Suchergebnisse

Taking the success story of the Advisory Center on WTO Law in providing subsidized, low-cost legal advice to developing and LDC members of the World Trade Organization, investment law researchers should ask whether we need a similar advisory center in the field of international investment arbitration.

Regulations that aim at the observance of certain human rights and environmental standards by companies along the value chain have gained momentum. A recent example is the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act that obliges German companies to adhere to due diligence obligations vis-à-vis human rights and, to a lesser extent, the environment when making use of global supply chains. Germany, as other WTO members, must at the same time ensure compliance with WTO law when adopting such measures. This article will argue that due diligence laws may have a bearing on WTO obligations, but can be justified according to the general exceptions clause of Art. XX GATT. Ultimately, the article argues that such measures may be necessary if international economic law is to accommodate the common goal of sustainable development.

AbstractThis section highlights the interface between international trade and investment law and municipal and international risk regulation. It is meant to cover cases and other legal developments in WTO law (SPS, TBT and TRIPS Agreements and the general exceptions in both GATT 1994 and GATS), bilateral investment treaty arbitration and other free trade agreements such as NAFTA. Pertinent developments in international standardization bodies recognized by the SPS and TBT Agreement are also covered.

Transforming World Trade and Investment Law for Sustainable Development explains why the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda for 'Transforming our World'-aimed at realizing 'the human rights of all' and seventeen agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-requires transforming the United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO) legal systems, as well as international investment law and adjudication. UN and WTO law protect regulatory competition between diverse neo-liberal, state capitalist, European ordo-liberal, and third-world conceptions of multilevel trade and investment regulation. However, geopolitical rivalries and trade wars increasingly undermine transnational rule of law and effective regulation of market failures, governance failures, and constitutional failures. For example, the intergovernmental negotiations in the context of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have failed to prevent or considerably limit climate change. In order to prevent trade, investment, energy, and climate conflicts, sustainable development requires reforming trade, investment, and environmental rules and dispute settlement systems. The global health pandemics confirm the need for constitutional reforms of multilevel governance of global public goods. Investment law and adjudication must better reconcile governmental duties to protect human rights and decarbonize economies with the property rights of foreign investors. The constitutional, human rights, and environmental litigation in Europe enhances the legal accountability of democratic governments for protecting sustainable development, but European economic constitutionalism has been rejected by Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism, China's authoritarian state capitalism, and many third-world governments. The more that regional economic orders (like the China-led Belt and Road networks) reveal heterogeneity and power politics block UN and WTO reforms, the more the US-led neo-liberal world order risks disintegrating. UN and WTO law must promote private-public network governance, civil society participation, and stronger judicial accountability in order to stabilize and depoliticize multilevel governance of the SDGs.