The paper aims at assessing and analyzing elements of due diligence in existing international trade agreements. Relevant elements include obligations to cooperate, to negotiate in good faith, to notify measures which could be harmful to other countries, to take the effects of measures on other...

This paper examines new U.S. regulation of foreign trademark applications through the lens of international trade and international intellectual property law treaties and conventions to which the U.S. is a member, and ultimately concludes that while there is unlikely to be a successful...

The general and specific obligations undertaken under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) by Members in relation to non-discrimination and market access and a level playing field in services, may under certain circumstances, considerably restrict the pursuit of equally legitimate,...

One category of voluntary approaches to environmental governance is ecolabels used to nudge consumers towards purchasing environmentally friendly products. The purpose of this article is to critically review the trade law implications of voluntary ecolabels, with special reference to the EU...

Agreed commitments under GATS — both general and specific — amount to substantial qualifications to the exercise of sovereignty and powers in shaping domestic regulation of services. Members therefore agreed to introduce security exceptions aimed to preserve Members’ freedom of action in...

The design of a trade agreement should reflect its purpose. Does digital trade change the purpose of a trade agreement? To explore this question, I first describe the definitional and classification issues associated with digital trade, and for modeling purposes I adopt a simple taxonomy of the...

This world and its nations are moving towards and working towards creation and formulation of “BioEconomy”, an economy which revolves around bioscience and biotechnology products and consumers. Since centuries and more importantly since last few decades in this modern and scientific era, the...

Digital technologies, taken as a broad category of technological inventions and applications, can be said to fall under the rare class of “disruptive technologies” that trigger profound societal transformations. This may demand changes in law and policy that go beyond incremental adjustment...

Trade and culture have had and continue to have a highly contentious relationship, as trade has often been perceived as a peril to the protection and promotion of national cultures, and more broadly, as a channel of commodifying and homogenizing culture.1 The political economy of the interfaces...

This paper explores how regulatory responses to emerging IP issues in digital trade may develop at the international level and in particular how existing mechanisms might influence the chances of developing internationally agreed rules in this regard. The primacy of state sovereignty in...