This comprehensive book provides a thorough analytical overview of the European Union’s existing law and policy in the field of international trade. Considering the history and context of the law’s evolution, it offers an adept examination of its common commercial policy competence through the years, starting with the Treaty of Rome up until the Treaty of Lisbon, as a background for understanding the EU’s present role in the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework.

In recent years the European Union has developed a comprehensive strategy to conclude free trade agreements which includes not only prominent trade partners such as Canada, the United States and Japan but also numerous developing countries. This book looks at the existing WTO law and at the new EU free trade agreements with the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of the human right to adequate food. It shows how the clauses on the import and export of food included in recent free trade agreements limit the capacity of these countries to implement food security policies and to respect their human rights obligations. This outcome appears to be at odds with international human rights law and dismissive of existing human rights references in EU-founding treaties as well as in treaties between the EU and developing states. Yet, the book argues against the conception in human rights literature that there is an inflexible agenda encoded in world trade law which is fundamentally conflictual with non-economic interests. The book puts forward the idea that the European Union is perfectly placed to develop a narrative of globalisation considering other areas of public international law when negotiating trade agreements and argues that the EU does have the competences and influence to uphold a role of international leadership in designing a sustainable global trading system. Will the EU be ambitious enough? A timely contribution to the growing academic literature on the relation between world trade law and international human rights law, this book imagines a central role for the EU in reconciling these two areas of international law.

In recent years the resort to trade restrictions for purposes of environmental policy has given rise to an increasing number of international dispute settlement proceedings, both on the world-wide level in the context of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the newly established World Trade Organisation, and on the regional level in the European Community and among the member countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The present work discusses the evolution of trade law in the global and regional context and analyzes and compares the different world-wide and regional approaches to the various interface problems of trade and environmental policies. The book includes in an annex a selection of the most important provisions, reports and court cases.

This volume fills a gap in the literature regarding questions around the interactive dynamics between law and diplomacy on international trade and investment. It brings together lawyers and political scientists from Europe and Asia in an interdisciplinary effort at tracing the respective roles of law and diplomacy in the relations of the European Union (EU) with its trade and investment partners in Asia. Focusing on trade and investment relations with Asia, the EU presents a particularly interesting case as it has been a strong proponent of a rules-based international economic order for years and a frequent user of the formal procedures established in international treaties in case of disputes. At the same time, it has kept diplomatically active to adjust dispute management and international agreements to the needs and demands of the partners involved. Furthermore, not only is this region of crucial importance due to the presence of both vigorous emerging economies, like China, India and Vietnam, and more established partners, like Japan, EU-Asia relations also present a broad set of economic disputes and recent negotiation efforts analyzed in the contributions to this volume. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of international trade/economic law, EU politics, EU external relations (law), international relations, diplomacy and more broadly to international relations and Asian studies.

This book delves into the trade disputes between the EU and China and identifies the causes for trade disputes. It examines how the disputes will shape the China-EU trade relations, and offers a macro overview on how the issues can be resolved or at least how they should be managed.

An exploration of the current state of global trade law in the era of Big Data and AI. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This thought-provoking book examines the rise of animal welfare as a serious policy concern in the international trade law regime. The central focus is an in-depth study of the background and legal analysis of the landmark EC – Seal Products case, which confirmed the importance of animal welfare in WTO law. The book explores how the WTO handled the relationship between trade disciplines and animal welfare, including the particularly challenging questions around Indigenous seal hunting rights. It offers a detailed account of animal welfare and animal conservation commitments in new trade agreements, as well as mechanisms for enforcement, cooperation, and citizen participation.

This book addresses topical questions concerning the legal framework of trade in services, and assesses how these issues are dealt with in GATS and in selected preferential trade agreements. In addition, the chapters discuss whether the differences and similarities (if any) are evidence of greater coherence or greater divergence. The book combines the individual analyses to provide a more comprehensive picture of the current law on services trade liberalisation.A quarter of a century after the conclusion of the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), international law on trade in services is still in a state of flux: on the one hand, countries increasingly conclude bilateral and regional trade agreements with sections on trade in services that aim at a further liberalisation of services trade. On the other, the GATS structure remains the dominant model and serves as the basis for many preferential trade agreements. In addition, new aspects such as electronic commerce, data protection and taxation are now emerging, while issues that had already manifested in the mid-1990s such as financial services regulation, labour mobility, and telecommunications continue to be problematic. Usually, the debates focus on the question of whether preferential trade agreements serve as a stepping-stone or stumbling block for trade liberalisation at the multilateral level. However, it can be assumed that rules on trade in services in preferential trade agreements will coexist with the global GATS regime for the foreseeable future. This raises the question of whether we’re currently witnessing a drive towards greater coherence or more divergence in agreements on trade in services.

The breadth and depth of the scholarship of Marise Cremona is honoured in this collection of essays written by her colleagues and friends. Taking Cremona's field-defining research as a point of reference, this collection of research articles examines the power of law in EU external relations. Echoing the expansive scope of Cremona's intellectual enquiries across the growing and diversifying field of external relations law, this volume offers new insights into the principles and procedures that underlie this area of law; the role and responsibilities of the EU as an international actor; and the strategies and instruments through which the Union pursues its external agenda. Spanning the analysis of foundational concepts and more contemporary interventions in respect of the environment, human rights, foreign direct investment and even Brexit, what emerges from this collection is a richly conceptualised and clear examination of the multiple ways in which the power of law captures or eludes the EU's construction of a domain of external relations; a domain in which the EU interacts not only with its Member States but also other subjects of the international legal order.