International Economic Law

The successful completion of the Uruguay Round of international trade negotiations in 1994 and the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 1, 1995 marks an unprecedented expansion of the international law relating to international trade. The rules of international economic law now extend into many new substantive areas, such as services, intellectual property, and investment. In addition, the revamped binding international dispute resolution process administered by the WTO will create a lively new jurisprudence in this field.

NATO is preparing to interdict deliveries by sea of refined oil bound for Yugoslavia, as a means of ensuring that NATO's bombing of Serbian oil refineries will not be neutralized by the supply of refined oil from other sources.  France and Italy have raised a question whether such interdiction at sea would violate international law. 

 

The Codex Alimentarius (Codex) is a commission jointly sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Codex adopts standards that may be used by its 162 participating governments to develop national regulations. Codex is currently developing a variety of international standards for the trade of genetically modified food (GMF).(1)

 

I. Introduction

On April 11, 2001 the US and the EU reached an agreement (the "Agreement") in the decade-long dispute over the EU's banana import regime.  The Agreement requires the EU to abandon its proposal to institute on July 1 a "first-come-first-served" licensing regulation and to move in 2 stages to a tariff-only system by 2006.