Settling Interstate Trade Disputes: Lessons from the EFTA Complaints Procedure

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Johannes Hendrik Fahner
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Trade Association ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Trade Disputes ◽  
European Free Trade Association ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Independent Evaluation ◽  
International Economic Law ◽  
Dispute Settlement Procedure

ABSTRACT When the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was founded 60 years ago, the contracting parties established a dispute settlement procedure that sought to strike a balance between the need to supervise compliance with the EFTA Convention and the need to respect the sovereignty of the member states. The procedure of Article 31 empowered the EFTA Council to hear interstate complaints, establish examining committees, issue recommendations, and authorize retaliation. This article investigates the successes and failures of this mechanism on the basis of historical documents from the EFTA archives. It provides an overview of the complaints that were brought under Article 31 and analyses how the Council exercised its functions in dealing with these cases. The article evaluates why the complaints procedure quickly fell into disuse, finding that it failed to provide a real alternative to ordinary discussions in the Council. The article argues that lessons can be drawn from this understudied chapter of European integration, concluding that systems of dispute settlement in international economic law should avoid fusing diplomatic and judicial elements if this might preclude an independent evaluation of the legal questions raised in the context of a concrete dispute.

Mega-Regional Trade Agreements: CETA, TTIP, and TiSA

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Economic Law ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
International Economic Law ◽  
Regional Agreements ◽  
The One ◽  
International Experts

The contributions in this volume examine CETA, TTIP, and TiSA as prime examples of ‘mega-regional’ agreements that are central to a new orientation in international economic law in general and EU external economic relations in particular. While concentrating on CETA, TTIP, and TiSA as the main EU instruments in the worldwide turn to regional and mega-regional agreements, the book places these initiatives in the broader context of other mega-regional projects such as TPP. In the first two chapters, this book examines main motivations for negotiating mega-regional agreements and changing conceptions of international economic law. In nine further contributions, international experts examine sectoral issues such as the trade, investment, and dispute settlement disciplines envisaged in these ‘mega-regional’ agreements. Moreover, the progress made in intellectual property protection, the problems associated with data protection, disciplines on financial services, human rights, labour and environmental standards, issues of transparency and legitimacy, and the relationship between CETA, TTIP, and TiSA on the one hand and EU law on the other are analysed. Finally, four short contributions discuss fundamental questions surrounding these mega-regional agreements from an economic, a political science, and a legal perspective. The last chapter of this volume summarizes principal conclusions presented in the chapters of the book and highlights themes that recur in them.

13. International Economic Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Dixon ◽  
Robert McCorquodale ◽  
Sarah Williams
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
International Investment ◽  
International Investment Law ◽  
Investment Protection ◽  
Economic Law ◽  
Trade Law ◽  
International Trade Law ◽  
International Economic Law ◽  
The World

This chapter begins by defining international economic law. It then discusses the main international economic institutions: the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It goes on to elaborate on the key principles of international trade law: tariffication, binding tariffs, most favoured nation treatment and the national treatment obligation and discusses exceptions to these principles, anti-dumping and subsidies, regional trade arrangements, and developing States and dispute settlement within the WTO. The chapter also discusses the key principles of international investment law (including foreign direct investment, protection standards, expropriation and dispute settlement); the international financial architecture; and international economic law and State sovereignty.

International Arbitration

2020 ◽  
pp. 536-553
Author(s):  
Hélène Ruiz Fabri ◽  
Edoardo Stoppioni
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
International Law ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Economic Regulation ◽  
International Arbitration ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
International Economic Law ◽  
Dispute Settlement System ◽  
The One

This chapter examines some of the methodological elements of feminist approaches to international law to rethink international arbitration. The central focus of a feminist prism appears to be whether international arbitration is subjugated by patriarchal domination structures, bias and injustice, thus mirroring and even reinforcing the idiosyncrasies of international law, especially international economic law. Probably, one could answer yes to all these questions, and this is essentially why the legitimacy of international arbitration is so much at stake. However, the absence of such a dispute settlement system would not necessarily lead to a better situation for international economic regulation: if international law did not regulate resources at all, the international order would be that much more unjust. A feminist deconstruction shows the need for clear, transparent, and well-balanced rules and dispute settlement resolution systems, and not their absence. This direction is the one progressively taken by projects of reform.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document