Product Description
China's success in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in the last decade is undisputed, and unprecedented. It is currently the second largest FDI recipient in the world, a success partially due to China's efforts to enter into bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and other international investment instruments. The second title to publish in the new Oxford International Arbitration Series is a comprehensive commentary on Chinese BITs.

Chinese investment treaties have typically provided international forums for settling investment disputes such as the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).Given the continuous growth of FDI in China, the emergence of state-investor disagreements in China and the dramatic rise of investment treaty based arbitrations world wide in recent years, it is anticipated that there will be an increasing number of investment arbitrations involving the central and local governments of China. This book will provide a detailed review and analysis of China's approach to foreign investment. It will consider the current role of investment treaties in China's foreign economic policy, analyze and interpret the key provisions of the BITs, and discuss the future agenda of China's investment program.It will look at how this investment regime interconnects with the domestic system and consider the implications for a foreign investor in China. ... Read more

Product Description
This book examines the notion of "free trade" and the issues raised by adopting the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Essays by Ralph Nader, Jerry Brown, William Greider, Margaret Atwood, Mark Ritchie, Wendell Berry, Pat Choate, and others. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The case Against Free Trade: GATT & NAFTA
Ralph Nader has always championed causes for the working stiffs and consumers in this country. He uses this book to explain how people of this nation have been sold out by the politicians who've in essence become the lackeys of big business and multi-national corporations. Prime example is current issue of health care.Seems the medical insurance and pharmaceutical companies will inevitably get "health reform" which benefits their pockets as opposed to the American public getting a a national health plan which staves off our inability to afford descent health care.

Compelling, for unusual reasons
The proponents of free trade have had at their disposal a convincing and, often times, quite believable theory to describe the way that the world functions.As a liberal, I have frequently wanted to reject all the theoretical underpinnings of free trade. I've spent many hours trying to fill their theory with holes. At the same time, as an economics major and free thinker, it's just not been tenable for me to disregard modern economic theory. There are no alternatives that could take the theory's place in effectiveness, or in accuracy. In sum, I picked up this book at a time when what I wanted to believe did not gel with what I was compelled to believe, academically.
This book does not explicitly offer a "third way" that could substitute for capitalism or socialism. And as might be expected, the authors make a big deal out of the bad things that come with economic liberalism. The "Race to The Bottom" is mentioned quite often. In this sense, there's not much new here. Read Soros, Stiglitz, Greider, or even Wallerstien - you'll find a lot of the same thing.
What is unique about this book, and why I am giving it five stars, is that the book added a new dimension to the context of my discontent with the current "system." More exactly: the alternative theory that could come out of this book pales to liberalism; much of the liberal thought about economics has to do with values, and it not often as compelling as the official theory; and while this book emphasizes values to a great deal (state sovereignty, for example) it tends to emphasize values that are much more axiomatic.For example: The authors describe how the specifics of NAFTA were not made readily and directly available to the public; and even once they were, the document was so convoluted and inaccessible that hardly anyone bothered to read it.
This example (there are many others) is useful to me because it does not necessitate e a conflict with liberalism. In other words: It may be true that free trade works best. I don't want to believe that, I am compelled nevertheless to believe that, but no matter what I believe about free trade, I am positive that trade agreements should be made available to the public (quickly, cheaply, and in a language that can be understood). Values are still involved. But the answers to the "value questions" are answered axiomatically, for most of us. This book is unique and valuable (no pun) for the reason that it criticizes free trade in a way that (1) the criticism will either be accepted or rejected immediately, and (2) the criticism is not contradictory, and may be useful, to the liberalist's theory that has been so difficult to dethrone.

It'll Change your Mind
This is an excellent book written by some of the leading authorities on NAFTA and GATT (Including Ralph Nader).Each "chapter" written by a different person is short and to the point.You can read as much or as little as you want, without feeling the need to finish the chapter.This book WILL make you sweat with anger at points.It is an excellent read. ... Read more

Product Description
This major new volume is a complete reference tool for intellectual property specialists interested in the complex system of conventions, treaties, and agreements whichprotect intellectual property. The book features anintroductory commentary followed by a comprehensivecollection of the key intellectual property treatiesconcluded at international and regional level, including allsuch treaties of relevance to the US and Europe. The fulltext of each treaty is reproduced in English andsupplemented by editorial notes explaining the significanceof each instrument, its drafting history, principleprovisions, and listings of the relevant member states andwhen they joined. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a detailed overview of recent and likely future developments in bilateral trade of agricultural commodities between the United States and Canada. Factors affecting trade flows of agricultural commodities are examined and their effects on US agriculture are analysed. In addition, external factors, such as the Uruguay Round Agreement of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT), concluded in 1994, the value of the US dollar against the Canadian currency, and farm subsidies, are discussed. An important secondary goal of this book is to discuss new developments in agribusiness industries in the two countries under CUSTA and implications for trade flows of agricultural commodities and products. Also, concerns are raised about ongoing bilateral trade disputes. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from International Review of Law & Economics, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, or CISG, purports to harmonize the law that applies to international sales contracts. In this paper, we argue that the effort to create uniform international sales law (ISL) fails to supply contracting parties with the default terms they prefer, thus violating the normative criterion that justifies the law-making process for commercial actors in the first instance. Our argument rests on three claims. First, we contend that the process by which uniform ISL is drafted will dictate the form that many provisions take. Second, we contend that the legal form dictated by the drafting process has significant substantive consequences, particularly for the policy objectives of uniform ISL. Third, we predict that in order to achieve uniform ISL that is widely adopted, those involved in the drafting process will systematically promulgate many vague standards that contracting parties would not choose for themselves. These defaults cannot be justified as the inevitable cost of achieving an optimal level of uniformity. If the products of a uniform ISL are default terms that parties do not want, then the underlying justification for the law-making function - reduction of contracting costs - vanishes. We find significant correspondence between our predictions about the drafting of uniform international sales law and the CISG. The CISG was drafted by parties whose objectives did not necessarily coincide with those of the commercial actors whose conduct the treaty was intended to regulate. The result is a variety of vague standards and compromises that appear inconsistent with commercial interests. We conclude by suggesting that commercial actors involved in international sales would prefer to choose governing law from among legal regimes that compete to supply parties with more desirable substantive terms. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Farm Journal, published by Farm Journal Media on January 16, 2005. The length of the article is 637 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Cavities Plague Trade Deal.(trade agreements in farm industry )
Author: Sonja Hillgren
Publication: Farm Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 16, 2005
Publisher: Farm Journal Media
Page: NA

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
In the past fifteen years, the nations of the Western Hemisphere have experienced nothing less than a revolution in the way they trade with their neighbors. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean began to liberalize their trade and investment regimes and to implement market-oriented reforms aimed at promoting a more open and dynamic pattern of integration into the world economy. Along with North America, Latin America and the Caribbean have negotiated modern trade agreements that go beyond the elimination of tariffs and nontariff barriers in goods to include provisions on services, investment, intellectual property, government procurement, and dispute settlement. They also have entered into deeper and wider forms of integration at the subregional level. A natural but also unprecedented step along the path toward greater economic interdependence in the hemisphere came about when the leaders of the thirty-four democrat!ically elected governments of the region agreed to start working toward the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) at their First Summit held in Miami in December 1994 and to launch the FTAA negotiations at the Second Summit of the Americas, which took place in Santiago, Chile in April 1998.

This book takes stock of the remarkable progress to date in advancing free trade in the Americas. It examines trade flows within subregional groups and between members of these different arrangements. Contributors describe the main characteristics of the trade arrangements signed between countries of the hemisphere and explore the development of trade rules in these arrangements. Finally, the book details recent advances in the construction of the FTAA. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The FTAA process
This is one of the first comprehensive volumes that explains the process of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.Through fifteen chapters, this book offers the reader the necessary tools to understand what is happening and what might happen in the Western Hemisphere from an economic perspective.The structure of the book is highly comprehensive as so are the vast majority of the chapters. Highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description

Unlike conventional bilateral negotiations, multilateral negotiations are characterized by intensive international discussions that involve multiple actors and interests, highly complex agendas, and differentiated international settings. Political scientist Fen Osler Hampson, with the assistance of trade specialist Michael Hart, studies the component parts of the multilateral negotiation process to identify those factors making for success or failure. The authors argue that multilateral negotiation is, in essence, a coalition-building enterprise involving states, nonstate actors, and international organizations. Individual case studies include discussions on security, the environment, economic issues, and non-governmental actors -- such as scientists and environmental groups like Greenpeace International -- in prenegotiation and negotiation phases.

Product Description
Modern biotechnology - the controversial manipulation of genes in living organisms - has far-reaching implications for agriculture, human health, trade and the environment. Against the odds, an international treaty governing biosafety and trade in biotechnology was adopted in 2000. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety of the Convention on Biological Diversity deals with one of the most important and challenging issues thrown up by developments in biotechnology. This volume is a comprehensive review of the protocol and the process that led to its adoption. It includes contributions from many of the key players involved and analyses the commercial and political interests at stake, the operations and implications of the protocol, and prospects for the future. ... Read more

Product Description
Progress in multilateral negotiations to liberalize trade under the World Trade Organization (WTO) has become more difficult since newer members are generally developing countries with different interests than the United States, the European Union and other industrialized countries. More than 250 free trade agreements (FTAs) have come into effect since 1948. Partly as a result of the WTO impasse, over 130 FTAs have been ratified just in the past ten years; each agreement has been designed to eliminate trade restrictions and subsidies between the parties involved. Almost all of the WTO Members participate in one or more FTAs (some Members are party to twenty or more). Most books on FTAs are country- or region-specific, while others deal with the subject from a particular perspective. This timely work produced by some of the world s leading experts in their respective fields employs a broader approach exploring FTAs from the interdisciplinary perspectives of international law, political economy, culture and human rights. ... Read more

Product Description
This paper seeks to assist developing countries to meet the challenges arising at the interface of the liberalization and the regulation of services, in the context of international investment rule making. ... Read more

Product Description
This Compendium brings together the most important instruments dealing with foreign direct investment (FDI) and transnational corporations (TNCs). It includes the text of normative instruments, including a selection of prototypes of bilateral investment treaties and key instruments prepared by professional organizations, business and other groups of civil society. In this 5-volume set, Volume I is devoted to multilateral instruments; Volume II covers interregional and regional instruments, including agreements, resolutions and other texts from regional organizations within and inclusive geographical context; Volume III contains the three annexes to the first three volumes of the Compendium. Volume IV covers multilateral and regional instruments; Volume V includes bilateral and non-governmental instruments. The last two volumes also serve as an update to the earlier volumes by including a number of additional instruments. The Compendium is a valuable tool for policy-makers, scholars and business executives. ... Read more