General Issue
Vol. VII, No. 2
(Winter '15)

World Trade Organisation Dispute Settlement Understanding (WTO DSU) is a two-tier mechanism. The first tier is international adjudication and the second tier is domestic handling of trade disputes. Both tiers are interdependent and interconnected. A case that is poorly handled at the domestic level generally stands a relatively lower chance of success at the international level, and hence, the future of WTO litigation is partially predetermined by the manner in which it is handled at the domestic level. Moreover, most of the capacity-related challenges faced by developing countries at WTO DSU are deeply rooted in the domestic context of these countries, and their solutions can best be found at the domestic level. The present empirical investigation seeks to explore a domestic solution to the capacity- related challenges faced mainly by developing countries, as it examines the model of public private partnership (PPP). In particular, the article examines how India, one of the most active DSU users among developing countries, has strengthened its DSU participation by engaging its private stakeholders during the management of WTO disputes. The identification and evaluation of the PPP strategies employed by the government and industries, along with an analysis of the challenges and potential limitations that such partnerships have faced in India, may prompt other developing countries to review or revise their individual approach towards the future handling of WTO dispute.

The purpose of this study is to find policy coherence, or lack thereof, in the labour provisions contained in the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) of the United States of America, the European Union and Australia when compared to their interactions in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Sessions with their trade partners and to the official trio of UPR documents made available during these sessions. Over the past decade these countries have entered into various free trade agreements with developing and developed countries alike. However, it is their trade agreements with developing countries that are of particular interest.

This study was conducted in order to ascertain how these leading actors approach labour clauses in their FTAs. First, the labour provisions and social clauses of these trade agreements were analysed. Second, the participation of these actors and their dialogue with their FTA partners in UPR Sessions were assessed along with the reports compiled by the United Nations (UN entities and relevant stakeholders for use during these sessions. Lastly, these two analyses were deconstructed under the prism of labour rights as a subset of human rights in order to evaluate policy coherence of the main actors.

The core findings of this study are that the USA and Australia lack a clear direction in their policy while approaching UPR sessions. Their recommendations during these sessions tend to be misaligned with that of the official UPR reports. USA tends to make generalised recommendations while not targeting specific areas of labour rights. Australia lacks labour provisions in most of its FTAs, thus making it harder to evaluate its policy. While the European Union (EU does make detailed recommendations to its trade partners and maintains consistency with the official reports, there is still scope for involving the major members of the EU in dialogue.

It is the recommendation of this study that these countries, particularly the USA, EU and Australia, align their recommendations during UPR sessions with the official reports in order to present a coherent and unified front in combating labour rights violations. The study suggests that one way of tracking progress would be to develop a quantitative human rights index that records and ranks countries based on their commitment to human and labour rights.

It is well known that water is one of the most precious resources of the planet, serving a number of fundamental purposes that range from addressing basic human needs (drinking water and sanitation), to supporting economic growth (agricultural and industrial uses), to preserving the environment (along with all the attached ecosystem services). It is equally known that water is not fairly distributed among countries, so that some of them may be defined as water-scarce and others as water-abundant. Many scholars from different academic backgrounds maintain that the former may overcome this problem by purchasing water from the latter, an option the legal contours of which are still surprisingly blurred. This article aims at shedding light on this issue and, in particular, it contributes to the existing legal literature in two respects. On the one hand, and more directly, it purports to bring forward the stalemated debate on the international legal framework applicable to bulk water transfers in order to understand which rules apply and to what extent. It is thus made clear that the multifaceted nature of water creates a complex legal entanglement with international trade law that rules out any plain answer. On the other hand, the article profits from the encounter between this highly technical field of law and an all-but-conventional good such as water in order to unearth some hidden deficiencies of the trade law system relating to oft-used concepts, especially the notions of ‘resource’, ‘product’, ‘like product’ and ‘service’. This promotes a better understanding of its functioning.

The world trading system is now dual. Preferential (i.e., discriminatory) trade agreements (PTAs) coexist with the non-discriminatory GATT-WTO system. PTAs have proliferated since the mid-1980s and most observers believe that they are here to stay. However, history shows that two previous waves of PTAs receded. This article investigates the reasons for the end of trade liberalization during the first wave of preferential agreements in the 19th century, in order to get insights for the current world trading system. It argues that there are strong similarities in the factors that triggered the proliferation of preferential agreements in the 19th century and at the end of the 20th century. In the absence of an international organization like the WTO, the network of bilateral trade agreements containing the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause formed the backbone of the international trade architecture. For this reason and also because bilateral trade agreements can serve the goal of trade liberalization as much as the implementation of a protectionist policy, the network of bilateral agreements did not collapse with the global shift towards greater protectionism at the end of the 19th century. Instead, akin to the WTO today, not only did this architecture accommodate protectionist pressures during an economic crisis, but it also constrained them. In ensuring a safety net and respect for basic rules, the WTO is thus essential for the sustainability of the PTAs.

In 1995 the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Agreement came into effect, extending minimum standards of protection to intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the European Union (EU) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. The article sets out the problems of harmonization resulting from the grafting of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) onto the legal framework of GCC States. Despite the presence of the GCC Customs Union, its individual countries have witnessed varying degrees of TRIPS-acquiescence. This includes varying degrees of effectiveness with border measures as a means of combating the transportation of counterfeit goods. The article provides a discussion on why effective protection and enforcement of IP laws are necessary to prevent counterfeiting in the GCC States, drawing on the laws of the European Union for comparative purposes. Furthermore, the article considers how border control functions as an important means of enforcement in fighting against the expanding transit of counterfeit goods.