Suchergebnisse

This study provides an overview of some, not all initiatives to improve working conditions throughout global production networks. On the basis of secondary sources it assesses the contribution of the instruments favored by these initiatives. It starts with an economic justification of international workers' rights. The debate about international workers' rights revolves primarily around enforcing standards in developing countries. Opponents of internationally enforced workers' rights see them as an obstacle to closing the industrial gap. They argue that better living and working conditions cannot be legislated but would be the natural outcome of industrialization.

This article reviews the evolution of rules on digital trade in US Free Trade Agreements (US FTAs), and argues that the US approach has shifted from treating it largely as a traditional trade issue to recognizing its unique digital nature and tailoring the rules accordingly, as it has done in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. The article begins with a review of the efforts to regulate e-commerce in the WTO, as well as the achievements of the pre-TPP US FTAs so far, followed by a critical appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the e-commerce chapter in the TPP. It is hoped that, by reviewing the evolution of the regulation of e-commerce from theWTOto the TPP, we can learn some lessons on how the rules are being shaped, as well as how they might evolve in the future.

The international trade regulatory system is a dynamic system that has been evolving throughout its history. Tension and conflict are part of the system. While calls for the abolition of the principal trade regulation authority, the WTO, have failed to understand this nature of the system, proponents for reforms have so far not paid sufficient attention to the evolving nature of tension and conflict. This book examines the evolving dynamics in international trade regulation from the conclusion of GATT in 1947 to the current crisis facing the WTO, from a perspective of emerging powers of developing countries with a focus of China as the latest force that demands reforms of the international trade regulatory regime.

There is an extensive body of scholarship on ideological struggles, the rise of developing countries, geopolitical contest, the emerging powers (especially China), the use, misuse or abuse of trading rules and so on. There is, however, a lack of a single concise research book that synthesises these underlying causes and factors into a coherent and precise analytical theme. This book attempts to fill this research gap by building upon the existing scholarship and placing the various tensions and conflicts in a perspective that treats them as dynamic factors that have propelled a continuing process of evolution of the international trade regulation.

The book will interest those researching on international trade regulation as well as development studies.