This article reports on a study of potential systemic bias in the resolution of ambiguous legal issues by investment treaty arbitrators. It outlines tentative but significant findings that the arbitrators in general tended to favour (a) foreign investors over states in general, (b) foreign...

“Extreme” weather has become the new normal. What were previously considered to be inexplicable and unpredictable “acts of God” can no longer reasonably be said to be so. They are acts of man. The established doctrine of contractual impracticability rests on the notion that a party may...

Commercial airplanes are vectors of infectious disease, advancing, if not sparking, global epidemics and potentially pandemics by exporting pathogens from endemic areas of the world to non-endemic places. For example, according to the global scientific community, the Zika virus was introduced to...

An unprecedented number of consumer problems has been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, not least with regard to refunds of prepayments and the ability of consumers to keep up their monthly payments under loan and rental agreements. Based on a notion of societal force majeure sketched in this...

Consumer product safety is a major contemporary concern for developing, middle-income and developed economies. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), through its Committee on Consumer Protection (ACCP), has recognised this as a priority topic for international collaboration, as...

The coronavirus pandemic is creating overwhelming needs, in three waves. First is the health crisis; second is the macroeconomic crisis created by the abrupt halt in much business activity; and now third is a consumer crisis, as households are faced with total or partial job loss, sharp income...

The global financial crisis triggered a vast number of new laws and regulations at international level, including initiatives that can be classified as "soft law". The legitimacy and efficacy of these new norms are subject to intensive academic and political debates. At the same time, soft law...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications can bring many benefits for consumers, as well as influence consumer behaviour and the choices they make. On a large scale AI can profoundly transform consumer markets by, for example, enabling fully personalised consumer transactions on a...

With expanding global trade, the challenge of protecting consumers from unsafe food, pharmaceuticals, and consumer products has grown increasingly salient, necessitating the development of new policy ideas and analysis. This chapter introduces the book, Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in...