engaged in tax avoidance schemes with the highest proportion focussed in the mining regions of Western Australia. In the remote and inhospitable mining community of Pannawonica, which has one of the highest paid workforces in Australia, the Australian Taxation Office identified that as many as one in five taxpayers were engaged in a mass-marketed tax avoidance scheme. The paper will identify the causes of these changes, including the advent of the computerised information technology which permitted ‘mass production’ of business structures designed to exploit business incentives in the Australian taxation system in the 1990s. It will also set these developments within the broader context of the tax compliance culture prevailing in Australia and overseas during this period

\u3cem\u3eReformulated Gasoline\u3c/em\u3e Under Reformulated WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures: Pulling Pandora Out of a Chapeau?

Part I of the article begins by outlining existing GATT/WTO provisions concerning trade-related environmental measures which were relevant to the Reformulated Gasoline case. Part II then outlines the facts in the dispute and gives a brief introduction to the decisions at the Panel and Appellate Body stages. Part III deals with the present and potential implications for the appellate process in terms of the substance of the dispute, the methodology and procedure adopted, and the wider issues that the case brings to attention. This Part also addresses some of the theoretical and practical issues that affect the question of the role of law and legal adjudication within the WTO

Settlement of Disputes Within the World Trade Organisation: A Guide to the Jurisprudence

The Urugauy Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations led to the development of a revised set of procedures on dispute settlement. These procedures dealt with a number of significant problems that had arisen under GATT dispute settlement experience. In spite of these important reforms, there are numerous, complex and contentious questions of legal adjudication that any formal dispute settlement system must face. The article outlines the aims and organs of dispute settlement under the WTO. It addresses some of the key questions as to standing, interpetation, evidence and adjudicatory practices and processes. While ongoing moitoring and reform is necessary, an important thesis is that the inherent nature of legal adjudication forces uncertain determinations that can too easily give rise to unwarranted criticism of the system as a whole.<br /