Carbon Flows between the EU and Eastern Europe: Baselines, Scenarios and Policy Options

We develop baseline data and an analytical framework for understanding the role that flows of carbon between the Former Soviet Union/Commonwealth of Independent States (FSU/CIS) and the European Union (EU) may have in enabling the EU to meet major reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the medium-term future. The paper sets out an analysis of contemporary flows of carbon between the EU, EU Candidate Countries and the FSU/CIS, and outlines two scenarios for investigating how flows may develop in the future under different assumptions about climate and energy policy. The 'trading' scenario assumes unconstrained trade in tangible (mainly gas) and intangible (tradable emissions permits) flows of carbon from the FSU/CIS to the EU. The 'autonomy' scenario assumes limits to carbon flows and a subsequent requirement for high levels of domestic de-carbonisation in the EU (e.g. energy efficiency and indigenous energy sources). We conclude that neither scenario is feasible or desirable, but that even a combined approach, which sees trade complemented by tough domestic action, still requires far greater efforts than are currently planned.     

Post-colonial trade between Russia and former Soviet republics: back to big brother?

We examine the developments in trade patterns between the former Soviet republics in the years following the initial breakup shock. After a huge fall following the Soviet breakup of the early 1990s, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) trade with Russia began improving, and there have been recent formal efforts at Eurasian Economic Integration. This might be taken, a priori, as contrary to the hypothesis of gradual decline in Head, Mayer and Ries (HMR in J Int Econ 81(1):1–14, 2010)—or perhaps as evidence of the power of restored trade agreements, such as the incipient Eurasian Economic Union. We decompose the region’s trade into theory-consistent ‘gravity’ components, in order to analyze dynamic changes in the components since the Soviet era. Despite the sharp falls after 1991, trade in 1995 still shows strong ties, consistent with high dyadic (country pair) components linked to trade specialization. By contrast, in the second decade, the ties (dyads) began to weaken significantly and calibrated trade costs tend to rise, despite attempts at renewed integration. Rather, the sharp improvement in trade volumes was mainly due to the sharp recoveries in GDP levels for both Russia and many of the Central Asian Countries, associated with improvements in the global economy and economic ties with the World (especially with EU and China). We would therefore conclude that the recovery in trade between Russia and Central Asia reflects monadic factors (i.e., the regional economic recovery) and does not contradict the HMR (2010) hypothesis. Nevertheless, further, dynamic analysis shows that there are strong long-run ties within the CIS and Russia, which are not declining, and that sticky post-colonial adjustment does not appear set to eliminate the current bias of trade between these republics.

     

China and the EU: Where next in bilateral trade and investment relations?

Trade and investment relations between China and the European Union (EU) have reached a momentous significance. China is the EU’s No. 1 supplier of goods and its second-largest export market. In turn, the EU is China’s largest trading partner. Not only goods but also services trade has large potential to grow, even as China undergoes a structural transition and the EU’s single market faces headwinds from a surge in state-centric political forces within Europe. Transport and trade-related services are bound to expand significantly as China’s integration into the world economy continues. Moreover, Chinese tourists have been flocking to Europe in ever greater numbers, giving a boost to related business. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is becoming the next engine of the China–EU partnership. While the EU is a long-standing investor in China, Chinese direct investment accounts for <1 % of the EU’s total inbound FDI stock. Investment relations have seen tremendous dynamism in line with Chinese companies’ outward expansion and Chinese M&A deals vis-à-vis the EU have grown rapidly in magnitude, scope and sophistication. Finally, plenty of headroom exists for greater adoption of the use of the Chinese Renminbi (RMB) in Europe, supporting financing of both investment and trade. The Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) currently in negotiation between China and the EU as well as growing rather than declining interdependence of trade and investment highlight the future potential for a comprehensive free trade agreement between the EU and China.

     

Regional integration and free-trade agreements in the Balkans: opportunities, obstacles and policy issues

The Balkan states are engaged in a complex and contradictory process of simultaneous regional integration and disintegration. The main instrument of regional integration has been a network of bilateral Free Trade Agreements which the Balkan countries have adopted under the guidance of the Stability Pact for South East Europe, and more recently the extension of the CEFTA free trade area to the region. The bilateral FTAs have been criticised for creating a ‘spaghetti bowl’ of differentiated trade relations, and creating risks of trade deflection and trade diversion. At the same time other arrangements, including the contractual relations of individual countries with the EU, cut across the region and fragment their mutual trade relations. Moreover, Croatia is likely to become an EU member within the next few years, at which point it will suspend its trade agreements with the non-member Balkan states. Therefore, soon after having established a new mechanism of integration, the region will once again be split apart, leaving a rump association of five or six poverty-stricken and politically unstable countries to pursue the vision of regional cooperation. This paper focuses on the prospects for regional integration among these remaining countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. It explores the patterns of their mutual trade, and the opportunities and obstacles to increasing trade between them.     

东盟贸易自由化若干协议的法律效力及实施

建立自由贸易区是东盟贸易自由化的一个重要层面,以绕开WTO多边协议的困难,克服WTO多边贸易体系的种种弊端.建立和完善自由贸易区的法律基础,是自由贸易区相关的各项协议,尤其是双边自由贸易协定(FTA).以东盟自由贸易区(AFTA)和中国一东盟自由贸易区(CAFTA)中的相关协议协定为核心,研究了东盟贸易自由化若干协议的法律效力及其在实施过程中的障碍,并提出相应的应对措施.     

Europe’s new deal: a new version of an expiring deal

The article elaborates upon the reasons of institutional default (Part 1) and, in turn, upon the implications of economic default in Europe (Part 2). In relation to the reasons of institutional default, the paper cast light on three broadly interrelating elements: First, the conceptual issue that the EU has been operating as a community without democracy, which was clearly illustrated in the case of the economic crisis (Sect. 2.1). Second, the structural issue that EU democracy, where applicable, was deprived of politics, in the sense that founding ideology has been completely superseded by the inflexible dominance of free market (Sect. 2.2). And, third, the technical issue that EU politics, where applicable, especially after the Euro-zone launching, lacked principles that could keep the community intact (Sect. 2.3). In relation to the implications of economic default, the paper reveals three salient features. First, the political impact, namely that Europe seems to be puzzled by a sharp division between stability/cohesion and growth/monetarism, which mutates the essential mainstays of a Community (Sect. 3.1). Second, the social impact, i.e. increase of discrepancies within the EU, mostly as a result of diminution of labour rights and the correlating destruction of cohesion (Sect. 3.2). And, third, the psychological impact, which revolves around two antithetical poles, namely stereotyping and nationalism (Sect. 3.3). The epilogue reflects the view that the current depression is both a disaster and an opportunity for Europe, therefore the old messianic deal of the European integration needs an afresh look within the frame of democratic legitimacy and accountability and with an essential preservation of social state.     

Incomplete antitrust laws and private actions for damages

Our purpose in this paper is to identify some of the implications that derive from the incompleteness of antitrust laws. Since with regard to certain anticompetitive conduct, the law remains substantially incomplete up to the first relevant court judgment, in terms of policy it is worth concentrating on stand-alone claimants who, not relying on earlier judgments, face very high evidentiary requirements, while generating large positive (information) externalities for potential follow-on claimants. The paper is structured as follows. In Sect. 2, we introduce the notion of incompleteness of the laws and address the process of production of evidence in antitrust lawsuits. Sect. 3 provides a survey of EU national case law and our summary of the results puts emphasis on incomplete laws, evidentiary requirements and stand-alone lawsuits. Sect. 4 presents a framework model to distinguish the decision-making processes for stand-alone and follow-on claimants in the presence of incomplete antitrust laws. In Sect. 5 we introduce a vector autoregressive model that we test with reference to the US antitrust law enforcement regime. Sect. 6 discusses some policy options and concludes the paper.     

维护自由贸易与保护知识产权权利的内在冲突和司法考量之进路

世贸组织的根本宗旨是推动全球贸易的自由化,逐步减少和消除阻碍贸易发展的壁垒。保护附加于商品上的知识产权(特别是商标权、专利权)在一定条件下会阻碍自由贸易发展。针对如何看待和协调WTO一系列框架文本中消除贸易壁垒和保护与贸易有关的知识产权协定的关系,从世贸组织的相关法律文本出发,通过我国法律和欧盟的典型判例来实证分析研究上述问题,并总结欧盟司法经验,揭示在保护知识产权的基本原则下,运用比例关系测试法就具体个案衡平考量解决两者冲突的司法进路。     

The Human Rights Clause in the European Union's External Trade and Development Agreements

Abstract: Since 1992, the European Union (EU) has included in all its agreements with third countries a clause defining respect for human rights and democracy as an ‘essential element’ of its external relationship. A Council decision of May 1995 spells out the basic modalities of this clause, with the aim of ensuring consistency in the text used and its application. The human rights clause is unique to the EU's bilateral agreements, and now applies to over 120 countries. It represents a new model for EU external relations as well as for international cooperation. The EU plays a leading role in the WTO and international economic relations. The human rights clause will have implications for the development of international rules concerning trade‐related human rights policy.     

Cooperation Between Russia and the EU in the Sphere of Migration

The author attempts to analyze all aspects of cooperation between Russia and the European Union (EU) within the framework of the migration dialogue. She compares the migration policies of Russia and the EU-28 countries, discussing both common problems—the relationship between migration and development, labor immigration, the fight against illegal immigration—and the specific ways in which each side tackles them. She points out that the migration dialogue has great potential for developing further cooperation, exchanging experience, and strengthening trust between Russia and the EU.     

E-Commerce in Light of International Trade Agreements: The WTO and the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement

E-commerce offers economy-wide benefits. World Trade Organization(WTO) members recognized the benefits e-commerce offers andhave developed a work program to facilitate the developmentof e-commerce. However, WTO efforts to facilitate e-commercehave stalled, leading to a slower than anticipated progress.As fundamental differences continue to stall progress in theWTO’s program on e-commerce, the United States concludeda free trade agreement with Jordan. This agreement was the firstever to incorporate explicit provisions on e-commerce. Thisarticle analyzes how existing trade agreements have dealt withe-commerce. The article gives an overview of the situation inWTO. The article then examines the e-commerce provisions inthe United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (US-JO FTA) andhow the parties have tackled the obstacles that stalled theWTO work on e-commerce. It concludes that the US-JO FTA approachregarding e-commerce did not move beyond what the WTO has alreadydone. It is argued that although there are specific provisionsdealing with e-commerce in the FTA, the parties left many loopholesto be filled.     

Index Based Regional Analysis: The Case of the Former Soviet Union and Russia

This paper presents a methodology for analysing inter-regional differences and identifying a suitable combination of policies for a set of regions. The methodology is based on the development of a composite index and is applied to compare (i) the members of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and (ii) the regions of Russia. All variables considered and incorporated in the relevant index are (1) scaled from 0–100, so that the index is independent of units of measurement, and (2) weighted using survey results. According to the adapted regional development index Lithuania is on the top of the ranking followed by Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The FSU countries are positioned on a regional development index – per capita income mapping to investigate whether emphasis should be placed on regional, environmental or sustainable development policies. Finally, an index that incorporates various socioeconomic components is computed for the regions of Russia which are subsequently classified based on the value of this index. This classification shows that the regions with the best index values are in the Central–Southern part of the country (with the exception of Sackha Republic, which is in the West). The regions with the lower index values are in the Western part of the country and in parts of Central Russia (Mariel republic, Moldovia Republic, Perm region).     

The Fight to Globalize Labor: Understanding the Role of Activists in the Spread of International Norms

International relations scholars have traditionally focused on state-centered accounts of international legal norm development between nations while sociolegal scholars have focused on Weberian notions of occupational authority. This study advances a constructivist sociolegal approach emphasizing activist action as playing a unique role in shaping international norms. Specifically, this study investigates labor activists' intervention in U.S. bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) to examine why labor activists chose to initiate FTA disputes as a social movement tactic and how strategic interaction with international legal systems has helped them institutionalize and proliferate the International Labor Organizations' core labor standards. Through semi-structured interviews with legal, union, and government officials, alongside a content analysis of cases filed under the U.S. FTA system, this study shows the role activists played in advancing “globalized” standards in international law. This study finds that activists spread norms through a gradual mechanism of accretion, which focuses on the creation of standards and international legal standing over the individual outcomes of any given case.     

Some risks of tokenization and blockchainizaition of private law

The paper focuses on the analysis of the problems that may be driven by mass tokenization of the objects of civil law, i.e. the creation of a digital representation of such objects in the form of a record in blockchain. This occurs where the value of such objects is transferred subsequently by means of disposal of such tokens, which is a subject of separate rights to it. The paper outlines two core problems, which were inspired by recent legislative activities in Belarus and Russia. The first is a possible displacement of existing legal regimes of objects of civil rights by the legal regime of the token. Secondly, the problem of definition of the nature of rights to tokens arises (in rem versus ad personam) as well as remedies for their violations. Provisions of the Belarus Decree “On the development of digital economy” of 21 December 2017 and drafts of the laws on blockchain and ICO, discussed in Russian Parliament and Government are taken to illustrate these problems.     

The Evolving and Multilayered EU–India Investment Relations—Regulatory Issues and Policy Conjectures

India and several EU member countries share a rich history of investment collaborations. The collaboration has been cemented with several formal agreements with individual EU members, and the recent negotiations with the trade bloc since June 2007 on a broad‐based Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) can be considered as a culmination of this process while ongoing WTO negotiations on Mode 3 commitments remain essential in terms of market opening. The present article analyzes the multi‐layered regulation of foreign investment against the backdrop of the evolving EU‐India economic relations. The 2009 Treaty of Lisbon gave a new competence to the EU which will impact ongoing negotiations with India whose global standing has been significantly changing in recent years. The economic vibrancy, coupled with large market size, has earned India greater relevance in several international forums, thereby making the future EU—India investment treaty one of the most promising investment agreements.     

Foe or Friend of GATT Article XXIV: Diversity in Trade Remedy Rules

While the WTO Member countries continue to increase their FTAarrangements with divergent frameworks, they have begun to adoptmodified WTO trade remedy systems in FTAs. Although the contentand degree of these modified systems may not be significantyet, they still set very important precedents, or ‘seeds’,for ‘rule diversification’ in the world tradingsystem. Such modification typically aims to further liberalizemutual trade between FTA parties and thereby contribute to afreer world trading system. However, such rule diversificationappears to be inconsistent with the mandate of Article XXIVof GATT by worsening economically inferior trade diversion.The reinterpretation of the legal obligations in Article XXIVcommensurate with economically more reasonable structures impliesthat trade remedy rules in FTAs should be applied on a non-discriminatorybasis. Moreover, an FTA safeguard measure must precede a WTOsafeguard measure to ensure optimal competitive conditions amongtrading partners. In sum, the right channel for improving thecurrent WTO trade remedy systems is not the FTA forums but theWTO negotiation.     

337调查：中美贸易发展的新障碍及其应对策略

337调查是依据<美国关税法(1988)>第337条款,对侵犯美国境内知识产权的产品进口和销售加以禁止的贸易保护措施.至今美国对中国发起337调查已有39起,并有继续增加的趋势.337调查具有应诉时间短、律师费用高、调查内容专业等特点,对出口国的影响明显,已经成为中美贸易发展的新障碍.我国应该采取积极主动的措施,有效防范和消除337调查所带来的不利影响,以促进中美贸易的平稳发展.     

Between Human Rights and Sovereignty*—An Examination of EU–China Political Relations

This paper will study the differences between the EU and China on the understanding of human rights and national sovereignty and their impact on EU‐China political relations. The paper will be divided into the following parts. The first part will give a review of the concepts of both sovereignty and human rights and the rising concern of human rights in the contemporary world. The second part will study the EU's policy of human rights to see why the EU adheres to its values. The third part will look at China's policy on sovereignty and human rights. The fourth part will examine EU‐China political relations and analyse the difficulties in bilateral relations, due to differences in values between the EU and China. The fifth part will draw some tentative conclusion.     

Extra Unionem nulla salus? Teaching and researching EU law in Norway and Switzerland

ABSTRACT

Brexit is creating great uncertainty in the UK, including as concerns the future of EU law as an academic discipline. This article tries to shed some light on the issue by describing the situation in two countries whose relations to the EU might provide a blueprint for future UK–EU relations: Norway and Switzerland. After outlining the current state of relations between these states and the EU, the authors describe the (rather flourishing) state of EU law in Swiss and Norwegian academia. The conclusion is that for EU law as a discipline, there is indeed salvation outside the EU. However, a precondition for success is a high level of economic and legal integration.     

Successful STR and SNP typing of FTA Card samples with low amounts of DNA after DNA extraction using a Qiagen BioRobot EZ1 Workstation

FTA Cards (GE Healthcare) have been used for more than 4 years in Denmark for the collection of buccal cells as reference samples in crime cases. Semi-automated protocols for STR typing of DNA on punches of FTA Cards are routinely used. In average, full STR profiles were generated from approximately 95% of the FTA Cards with a standard punching protocol, while partial or no STR profile were obtained from 5% of the samples. Here, the Qiagen BioRobot^® EZ1 Workstation (Qiagen) and the EZ1 DNA Investigator Kit (Qiagen) was used to extract DNA from 29 FTA Cards from which a complete STR profile was not generated with the standard punching protocol. All 29 samples were successfully typed with the AmpF?STR^® Identifiler™ PCR Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems) and with the SNPforID 49plex SNP assay. The lowest amount of DNA that resulted in complete STR and SNP profiles was 80 pg. The STR and SNP profiles were identical to those generated from another sample collected from each of the 29 individuals.