From Pax Mercatoria to Pax Europea: How Trade Dispute Procedures Serve the EC\u27s Regional Hegemony

The European Union\u27s policies towards the states on its new, post-2004 enlargement, external borders (the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Cotonou project) present complementary yet competing tendencies: the establishment of Pax Mercatoria (the model historically developed in and by the EC itself, wherein international political stability is facilitated by economic interdependence) and the pursuit of Pax Europea (the establishment of a European zone of superior international economic, political and legal influence). The balance between these will ultimately be struck by the cumulative economic, political and social effects of the new legal arrangements. This paper focuses on one issue affecting this balance, the role of trade dispute resolution provisions in the EU\u27s Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), and their \u27juridical interface\u27 with the dispute settlement system of the WTO. I argue that the dispute settlement provisions of most EC RTAs (and their practice) contribute to the maintenance and management of the EC\u27s regional economic pre-eminence by encouraging and perpetuating non-judicialized, bilateral diplomatic dispute settlement in which the EC enjoys distinct advantages. This substitutes and subverts the more judicialized, rule-based dispute resolution system that is available on a formal basis in the WTO, and on an unutilized basis in most EC RTAs. In this regard, existing EC RTA dispute settlement does not conform to the theoretical requisites for the achievement of a regional Pax Mercatoria (which in my analysis include effectiveness, automaticity, and legalized juridical interface with the WTO), but is rather more designed in furtherance of a Pax Europea. This contradicts the Pax Mercatoria ethos of the EU\u27s contemporary regional policies, is contrary to the EU\u27s advocacy of the rule of law, and depicts the EU as a \u27poor man\u27s\u27 hegemon in the shadow of the United States. It is therefore in the interest of the EU\u27s own initiatives to reform the dispute settlement procedures in its regional trade agreements, to bring them more in line with its strategic statements, by introducing improved, judicialized dispute settlement in RTAs

Taking \u27Trade and Culture\u27 Seriously: Geographical Indications and Cultural Protection in WTO Law

The regulation of the relationship between international trade law and cultural protection is one of the challenges that the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be facing with greater intensity in the second decade of its existence. This paper approaches the problem as it is reflected in the current debate on Geographical Indications (GIs) for food and wine products in the WTO. It seeks to take \u27trade and culture\u27 seriously, looking not only at law\u27s effects on trade but also on culture, and to examine the extent to which legal restrictions on international trade can in fact prevent the degradation of cultural diversity in a particular regulatory context. The paper presents a positive theory of the law and economics of cultural protection through GIs and a discussion of the specific ways in which GIs, as sui generis international legal measures, are assumed to protect local traditions and cultural diversity (in addition to their economic and consumer protection roles). It then provides a detailed factual analysis based primarily on the experience of GI laws in the European Union, demonstrating that contrary to these theoretical beliefs, GIs have in fact proven incapable of providing cultural protection. On the basis of this case-study the article then analyses three nascent or potential international legal mechanisms for the safeguarding of cultural diversity with implications for future WTO law: (i) new sui generis legal constructs in the WTO (e.g., traditional knowledge rights); (ii) the interpretative or legislative expansion of Articles XX(a) GATT and XIV(a) GATS to include a general cultural exception from WTO trade liberalization disciplines; and (iii) the adoption of the 2004 UNESCO Draft Convention on Cultural Diversity establishing a parallel international legal regime on cultural protection with potential conflicts with WTO law

Outsourcing and Insourcing Crime: The Political Economy of Globalized Criminal Activity

Globalization is on the rise. The last few decades have been marked by dramatic reductions in transaction costs that have helped bring together local markets. Technological advances such as wireless telecommunications and the Internet have connected buyers and sellers of goods and services across the planet through transactions that were not even feasible, let alone cost-effective, as little as a decade ago. No less importantly, the systematic removal of regulatory barriers to international trade has facilitated economic globalization. At the forefront of international economic liberalization, the creation of the World Trade Organization ( WTO ) in 1995 extended multilateral trading rules beyond trade in goods to cover transnational provision of services, protection of intellectual property rights, and technical and health-related standards. Hundreds of Regional Trade Agreements ( RTAs ) that further reduce barriers are complemented by an even greater number of international investment protection agreements called Bilateral Investment Treaties ( BITs ). In the shadow of these economic developments, the same period has also witnessed the rise of transnational crime (roughly defined as serious crime whose perpetration and effects occur in more than one state) as a source of grave concern around the globe. Drug smuggling, arms trading, human trafficking, illegal sex trade, money laundering, wholesale intellectual property rights infringement- these and other illicit activities have flourished due to the advances of technology and the freer movement of goods, services, money, and people that characterize the modern world, just as legal international business transactions have flourished. There are, no doubt, direct links between technological progress and economic liberalization, on the one hand, and the growth of transnational crime and the accompanying anxiety, on the other hand. For example, illegal child pornography became easier to distribute via the Internet, and the removal of barriers to international trade in goods and the free flow of funds may have facilitated cross-border trafficking in illicit drugs. As such, transnational crime is indeed the dark side of globalization, and it is not surprising that national governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide have increasingly turned to international law and international cooperation to fight it, considerably augmenting the international legal field of global crime control