A Code of Conduct on Restrictive Business Practices: A Third Option

Author(s):  
Samuel Wex

Competing Goals in Formulating a Code of Conduct on Restrictive Business PracticesFor the past thirty years efforts to formulate and implement acceptable international norms to regulate restrictive business practices (R.B.P.’s) affecting international trade have largely failed. Yet, none can deny the necessity of such international norms in the face of the inability of national legal systems to cope with an economic order of international dimensions. The abortive International Trade Organization, as part of the Havana Charter of 1948, and the Draft E.C.O.S.O.C. International Agreement of 1953, which were originally initiated by the United States, were eventually rejected by it because “the various national policies, legislation, and enforcement procedures in this field were not sufficiently comparable.”

2021 ◽  
pp. 205943642110467
Author(s):  
Ngai Keung Chan ◽  
Chi Kwok

This article uses a comparative case study of two ride-hailing platforms—DiDi Chuxing in China and Uber in the United States—to explore the comparative politics of platform power in surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism is an emerging economic system that translates human experiences into surveillance assets for behavioral predictions and modifications. Through this comparative study, we demonstrate how DiDi and Uber articulate their operational legitimacy for advancing their corporate interests and visions of datafication in the face of legal uncertainty. Although DiDi and Uber are both “sectoral platforms” in urban mobility with similar visions of datafication and infrastructuralization, we highlight that they deploy different discursive legitimation strategies. Our study shows that Uber adopts a “confrontational” strategy, while DiDi employs a “collaborative” strategy when they need to legitimize their data and business practices to the public and regulatory authorities. This study offers a comparative lens to examine the social and political dynamics of platform firms based in China and the United States and, therefore, contributes to understanding the various aspirational logic of platform thinking in different political contexts.


Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig

This chapter introduces the subject of the book and summarizes its basic argument and structure. It explains that the United States of America has been the world’s leading state for the past seven decades, but that great power rivalry has returned in recent years with Russia and China becoming more assertive on the international stage. Indeed, many believe the days of U.S. global leadership are coming to an end in the face of challenges from its leading autocratic rivals. In contrast, this chapter argues that democracies have systematic advantages in international politics and that there is good reason to believe that the American era of international preeminence will endure.


1912 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 595-600
Author(s):  
Richard Olney

It is undoubtedly desirable, in the interest of the arbitration of international controversies, that at the next Hague Conference a form of treaty should be presented which, while covering all differences between states, shall steer clear of the difficulties which in the past have wrecked important treaties of that character. It is a matter in which the United States may be expected to lead, having by precept and example so often distinguished itself as a pioneer in movements tending to do away with war between nations. Facts must be looked in the face, however, and it is apparent that the present position of the United States with reference to this subject is not so advantageous as could be wished. No two countries of the world are so favorably situated for the purposes of an arbitration treaty between them inclusive of all differences as are Great Britain and the United States. Through racial, social, and commercial ties ever knitting them closely together, war between them has become almost unthinkable. Yet two trials for such a comprehensive treaty have failed and the official position of the United States to-day seems to be that there is a class of questions which is necessarily to be excluded from any general arbitration treaty. The class covers controversies described as affecting “the vital interests, the independence, or the honor” of the parties. In the English-American treaty of 1897 such controversies were disposed of by sending them to arbitration but so constituting the arbitral court that an award must have the assent of the representatives of the losing party or of a majority of them. In the treaty of 1911 it was sought to meet the difficulty by a joint commission of inquiry empowered to investigate and decide whether a question was or was not arbitrable and should or should not be arbitrated. But neither plan proved to be acceptable to the United States acting under the treaty-making power vested jointly in the President and Senate.


1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper Y. Brinton

Under what circumstances is a state entitled to claim immunity from suit in the courts of another state? It is an old problem which assumes new importance in the face of the steadily enlarging scope of governmental commercial enterprise. Considerable difference of opinion has manifested itself. In England and the United States, where the principle of the immunity of the sovereign before the courts of its own state has long been firmly entrenched, there has been a decided reluctance to open the door to suits against foreign states, however commercial in character the controversy may be. On the Continent a more liberal tendency has long been making itself felt. On general principles, the subject would seem to be one to invite regulation by international agreement.


1955 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-279

General Agreement on Tariffs and TradeThe ninth session of the contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ended on March 7, 1955. The principal obstacles to agreement before late January were felt to have been the reluctance of the United States to modify its policies on import quotas on agricultural products, the reluctance of countries adversely affected by this practice to give up their right to restrict imports of manufactures so long as the quotas continued, lack of agreement on extension of the previously negotiated tariff schedules beyond June 30, 1955, the question of agricultural subsidies as a whole, the exceptions to GATT to be permitted to a country in balance of payments difficulties, and the quantitative restrictions to be permitted under-developed countries.


1995 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim D. Rhody ◽  
Thomas Li-Ping Tang

In the past ten years, many Japanese manufacturers, especially automobile manufacturers, have opened plants in the United States. The Japanese have, in that time, increased their market share from one in five to nearly one in three cars that Americans drive. There are clear differences in Japanese and American business practices in the areas of organizational culture, leadership style, selection, training, employee attitudes, job satisfaction, and quality. American businesses must understand these differences and realize the most effective and efficient approach to produce goods and services that will fit in with our culture. The lessons we have learned from Japanese transplants and American corporations may have important implications to managers in public personnel management.


1951 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-213

Forty-four nations were represented at the fifth session on tariff negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade at Torquay, England which convened on September 28, 1950. Of the nations which took part in negotiations, 32 were contracting parties to GATT and seven (Austria, Korea, Peru, the Republic of the Philippines, Turkey, Uruguay and the Federal Republic of Germany) attended the conference with the hope of becoming signatories upon the completion of negotiations. There were five countries (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela and Switzerland) which sent observers. L. Dana Wilgress of Canada was the chairman of the meeting. The United States withdrew its request to have Japan restored to full trading equality at the conference because of the indications that other nations were not yet willing to grant most-favored-nation treatment to Japan. The contracting parties negotiated among themselves for newer and broader tariff concessions than those obtained at Geneva in 1947. At the conclusion of the country-with-country bargaining, the results wtere examined by all the participating countries and upon their approval were integrated into the agreement. Other items of importance to international trade discussed were 1) the discrimination against dollar goods as practiced by some countries and 2) the relation of the Schuman Plan to the most-favored-nation clauses in existing agreements. The conference established a tariff negotiations working party of eleven to act as expeditor and policeman if the delegations were slow in initiating negotiations or dragged them on too long.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S Lantis ◽  
Daniel J Bloomberg

Cyberspace appears to offer limitless possibilities for collaboration and economic opportunity in the twenty-first century, but cyber-attacks, breaches of privacy, and security threats also have become commonplace. In the face of these challenges, a number of governments have been locked in debates over the future of cyberspace governance, including the Russian Republic, the People’s Republic of China, and the United States. This study examines the ongoing contestation of the international normative architecture for cyberspace, with a focus on the United States’ role as a norm ‘antipreneur’, seeking to defend the status quo multi-stakeholder norm for a more open Internet from entrepreneurial efforts by Russia and China to establish multilateral governance with ‘cyber-sovereignty’. Drawing on recent advances in constructivist theory, the study explores antipreneurial strategies to contest efforts by entrepreneurs to introduce new norms, as well as implications for norm development and change. Process tracing is employed to examine cyberspace governance debates. The study concludes by discussing prospects for an International Code of Conduct for Cyberspace, as well as theoretical and political implications of antipreneurship in modern norm contestations.


1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Blandford ◽  
Richard N. Boisvert ◽  
Pedro Alba

During the past decade, the significance of international trade for the United States’ economy has changed dramatically. In 1970, merchandise exports were $43 billion and accounted for five percent of the Gross National Product (GNP); merchandise imports amounted to $40 billion (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis). By 1977, such exports had increased to almost $120 billion and imports to $150 billion, in both cases a rate of increase almost double that for GNP over the same period.


1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-354

By April 1949 Australia had ratified the ITO Charter, contingent on its being put into effect by the United States and the United Kingdom. Other countries were awaiting action by the United States, where President Truman was about to submit the Charter to the Congress for decision. With the acceptance of the Havana Charter by twenty countries necessary for the creation of ITO, Eric Wyndham White, Executive Secretary of the Interim Commission, stressed the importance of bringing ITO into being without delay. He described the organization as essentially a business-like approach towards the reduction of trade barriers and the expansion of trade on a multilateral, permanent basis.


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