This paper focuses on the legal transaction costs which operate as a significant non-tariff barrier to mutually beneficial exchange in trade and investment between nations. It sets out the role, functions and advantages of the international regime for commercial arbitration, based on the...

Changes in the economy, in technology and in public policy, notably the easing of exchange controls, have transformed the ease and speed with which assets, particularly liquid assets and records, can be moved and hidden in fulfillment of acts of fraud and corruption. The development of freezing...

Investors are given powerful tools to recover for shareholder fraud, both by way of class action suits brought under the federal securities laws and derivative suits. Recent Supreme Court decisions however that favor mandatory arbitration may allow companies to compel their stockholders to forgo...

The mechanism of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) allows private foreign investors to challenge government measures before an ad hoc international arbitral tribunal. ISDS has been in existence for a long time. Yet recently this mechanism has proven very controversial, notably in the...

Enforcing intellectual property rights abroad is difficult. International treaties have generally not created directly enforceable IP rights. Usually, the protection they confer cannot be directly invoked in national courts. Because of the territorial nature of IP protection, right holders must...

Access to Court is a gobal principle, though the consequences of this principle are interpreted differently in the U.S. and Europe. Neither International Commercial Arbitration nor International Litigation can offer an effective access to court for cross-border commercial contracts. Whereas...