Suchergebnisse

2 Investor's Clean Hands and Estoppel3 Conclusions of Part A; PART B The Theory: An Inherited Confusion; 1 Jurisdiction and Inadmissibility in International Law; 1 Jurisdiction, Competence and Inadmissibility; Jurisdiction: A Concept Borrowed from Domestic Systems. The Role of Consent; The Notions of Jurisdiction, Competence and Admissibility in International Law; 2 Issues of Competence; The Correct Establishment and Functioning of the Tribunal; The Tribunal's Competence to Assess Its Own Jurisdiction; Requirements of Primary Jurisdiction; 3 Other Procedural Impediments

In the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US approach to science-based risks and trade restrictions prevailed over that of the European Union (EU). The EU, dissatisfied with the margin of action available when "relevant scientific evidence is insufficient", largely kept intact its internal practice on marketing and importing genetically modified (GM) crops and GM-containing products. The goal of this article is to ascertain whether these regulatory preferences of the US and the EU translate into their post-Biotech external trade efforts. US and EU preferential trade agreements are scanned for rules on trade in biotechnology goods or the use of precautionary elements in regulation. It transpires that neither bloc systematically tries (or manages) to bend trade agreements to accommodate its defensive or offensive trade interests in this field. Among the possible reasons for this apparent inertia are the US confidence in the WTO baseline and the EU preference for a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to its trade-restrictive policy in this area.

In August 2012, the First Criminal Division of the Court of Cassation (Supreme Court or Court), the highest Italian domestic court, issued a judgment upholding Germany's sovereign immunity from civil claims brought by Italian war crime victims against Paul Albers and eight others in the Italian courts (Albers). In so doing, the Court overruled its own earlier decisions and also reversed the judgment of April 20, 2011, by the Italian Military Court of Appeal (Military Court), which had upheld such claims relating to war crimes committed by German forces in Italy during World War II. With this ruling, the Court of Cassation put an end to its decade long effort to find an exception to the well-known rule of customary international law providing for sovereign immunity from foreign civil jurisdiction for actsjure imperii. Thisrevirementresulted from the Court's decision to give effect to the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) inGermany v. Italy.

AbstractThis article challenges the rhetoric of hardening, according to which international standards become binding through WTO endorsement. The analysis of the system of presumptions set up in the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement and Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Agreement reveals that international standards are actually used as a 'ceiling' rather than a 'floor' benchmark of protection, contrary to their original spirit. They represent a codified and agreed yardstick for least trade-restrictive measures, a minimum compromise between the regulatory regime and the trade litigation machinery. It follows that their nature—at least within the WTO system—is irreversibly distorted; they are treated as facts rather than as safety or quality devices.