interdisciplinary research in law: companies facing technical barriers to trade
TRANSCRIPT
Interdisciplinary Research in Law: Companies Facing Technical
Barriers to Trade
Ashley Jester&Dana Neacsu
Research problem - You provide in-house counsel services to a company which manufactures highly competitive technical.1. You would like to identify markets that would
be good targets for growing your exports. 2. You are also interested in identifying markets
with which we have preferential or regional trading agreements as well as any regulations in place governing trade with particular markets.
Preliminary meta-researchinternational datasets1.Free of charge databases?2. Fee-based databases? How do you choose?
Who publishes them?Where can you access them?
Let’s research: • WTO International Trade and Market Access In
teractive tool (map-based exploration tool that allows you to look at tariff rates by country and product type):
• WTO PTA database (database of registered preferential trade agreements):
• WTO RTA database (database of registered regional trade agreements):
• WTO main statistics gateway:International Trade Administration:ITA TradeStats Express (database with information about trade between the U.S. and other markets):
Research problem 2 - when companies face an issue of technical barriers to trade, the burden of proof required to bring such a case to court keeps them from doing so. What is your strategy?
- Where do companies complain about unfair trading practices caused by technical barriers?
• Clarify your question (break it into smaller concepts, if necessary)
Do you need contextual information? (literature search)
Can you go for the primary source?Where do you start?What is your jurisdiction?
More preliminary meta-research-usually each research task requires its strategy.
Research tasks: • 1) Locate CE, REACH, and RoSH EC regulations, or complaints
against these regulations
• 2) In the case of NAFTA, explore the Mexican telecom monopoly case (although it is not standards-related). Many foreign businesses feel that regulation similarly "shuts them out" of the local game played around them.
• 3) finding information if/how NAFTA coordinates any formal product quality control mechanism (aside from the dispute panels)
• 4) studying the E.U. internal harmonization process to show U.S. companies how to approach E.U. regulations. For example, in Italy, there is a solar power conversion regulation that U.S. companies are concerned about. Europe must have a mechanism for addressing these concerns internally.
Strategize: • 1) Locate CE, REACH, and RoSH EC regulations, or complaints against
technical regulations which can be viewed as barriers to trade• Current Debate
Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT) strikes a delicate balance between the policy goals of trade facilitation and national autonomy in technical regulations. The agreement attempts to extricate the trade-facilitating aspects of standards from their trade-distorting potential by obligating countries to ensure that technical regulations and product standards do not unnecessarily restrict international trade. TBT: encourages 'standard equivalence' between countries, TBT: promotes the use of international standards. TBT: mandates enquiry points and national notification authorities .
But:implementing the TBTA requires developing countries to adhere to standards more appropriate for their industrialized counterparts Where can they complain?• https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbt_e.htm• https://legalresearch101.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/1r11.pdf• http://www.rohsguide.com/rohs-faq.htm
Strategize: • 2) In the case of NAFTA, explore the Mexican telecom monopoly case
(although it is not standards-related). Many foreign businesses feel that regulation similarly "shuts them out" of the local game played around them.
• See
See:• http://
www.naftamexico.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/aug14.pdf
• http://www.hjil.org/articles/hjil-30-3-truskett.pdf
Strategize:
3) finding information if/how NAFTA coordinates any formal product quality control mechanism (aside from the dispute panels)
See:• http://www.naftanow.org/dispute/default_en.asp• http://
www.ftaa-alca.org/ngroups/ngds/publications/dsw8r4_e.asp
• http://www.lalive.ch/data/publications/5_Journal_of_International_Dispute_Settlement_2010.pdf
Strategize: • 4) studying the E.U. internal harmonization process to show U.S.
companies how to approach E.U. regulations. For example, in Italy, there is a solar power conversion regulation that U.S. companies are concerned about. Europe must have a mechanism for addressing these concerns internally.
• See:
• http://www.slideshare.net/hunjoo14/griffin-ib6e-im10-7th-edition-revisedsd
Common Strategies:1. Start with Secondary Sources:
• Find treatises – NAFTA, EU• Find law review articles;
2. Then go to Repositories of Primary Sources
