Australia and the European Union in the World Trade Organisation: partners or adversaries?

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Kenyon ◽  
John Kunkel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World Trade ◽  
World Trade Organisation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The World

Arbitration, the World Trade Organization, and the Creation of a Multilateral Investment Court

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 433-447
Author(s):  
Andrea K Bjorklund
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
World Trade Organisation ◽  
Court System ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
The World ◽  
Investment Law

Abstract The proliferation of international tribunals has reached the investment sphere. The European Union and its treaty partners have included an investment court system in the four individual investment agreements they have negotiated since the European Union took competence over foreign direct investment with the passage of the Lisbon Treaty. The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), with the European Commission’s encouragement, is considering reform of investor-state arbitration with the front runner for reform the establishment of a multilateral investment court. Yet trade and investment law seem to be an oddly inverse relationship when it comes to preferred modes of dispute settlement. In the trade law realm, the survival of the ‘crown jewel’ of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)—its Dispute Settlement Body is uncertain. The appellate body has recently come in for special opprobrium. Arbitration is one of the suggested alternatives should existing dispute settlement procedures cease to function. Thus, in the investment law sphere, arbitration is apparently more and more disfavoured, and the preferred alternative is some kind of standing body with the pièce de résistance—an appellate body—at its apex. Why are these two regimes asynchronous? I hypothesize that states favour judicialization of disputes in the abstract but have reservations once judicialization becomes more concrete. Judicial or quasi-judicial decisions are hard for individual states to ignore or discredit, yet states have difficulty organizing multilateral responses to decisions they dislike.

Lawful Remedy or Illegal Response? Resolving the Issue of Foreign Subsidization Under WTO Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Victor Crochet ◽  
Marcus Gustafsson
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Fair Competition ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
International Trade Law ◽  
The World ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Do So

Abstract Discontentment is growing such that governments, and notably that of China, are increasingly providing subsidies to companies outside their jurisdiction, ‘buying their way’ into other countries’ markets and undermining fair competition therein as they do so. In response, the European Union recently published a proposal to tackle such foreign subsidization in its own market. This article asks whether foreign subsidies can instead be addressed under the existing rules of the World Trade Organization, and, if not, whether those rules allow States to take matters into their own hands and act unilaterally. The authors shed light on these issues and provide preliminary guidance on how to design a response to foreign subsidization which is consistent with international trade law.

scholarly journals The WTO, Self-Determination, and Multi-Jurisdictional Sovereignty

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 287-294
Author(s):  
Michael Fakhri
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Most Favored Nation ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
The World ◽  
Wto Appellate Body ◽  
The Eu

In EC—Seal Products, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) held that the European Union (EU) Seal Regime banning the importation of seal products could be justified under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XX(a) as a measure necessary toprotect public morals. It also held that the indigenous communities (IC) exception under the EU Seal Regime is inconsistent with GATT Article I:1 (Most-Favored Nation) because it discriminated against commercial fishers in Canada and Norway and was applied in a manner that favored the mostly Inuit seal hunters of Greenland, and thus ran afoul of Article XX’s chapeau. Since the entire EU Seal Regime is not likely to be done away with, the most important question for Inuit communities is: how will the EU change the discriminatory aspects of the Seal Regime and IC exception? The EU faces an October deadlineto pass its new legislation and this remains a very live issue.

scholarly journals SHELTERING GOVERNMENT SUPPORT TO ‘GREEN’ ELECTRICITY: THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gracia Marín Durán
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Government Support ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Contexts

AbstractSince the Canada – Renewable Energy (2013) dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) has been the focal point of academic debate on the trade-environment interface, with a growing consensus that WTO subsidy rules need to be revisited with a view to securing ‘policy space’ for government support for renewable energy. This article explores whether, as suggested by some scholars, the European Union (EU)’s system of justifications for renewable energy aid could serve as a source of inspiration for the WTO. While this proposition may appear attractive at first sight, it is hardly conceivable, or even desirable, that the EU's approach to sheltering government support for renewable energy could be transposed to the WTO. This is because the two systems of subsidy control are fundamentally different in both substantive and procedural terms and, importantly, these differences reflect distinct objectives and political/institutional contexts. Nonetheless, this comparative analysis sheds light on where the key challenges lie for the WTO in ensuring that international trade rules and climate change mitigation objectives are mutually supportive. It is argued that the case for reviewing the SCM Agreement cannot be made by simply forging parallels with the EU's regulatory model, but needs to be carefully construed on the basis of a proper understanding of whether and how green policy space is actually constrained under the current WTO subsidy and trade remedy rules. However, this requires better information on existing WTO members’ practice in relation to renewable energy subsidies, as well as on their environmental effectiveness and possible trade-distortive impact. In this sense, the most valuable lesson that the WTO can draw from the EU's regulatory experience is the imperative of improving the transparency and knowledge-enhancing elements of its subsidy control system.

scholarly journals Post-Brexit Power of European Union From the World Trade Network Analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
Justin Loye ◽  
Katia Jaffrès-Runser ◽  
Dima L. Shepelyansky
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Matrix Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Trade Network ◽  
Google Matrix ◽  
The World ◽  
Leading Position

We develop the Google matrix analysis of the multiproduct world trade network obtained from the UN COMTRADE database in recent years. The comparison is done between this new approach and the usual Import-Export description of this world trade network. The Google matrix analysis takes into account the multiplicity of trade transactions thus highlighting in a better way the world influence of specific countries and products. It shows that after Brexit, the European Union of 27 countries has the leading position in the world trade network ranking, being ahead of USA and China. Our approach determines also a sensitivity of trade country balance to specific products showing the dominant role of machinery and mineral fuels in multiproduct exchanges. It also underlines the growing influence of Asian countries.

scholarly journals IMPLIKASI KEBIJAKAN DAN DISKRIMINASI PELARANGAN EKSPOR DAN IMPOR MINYAK KELAPA SAWIT DAN BIJIH NIKEL TERHADAP PEREKONOMIAN INDONESIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-236
Author(s):  
Sekar Wiji Rahayu ◽  
Fajar Sugianto
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Trade ◽  
World Trade Organization ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Palm Oil ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Health Campaigns ◽  
The World

AbstractThe creation of free trade provides a large advantage and role in driving the economic growth of a country, especially for developing countries that have abundant natural resources. One of the systems in free trade carried out by countries in the world in buying and selling produce is known as an export-import system. Where the seller is usually referred to as an exporter and the buyer is referred to as an importer. Like the general trading system, in international trade there are also obstacles that can be detrimental to one party and / or several parties in conducting international trade. These obstacles can be in the form of tariff barriers and / or non-tariff barriers. Non-tariff barriers can take the form of certain discriminations imposed by a particular country, both to protect the value of its production and to redevelop the product into something of even higher value. Both are pursed on one thing, hedging. Discrimination is also imposed by the European Union against the ban on imports of Palm Oil from Indonesia on the grounds that Palm Oil has a negative impact on the environment. Bearing in mind the European Union is one of the countries active in Environmental Health campaigns. Discrimination is also carried out by Indonesia to stop all exports of Nickel Ore and / or other minerals to the European Union with the consideration to hedge minerals that have not been downstreamed. Based on the discrimination actions, the two countries plan to submit complaints and complaints to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a form of the two countries' objections to the policies taken.Keywords: international trade; mineral downstreaming; oil palmAbstrakTerciptanya perdagangan bebas memberikan keuntungan serta peran yang besar dalam mendorong pertumbuhan ekonomi suatu negara, khususnya bagi negara-negara berkembang yang memiliki Sumber Daya Alam (SDA) yang melimpah. Salah satu sistem dalam perdagangan bebas yang dilakukan oleh negara-negara di dunia dalam melakukan jual-beli hasil produksi dikenal sebagai sistem ekspor-impor. Dimana pihak penjual lazimnya disebut sebagai eksportir dan pihak pembeli disebut sebagai importir. Selayaknya sistem perdagangan pada umumnya, di dalam perdagangan internasional juga terdapat hambatan-hambatan yang dapat merugikan satu pihak dan/atau beberapa pihak dalam yang melakukan perdagangan internasional. Hambatan tersebut dapat berupa hambatan tarif dan/atau hambatan non tarif. Hambatan non tarif dapat berupa diskriminasi-diskriminasi tertentu yang diberlakukan oleh suatu negara tertentu, baik untuk melindungi nilai produksinya maupun untuk mengembangkan kembali produk tersebut menjadi sesuatu yang lebih tinggi lagi nilainya. Keduanya mengerucut pada satu hal, yakni lindung nilai. Diskriminasi tersebut juga diberlakukan oleh Uni Eropa terhadap pelarangan impor Kelapa Sawit dari Indonesia dengan alasan bahwa Minyak Kelapa Sawit menimbulkan dampak yang buruk terhadap lingkungan. Mengingat Uni Eropa merupakan salah satu negara yang aktif dalam kampanye-kampanye kesehatan lingkungan. Aksi diskriminasi juga diberlakukan oleh Indonesia untuk menghentikan seluruh ekspor Bijih Nikel dan/atau mineral lainnya kepada Uni Eropa dengan pertimbangan untuk melakukan lindung nilai terhadap mineral-mineral yang belum di hilirisasi. Atas tindakan-tindakan diskiriminasi tersebut, kedua negara berencana untuk mengajukan keluhan dan gugatan ke World Trade Organization (WTO) sebagai bentuk keberatan kedua negara terhadap kebijakan-kebijakan yang diambil.Kata kunci: hilirisasi mineral; kelapa sawit; perdagangan internasional

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