International Trade Law

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Trade Law – US

The laws governing U.S. trade are numerous and complex. The following overview, drawn from several sources, provides an outline of the most important laws that affect U.S. imports and exports and of the authorities the Congress grants to the president to react to unfair trade practices, regulate trade for other reasons, and to negotiate trade agreements.

The FTC deals with issues that touch the economic life of every American. It is the only federal agency with both consumer protection and competition jurisdiction in broad sectors of the economy. The FTC pursues vigorous and effective law enforcement; advances consumers’ interests by sharing its expertise with federal and state legislatures and U.S. and international government agencies; develops policy and research tools through hearings, workshops, and conferences; and creates practical and plain-language educational programs for consumers and businesses in a global marketplace with constantly changing technologies.

The effort to unite the economies of the Americas into a single free trade area began at the Summit of the Americas, which was held in December 1994 in Miami, U.S.A. The Heads of State and Government of the 34 democracies in the region agreed to construct a Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA, in which barriers to trade and investment will be progressively eliminated.

The NAFTA Secretariat, comprised of a Canadian Section, a Mexican Section and a United States Section, is responsible for the administration of the dispute settlement provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This site is a joint collaborative endeavor of the three national sections. It contains information on the dispute settlement proceedings, legal texts and panel decisions and reports respecting the NAFTA.

This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate. The majority of bills never make it out of committee. Keep in mind that sometimes the text of one bill is incorporated into another bill, and in those cases the original bill, as it would appear here, would seem to be abandoned.

The terms trade and commerce are often used interchangeably, with commerce referring to large-scale business activity and trade describing commercial traffic within a state or a community. The U.S. Constitution, through the Commerce Clause, gives Congress exclusive power over trade activities between the states and with foreign countries.

The National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational institution affiliated with the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. The Center is dedicated to developing the legal infrastructure to build trade capacity and promote economic development in the Americas.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will facilitate about $2 trillion in legitimate trade this year while enforcing U.S. trade laws that protect the economy, the health and the safety of the American people. We accomplish this through close partnerships with the trade community, other government agencies and foreign governments.

Advocates of free trade are frequently derided for holding a “Consumer uber Alles” philosophy—caring only about shoppers saving a few dollars at the checkout counter. In reality, protectionism imposes some of its greatest costs on American producers. U.S. trade policy has consistently sacrificed leading industries and manufacturers to floundering companies that have bought political clout in Washington.

Trade Law – International

We are a Community of four countries that decided voluntarily to join together for the purpose of achieving more rapid, better balanced and more autonomous development through Andean, South American and Latin American integration. We have planned to move ahead in deepening an integral integration process that will contribute effectively to sustainable and equitable human development, in order to live well, with respect for the diversity and asymmetries that agglutinate the different visions, models and approaches and that will converge in the formation of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur).

Bilaterals.org is a collective effort to share information and stimulate cooperation against bilateral trade and investment agreements that are opening countries to the deepest forms of penetration by transnational corporations.

CTPL is a non-governmental, non-profit think tank specializing in trade capacity building and institutional support services for public- and private-sector clients and international organizations. It was established in 1989 with a three-fold mandate to promote greater public understanding of trade and investment policy issues, to foster independent analysis and research on trade policy and legal issues, and to encourage the development of trade policy professionals and practitioners around the globe.

International trade law is the mixture of domestic or national law and public international law that applies to transactions for goods or services that cross national boundaries. Certain multilateral treaties play an important roles in this field — notably the Convention for the International Sales of Goods and several dealing with dispute resolution and the enforcement of resulting adjudications.

International trade law includes the appropriate rules and customs for handling trade between countries or between private companies across borders. Over the past twenty years, it has become one of the fastest growing areas of international law.

News, analysis and information on export controls, customs law, antidumping law and other international trade issues.

Mercosur or Mercosul is a Regional Trade Agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asuncion, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto. Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency.

LANIC’s mission is to facilitate access to Internet-based information to, from, or on Latin America. Our target audience includes people living in Latin America, as well as those around the world who have an interest in this region. While many of our resources are designed to facilitate research and academic endeavors, our site has also become an important gateway to Latin America for primary and secondary school teachers and students, private and public sector professionals, and just about anyone looking for information about this important region.

tralac is a not-for-profit organisation, building trade law capacity in the southern Africa region; in governments, the private sector and civil society. tralac was established in February 2002, with the financial support of seco, the Swiss Department of Economic Development, and consists of a core of trade lawyers and economists with high-level expertise in a range of trade and trade-related areas. In-house expertise is complemented by specialist expertise of the network of tralac Associates. tralac is distinguished by its focus on trade law, and its inter-disciplinary approach to trade and trade-related matters.

Core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law.

After spending a number of years working as international trade lawyers, we started this web site in January of 2001. Our goal in setting up the site was to create a research tool for people interested in international trade law issues. Based on our own experience in researching these issues, we felt that there would be great value in a web site which would serve as a portal to the wide variety of information scattered in various places throughout the web.

Trade Law – Europe

Will trade liberalization with Eastern Europe inflict significant damage on European Union economies? No, according to some of Europe’s leading trade economists in a recently published CEPR study commissioned by the EU’s PHARE programme.

EUROPA is the portal site of the European Union. It provides up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration. Users can also consult all legislation currently in force or under discussion, access the websites of each of the EU institutions and find out about the policies administered by the European Union under the powers devolved to it by the Treaties.

EUR-Lex provides direct free access to European Union law. The system makes it possible to consult the Official Journal of the European Union and it includes inter alia the treaties, legislation, case-law and legislative proposals. It offers extensive search facilities.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade helps through the EU’s trade policy to secure prosperity, solidarity and security in Europe and around the globe. We support Peter Mandelson, the EU’s Trade Commissioner and the whole of the European Commission in shaping a trade environment that is good for people and for business.

The common commercial policy is a pillar for the external relations of the European Union. It is based on a set of uniform rules under the Customs Union and the Common Customs Tariff and governs the commercial relations of the Member States with Non-EU Member Countries. The purpose of the instruments of trade defence and market access is mainly to protect European businesses from obstacles to trade.

The European Union’s recent trade policy strategy towards China, which focuses on bilateral market access and involves a strong U S-style confrontational stance, is ineffective and short-sighted. Today there exists no genuine dialogue between China and the EU on crucial commercial issues. This paper calls for foresightedness in the European Union’s policies towards China.

The United States and the European Union (EU) share a huge, dynamic, and mutually beneficial economic partnership. Not only is the U.S.-EU trade and investment relationship the largest in the world, but it is also arguably the most important. Agreement between the two partners in the past has been critical to making the world trading system more open and efficient.

UK Trade & Investment’s strategic objective is to: Deliver measurable improvement in the business performance of UK Trade & Investment’s international trade customers, with an emphasis on innovative and R&D active firms; Increase the contribution of foreign direct investment to knowledge intensive economic activity in the UK, including R&D; Deliver a measurable improvement in the reputation of the UK in leading overseas markets as the international business partner of choice.

Trade Law – Asia

Reaffirming the key importance of trade facilitation in achieving the Bogor goal of free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific, in providing significant benefits for both governments and business, and in generating welfare gains for the economy as a whole.

This English translation of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act has been prepared (up to the revisions of Act No. 102 of 2005 (Effective October 1, 2007)) in compliance with the Standard Bilingual Dictionary (March 2006 edition). This is an unofficial translation. Only the original Japanese texts of laws and regulations have legal effect, and the translations are to be used solely as reference material to aid in the understanding of Japanese laws and regulations.

Republic Act No. 8762, or the Retail Trade Liberalization Act (RTLA), was signed into law on March 7, 2000. This act encourages forging of an efficient & competitive retail trade sector between Filipino and foreign investors.

Paperless documentation and processing of international trade in goods is essential, as it offers economy-wide benefits in time and cost savings, efficiency and convenience for business and government. Both business and government recognize this, and have been working for the past few decades to facilitate paperless trade.

Trade agreements between two or more countries make international trade easier and more efficient. New Zealand is committed to liberalising trade through a number of regional, bilateral and multilateral trade agreements.

Much discussion of Australia competition policy in recent times has focused on domestic competition policy matters. In particular the various agreements of the Heads of Governments and later the Council of Australian Governments, the Hilmer National Competition Policy Review report, the Competition Policy Reform Act 1995 and forthcoming complementary State legislation all focus on issues concerning the application of competition policy especially the Trade Practices Act to sectors of the economy with little or no exposure to international trade.

Within UNESCAP managing globalization thematic group, the Trade and Investment Division plays a major role in assisting developing countries in the region to understand and implement regional and multilateral trading and investment systems in order to help them to participate more effectively in the global economy

Production networks have been at the heart of the recent growth in trade among East Asian countries. Fragmentation trade, reflected mainly in the trade in parts and components, is expanding more rapidly than the conventional trade in final goods. This is mainly due to the relatively more favorable policy setting for international production, agglomeration benefits arising from the early entry into this new form of specialization, considerable intercountry wage differentials in the region, lower trade and transport costs, and specialization in products exhibiting increasing returns to scale.

Trade Law Organizations

AITIC is an intergovernmental organisation, based in Geneva, whose goal is to help less-advantaged countries (LACs) to benefit from the globalisation process in general and the multilateral trading system in particular by assisting them in taking a more active part in the work of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other trade-related organisations in Geneva, as well as the negotiations under the auspices of the former.

FITA (The Federation of International Trade Associations) has 450 association members and 450,000 linked company members dedicated to the promotion of international trade, import-export, international logistics management, international finance and more. The FITA Global Trade Portal, is the source for international import export trade leads, events, and links to 8,000 international trade (export import) related Websites.

Global Trade Watch (GTW) is a division of Public Citizen, the national consumer and environmental group founded in 1971. Public Citizen has about 90,000 due-paying members mainly in the U.S. GTW was created in 1995 to promote government and corporate accountability in the globalization and trade arena. Having built unique substantive capacity and diverse contacts with other public interest organizations, the press and policy-makers, GTW’s work makes Public Citizen one of the few progressive U.S. organizations focused full-time on globalization issues.

The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) was established in Geneva in September 1996 to contribute to a better understanding of development and environment concerns in the context of international trade. As an independent non-profit and non-governmental organisation, ICTSD engages a broad range of actors in ongoing dialogue about trade and sustainable development. With a wide network of governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental partners, ICTSD plays a unique systemic role as a provider of original, non-partisan reporting and facilitation services at the intersection of international trade and sustainable development.

ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) is the voice of world business championing the global economy as a force for economic growth, job creation and prosperity. ICC activities cover a broad spectrum, from arbitration and dispute resolution to making the case for open trade and the market economy system, business self-regulation, fighting corruption or combating commercial crime.

ITA’s mission is to create prosperity by strengthening the competitiveness of U.S. industry, promoting trade and investment, and ensuring fair trade and compliance with trade laws and agreements. Trade.gov provides you access to ITA’s valuable information and services regarding U.S. international trade policy.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of over 200 people, a highly committed group of professionals who have decades of specialized experience in trade issues and regions of the world. They negotiate directly with foreign governments to create trade agreements, resolve disputes and participate in global trade policy organizations.

SICE – the Organization of American State’s Foreign Trade Information System – centralizes information on trade policy in the Americas. On the SICE Website, you will find the full texts of trade agreements in force for OAS Member States, new and ongoing trade policy developments, information on national trade-related legislation, links to international, regional and national sources of trade policy information and more! SICE, with more than ten years online, strives to provide OAS member states and other users up-to-date and relevant information.

An independent federal agency determining import injury to U.S. industries in antidumping, countervailing duty, and global and China safeguard investigations; directing actions against unfair trade practices involving patent, trademark, and copyright infringement; supporting policymakers through economic analysis and research on the global competitiveness of U.S. industries; and maintaining the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule.

The Washington Council on International Trade (WCIT) is a private, non-profit, non-partisan association comprised of businesses, government agencies, non-profit organizations, academia, consular groups, and individuals. Founded in 1973, the Council works to support public policies favorable to expanded opportunities in the global marketplace.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.

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