Blame it on the WTO?

Blame it on the WTO?
Author: Sarah Joseph
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2011-04-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199565899

The WTO is often accused of not paying enough attention to human rights. This book weighs these criticisms and examines their validity, both from a legal and from political and economic points of views. It asks whether the WTO is under an obligation to construct a fairer trade system and discusses suggestions for reform.

The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations

The Oxford Handbook of International Organizations
Author: Jacob Katz Cogan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1304
Release: 2016-11-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191652377

Virtually every important question of public policy today involves an international organization. From trade to intellectual property to health policy and beyond, governments interact with international organizations in almost everything they do. Increasingly, individual citizens are directly affected by the work of international organizations. Aimed at academics, students, practitioners, and lawyers, this book gives a comprehensive overview of the world of international organizations today. It emphasizes both the practical aspects of their organization and operation, and the conceptual issues that arise at the junctures between nation-states and international authority, and between law and politics. While the focus is on inter-governmental organizations, the book also encompasses non-governmental organizations and public policy networks. With essays by the leading scholars and practitioners, the book first considers the main international organizations and the kinds of problems they address. This includes chapters on the organizations that relate to trade, humanitarian aid, peace operations, and more, as well as chapters on the history of international organizations. The book then looks at the constituent parts and internal functioning of international organizations. This addresses the internal management of the organization, and includes chapters on the distribution of decision-making power within the organizations, the structure of their assemblies, the role of Secretaries-General and other heads, budgets and finance, and other elements of complex bureaucracies at the international level. This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and students alike.

Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis

Economic and Social Rights after the Global Financial Crisis
Author: Aoife Nolan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2014-10-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 131606137X

The global financial and economic crises have had a devastating impact on economic and social rights. These rights were ignored by economic policy makers prior to the crises and continue to be disregarded in the current 'age of austerity'. This is the first book to focus squarely on the interrelationship between contemporary and historic economic and financial crises, the responses thereto, and the resulting impact upon economic and social rights. Chapters examine the obligations imposed by such rights in terms of domestic and supranational crisis-related policy and law, and argue for a response to the crises that integrates these human rights considerations. The expert international contributors, both academics and practitioners, are drawn from a range of disciplines including law, economics, development and political science. The collection is thus uniquely placed to address debates and developments from a range of disciplinary, geographical and professional perspectives.

The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law

The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law
Author: Dinah Shelton
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 1077
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191668982

The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law provides a comprehensive and original overview of one of the fundamental topics within international law. It contains substantial new essays by more than forty leading experts in the field, giving students, scholars, and practitioners a complete overview of the issues that inform research, as well as a 'map' of the debates that animate the field. Each chapter features a critical and up-to-date analysis of the current state of debate and discussion, assessing recent work and advancing the understanding of all aspects of this developing area of international law. The Handbook consists of 39 chapters, divided into seven parts. Parts I and II explore the foundational theories and the historical antecedents of human rights law from a diverse set of disciplines, including the philosophical, religious, biological, and psychological origins of moral development and altruism, and sociological findings about cooperation and conflict. Part III focuses on the law-making process and categories of rights. Parts IV and V examine the normative and institutional evolution of human rights, and discuss this impact on various doctrines of general international law. The final two parts are more speculative, examining whether there is an advantage to considering major social problems from a human rights perspective and, if so, how that might be done: Part VI analyses current problems that are being addressed by governments, both domestically and through international organizations, and issues that have been placed on the human rights agenda of the United Nations, such as state responsibility for human rights violations and economic sanctions to enforce human rights; Part VII then evaluates the impact of international human rights law over the past six decades from a variety of perspectives. The Handbook is an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and practitioners of international human rights law. It provides the reader with new perspectives on international human rights law that are both multidisciplinary and geographically and culturally diverse.

Global Trade, Labour Rights and International Law

Global Trade, Labour Rights and International Law
Author: Aneta Tyc
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2021-06-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000395928

This book provides a set of proposals for how best to guarantee effective enforcement of labour rights worldwide. The linkage between labour standards and global trade has been recurrent for some 200 years. At a time when the world is struggling to find a way out of crisis and is striving for economic growth, more than ever there is a need for up-to-date research on how to protect and promote labour rights in the global economy. This book explores the history of the field and also provides an overview of emerging trends and opportunities. It discusses the most recent problems including: the effectiveness and the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the second century of its existence, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its potential relevance in the protection of labour rights, the effectiveness of the US and the EU Generalised System of Preferences, the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) instruments on labour rights, and labour provisions in the international trade agreements concluded by the US and the EU. The book argues, inter alia, that trade agreements seem to be a useful tool to help pave the way out of the crisis and that the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) can be perceived as a model agreement and a symbol of a shift in perspective from long global supply chains to a focus on regional ones, local production, jobs and a rise in wages. The book will be essential reading for academics and students in the fields of human rights law, international labour law, industrial relations law, international sustainable development law, international economic law and international trade law. It will also be of interest to practitioners, non-government organisations (NGOs) and policy makers.

Biosafety Measures, Technology Risks and the World Trade Organization

Biosafety Measures, Technology Risks and the World Trade Organization
Author: Alessandra Guida
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2022-12-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000816974

This book examines the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO), with a focus on the capacity of its judiciary to strike a reasoned balance between free trade in biotechnology and biosafety as to promote the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals. By adopting an innovative interpretation of the precautionary principle and proportionality analysis, the work offers normative suggestions to develop what the author terms “a constructive bridge of knowledge” between decision-makers, scientists, social experts and expert witnesses, which can support a judicial balance by design rather than by chance. Biotechnology is sometimes regarded as a panacea for modern-day challenges, such as feeding a growing world population and counteracting climate-change problems, and a means of offering significant economic opportunities. However, biotechnology can present uncertain, though serious, risks to human health and the environment (i.e., biosafety). Trading biotech products magnifies these risks and benefits globally. This book explores the topical, though still underexplored, question of how to find a point of equilibrium between the revolutionary advancement offered by technology and the need to safeguard biosafety from uncertain, though potentially irreversible, technology risks. It offers a thorough analysis of normative, judicial and epistemic issues hindering a reasoned balance between trade and non-trade interests under the WTO. The work offers practical relevance for the resolution of legal disputes in contexts of uncertainty, as well as innovative theoretical contributions. It will be a valuable resource for policymakers working on precautionary governance and management, scholars in the areas of trade law, human rights law and environmental law, law students and practitioners, as well as NGOs working in the field of new technologies, biosafety, sustainability and food safety.

The Power of Human Rights/The Human Rights of Power

The Power of Human Rights/The Human Rights of Power
Author: Louiza Odysseos
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2018-10-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 135187019X

The contributions to this volume eschew the long-held approach of either dismissing human rights as politically compromised or glorifying them as a priori progressive in enabling resistance. Drawing on plural social theoretic and philosophical literatures – and a multiplicity of empirical domains – they illuminate the multi-layered and intricate relationship of human rights and power. They highlight human rights’ incitement of new subjects and modes of political action, marked by an often unnoticed duality and indeterminacy. Epistemologically distancing themselves from purely deductive, theory-driven approaches, the contributors explore these linkages through historically specific rights struggles. This, in turn, substantiates the commitment to avoid reifying the ‘Third World’ as merely the terrain of ‘fieldwork’, proposing it, instead, as a legitimate and necessary site of theorising. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law

Emerging Powers, Global Justice and International Economic Law
Author: Andreas Buser
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2021-01-04
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030636399

The book assesses emerging powers’ influence on international economic law and analyses whether their rhetoric of reforming this ‘unjust’ order translates into concrete reforms. The questions at the heart of the book surround the extent to which Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa individually and as a bloc (BRICS) provide alternative regulatory ideas to those of ‘Western’ States and whether they are able to convert their increased power into influence on global regulation. To do so, the book investigates two broader case studies, namely, the reform of international investment agreements and WTO reform negotiations since the start of the Doha Development Round. As a general outcome, it finds that emerging powers do not radically challenge established law. ‘Third World’ rhetoric mostly does not translate into practice and rather serves to veil economic interests. Still, emerging powers provide for some alternative regulatory ideas, already leading to a diversification of international economic law. As a general rule, they tend to support norms that allow host States much policy space which could be used to protect and fulfil socio-economic human rights, especially – but not only – in the Global South.

International Law and Changing Perceptions of Security

International Law and Changing Perceptions of Security
Author: Jonas Ebbesson
Publisher: Hotei Publishing
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2014-08-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004274588

The traditional conception of security as national security against military threats has changed radically since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945. The perceived nature and sources of threats have been widened as well as the objects of protection, now including individuals, societies, the environment as such and the whole globe. In International Law and Changing Perceptions of Security the contributors reflect on whether and how changing concepts and conceptions of security have affected different fields of international law, such as the use of force, the law of the sea, human rights, international environmental law and international humanitarian law. The authors of this book have been inspired by Professor Said Mahmoudi to which this Liber Amoricum is dedicated.