International Trade Law - Science topic

"The Impact of Digitalization on International Trade Law" seems good, how about it? This subject explores how technological developments, such digital payment systems and e-commerce platforms, are changing conventional trade practices and requiring revisions to international trade rules and regulations. You may look at things like jurisdictional difficulties, privacy issues with data, and the necessity of harmonising various legal systems to enable easy cross-border commerce in the digital era.

Dear Prof. Mahmoud Moghavvemi ,

It was started several years ago by the Chinese communist party ChCP, and its companies such as NORINCO, by providing the following:

Dear Colleague,

ADR proceedings are ideal for a highly technical are of expertise such as pharmaceuticals in general. This is because you have more often than not that presumed plaintiffs and defendants are both seasoned traders in the same sector, who understand well the ins and outs of the industry the dirty tactics and the legitimate manouvres of the players in the market, therefore, they will be talking business within carefully articulated and constructed legal arguments within the confines of the law, in the language and the mentality they are bound to understand. At the same time the lengthy legal procedures in a court of law cost money, in ADRs procedures are more expedite at the same time you have technical experts that are making the talk. Unless not presiding on procedures in special courts the adjudicators most often are not technically competent in the field they are requested to submit thier relevant judgment. Moreover, both parties in the contentious dispute do sometimes clearly understand the profitable and viable compromise both have to reach, therefore litigation in court apart from being costly, and lengthy, walking in the dark woods of legality may result in an outcome which although legally valid and correct, will not result in the most suited or convenient outcome. Apart from the fact that it is a fiction to ever consider a law complicated and detailed as it may be, gapless. This means there may be moot points in the law, or situations that the business world may create that the law is unable to solve neatly and unambiguously. In ADR proceedings contemporary usage and business sense of both parties can result in a workeable solution for instances that are not necessarily possible to resolve without arbitrary interpretation of the law. Ideally, mediation is the best option, because psychologically both parties sit down round a table as equals. Arbitration is another alternative, but it can be complex and costly especially when a compromis has to be agreed upon, with the richer party having an upperhand and cunningly doctoring the outcome of the arbitration proceeding. ADRs, are to be explored and analysed within the context of globalised trade, and the jungle of arbitration clauses, most often cropping up in arbitration procedures. In mediation it is most often the norm to speak the language of the jurisdiction where the issue of concern has occurred, in view of reaching an amicable settlement.

However, I still believe that the choice between ADR proceedings especially mediation and court litigation rests on the overall command over the journey a company is pursueing and the readings of the signs of time. If one is envisaging the destination in his vision and wants to reach it as quickly as possible, ADR proceedings have to be pursued, if on the other hand, a company is seeing that it is a defaulting party and legally its position is written on the wall, and it needs to buy time because it is to blame for a percieved misdoing, then judicial litigation can be the option, especially, if it can get away with murder because of a technical loop hole for example.

As is the case in business generally one has to leave his/her options open and choose the appropriate strategy according to the exigencies of the companies business goals and ambitions.

I hope this was of help,

Stefan Vella

All laws/ doctrines were developed by the powerful to satisfy their own greed. UN discredited itself with the 1992 Dublin Statement, declaring water as a commodity. EU water directive follows the same lines. USA has 'John Wayne' law or 'cowboy economics' as Vandana Shiva put it. The 2008 constitution of Ecuador recognized the right of nature and the ecosystems to exist and flourish, just like any living being. It gave water the status of a patrimony, which needs to be preserved for posterity, and that its provision should not be a marketable service. The Bolivian government also passed laws in 2010 and 2012 treating ‘mother earth’ as a subject of public interest. That's the spirit, "that water is the mother of all of us who nurtures us and that it is time we start nurturing her", that should be the basis of any conversation on sharing and caring of any river. NOBODY OWNS WATER, WE ALL ARE USERS. The discussions should involve all users and develop CONSENSUS on how to care for mother-water. I invite you to browse some write-ups in our project on 'water nurturing':

An updated source of leading intellectual property treaties and its ratification is available at WIPO's website. http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/index.jsp?tab=3

Let me Google that for you: http://bfy.tw/AI51

I've answered my question. Thank you!

This specific provision is not stating an obligation, because it is provided as a protection from potential harms (if something endangering its citizens occurs, the State can take measures to protect their health and life), but the protection of health and life is an obligation resulting from other provisions both internationally and nationally.

Trump articulated the discontent that those dispossessed of jobs and prospects that is experienced as a result of the after-effects of globalization.  It was the policies of the elite, both Republican and Democrat, that produced those after-effects.  The dispossessed wanted someone to blame, and Trump offered immigrants, refugees, outsourcing companies, foreign investors, etc.  The results of the election prove that the dispossessed accepted Trump's "blame mongering!"  BUT, the economic reality is that the factory jobs have gone forever,  THAT is why Trump offered "infrastructure building jobs" as the source of "recovery employment."  BUT, once the infrastructure is built, those jobs will disappear.  This is a short-term solution.  Regrettably, at the moment this is the only time-frame that most people use.  The problem here is not economics but rather social psychology - the public just wants to "re-activate the American Dream," not to change it.  BUT, fundamental change is what is really needed.  What can be done?

please attached articles

Professor Takahiro Fujimoto sent me a few days ago some of basic papers on dynamic capability. One of them was

D. J. Teece (2007) Explicating Dynamic Capabilities: The Nature and Microfoundations of (Sustainable) Entrepreneurial Performance. Strategic Management Journal 28: 1319-1350.

It is a long paper. I read it skipping several places. Central idea is the existence of dynamic capability compared with static capability. As this is the topic that comprises almost all arguments in management since 1990, it is not easy to explain what the dynamic capability is in a few words. Perhaps we can discuss in detail the content of this concept. It suffices here to say that dynamic capability is presented to differentiate all other management concepts that have a static inclination. Teece sometimes call the latter technical capability in comparison to evolutionary capability. I am not sure if this dichotomy is justified or not. If we include social and human elements among “technical capability,” technical capability may well comprise evolutionary capability.

To return to our main concern, that is, the conceptual differentiation of comparative and competitive advantage, the arguments in management science is highly indicative. If there is something that we can call dynamic capability for a firm or for an organization in general, we can easily guess that a nation or a society with certain coherence would have dynamic capability as well as static capability.

In post number 29, I introduced concepts of technological capability of a society in static and dynamic concepts. This comparison is based on my chapter in Nakaoka (ED.) (1990) and focused on technology. I argued that a society has two different kinds of capability in relation to technology. The static capability enables us to keep the current efficiency of production techniques. The dynamic capability is concerned to improve the efficiency, introduce new commodities, and innovating business operations and management. Except this focus on technology, the only difference between my concepts and Teece is that I am concerned with social or national level capabilities and Teece with firm level capabilities.

This must be the basic reason why management science specialists are willing to argue international competitiveness of a nation, whereas economists (and international trade specialists) are reluctant to talk about country level competitiveness.

GATT was an attempt to encourage countries to lower tariffs in a multilateral way. It was founded after WWII (1947) and operated until it became the WTO in 1995.  Sometimes such objectives can happen under an umbrella of other trade intervention. It is believed that GATT was successful in reducing tariffs from approximately 40 around WWII to about 4 percent when it ended. In theory, such collusive agreements create incentives for members to cheat or defect, and therefore their eventual failure.

There is no shortage of literature on GATT on the web or in economic journals. I recommend the works of Bagwell and Staiger on theory of this subject. I suggest you start with: “An Economic Theory of GATT” Kyle Bagwell and Robert W. Staiger, The American Economic Review, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 215-248.

The Guardian reported just recently on the seizure of Pangolin bound for these markets - not successful though as the animals were already dead.  See 

thank u dear Frank. please see icc arbitration award no 2508 in which an increase in contractual price  up to 50 % didn't justify refusing performance by the seller under Swiss law.  have u seen any award or sentence that contradicts the argument of this award?

I know about India and USA. No idea about Malaya.

this article may helps you (in french):

Hi Hamideh,

Actually, it could be seen much easier. Not to forget that all (numerical) values in economics are calculated using a basic equation of P*Q.

In this case,  you should first calculate what the real GDP might be if there was no sanction at all in place. It is actually calculated through a simple projection of the previous trend of real GDP (before the sanctions).

Then you need to calculate the impact that the sanctions have had on the general consumer price index. The final step consists of calculating how much more the consumers have to pay (with the sanctions) to achieve the real GDP estimated with the assumption of no sanction.

Good chance,

J.A.

I take your question as what is the overall effect of agricultural subsidies in industrialised countries on them and other (especially developing) countries. In that spirit I give you my modest contribution; I am sure other will point to better empirical studies and results.

Agricultural subsides pursue political, tactical, environmental or social objectives, but they are very costly for the economy, and can cause serious unintended distortions, depending on how they were designed. Subsidies whose amount is linked to how much is produced are particularly bad, because they lead to overproduction, which is thrown away wastefully, or dumped in world markets. This causes world prices to fall below break-even levels for unsubsidised developing country producers.

In recent years, developed countries have modified their subsidy programs to make them independent of production, or even subject to production limits and other conditions such as environmental sustainability. The amounts also have been cut because of tight budgets after the financial crisis and its bailouts. (see, for example, the EU's Trade Policy Review at the WTO: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp384_e.htm)

For developing countries, rich country agricultural subsidies benefit net food consumers, and hurt net food producers. When agricultural commodities were cheap, some latin american countries could industrialise very rapidly, by setting high import tariffs and keeping wages very low, because food was cheap. At the same time, the countryside was extremely poor and people migrated in huge numbers to cities like Mexico or Sao Paulo.

I am sure there is a large number of empirical studies dealing with eliminating agricultural subsidies. I think Porto (2005) at the World Bank is noteworthy, because he looked at household census data, and allowed for dynamic effects. This means that, after agricultural prices increase (bc US eliminated its subsidy), some net consumer households will become net producers (ie. previously unemployed or informal people in the cities will turn back to agriculture, and buy tools from city dwellers, etc.) . With this effect, the overall benefits for developing countries could be potentially higher than just looking at who is in agriculture, who is in industry, in services,... Here's the link to the paper:

trade agreements are only enforceable if both parties are subject to the same treatment in arbitration. Most trade treaties involve a third party in order to settle disputes. Comity become problematic when the foreign policy conflicts with domestic policy. For example, for the TPP, there is a section on investment protection that allows investors to sue states if they enact laws that would hurt their investment and therefore affect the creation of laws. Of course the United States would be obligated to allow this to occur but the country is also obligated to protect its citizens from from "things" that affect the well-being of its citizens. Then there is the mentality of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours". This would involve the national government to be involved in the decision making powers of the judicial system of their respective country. Now I do not have to tell you how unconstituional that would be in the United States but you get the idea of how problematic comity could be

Have a look at these: http://unctad.org/en/Pages/Publications/TradeandDevelopmentReport.aspx

NB! A new one should come out in a couple of weeks.

The trouble with Hobbes' theory has been seen by Spinoza, and that is why he, although agreed with the Englishman in his view of human nature, thought that even power in State should be limited.