Suchergebnisse

Explores the nature of regionalism by conducting a comprehensive analysis of over 30 regionalist proposals made by Japan and other Asian countries throughout the post-war period.

This article makes two main claims: A state's legal tradition is embedded into its domestic institution in each issue area and a state that has a common/civil law-type domestic institution in a certain issue area (not necessarily a state that has common/civil law tradition) prefers common/civil law-type international agreements in the same issue area. The consequence of these two claims is that states' legal tradition is often one of the primary sources of international cooperation, especially issue-specific cooperation. This in turn means that the difference in legal traditions is often a potential factor that would induce economic disintegration. By conducting theoretical and empirical investigations of three issue areas covered by free trade agreements (i.e., trade in goods, trade in services, and investment), this article demonstrates that different modes of governance are preferred by civil and common law states domestically and internationally, and that the difference in domestic systems partially explains participation and non-participation in international agreements.

On the one hand, trade in tertiary education is highly regulated; on the other hand, it is a considerably liberalized area of services. This is especially true in the case of Mode 3 of international services trade, namely oversea campuses. In the case of Japan, foreign universities are/were free to open campuses in Japan to supply tertiary education services, but those were regarded informal education that was not recognized by the Japanese government until 2004. For campuses in Japan established by foreign universities to supply formal education services in Japan, they are required to satisfy the criteria set by the government to be examined by the University Council and the Minister; but no foreign university campus in Japan actually obtained a formal school status. Moreover, program at the campuses in Japan were not regarded as an equivalent to the program provided at the home campuses abroad. It was only in 2004 when the Japanese government introduced a new scheme called "Japanese Branches of Foreign Universities", under which they can receive the treatment similar to formal Japanese universities except taxation, though only four campuses obtained this status so far. This paper reviews the development of regulatory status of services trade in tertiary education services, especially education through oversea campuses, and considers the policy implications on two critical issues regarding the regulation of services industry: (i) who between the government and the University Council the regulator is; and (ii) who between the home country and host country has the jurisdiction over the oversea branches of universities.

What kind of technical assistance (TA) and capacity-building benefits do developing countries enjoy if they sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with developed countries? This is the most frequently asked question on FTA policymaking raised by developing country officials at various occasions discussing trade policies .While we tend to normatively insist that an FTA should lead to a win-win situation for all contracting parties and that developed members should provide TA to developing partners so that the latter can maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of an FTA, empirical assessments of TA mechanisms under FTAs have not been conducted thoroughly. By conducting a detailed textual analysis of World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements and various FTAs, this article identifies how much more TA can be enjoyed by developing members if they sign FTAs, especially those with developed countries.