This timely book explores the developing nature of international trade law,with particular emphasis on World Trade Organization law and its effects within the European Union. In the aftermath of the Seattle upheaval, vital questions are being raised as to the future course of global economic law; its overall legitimacy, implications for democracy, for national social and environmental policies, and for the well being of the world's people. This highly technical subject is rigorously analysed, yet the main legal developments and the major trade disputes are discussed in an accessible narrative style. The first section covers the common historical roots of the GATT and the EC, systems of integration that were part of an idealistic post-war heritage. The book goes on to demonstrate the idiosyncratic development of GATT law, leading to the launch of the WTO in 1995 and the controversial Uruguay Round Agreements which represented the beginning of an enormous proliferation of causes of action and a greatly enhanced legalism for the global trading system.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Global context: introduction - the problem of Europe in a globalised world: "trade rights as European rights", methodologies of integration - the EC and the WTO, EU identity in the development of global governance, how this book should be read, structure and purpose of the book, focus on the disputes; early GATT - other GATT provisions of particular importance, GATT over time, the intervening decades, the earliest GATT disputes - nullification or impairment of GATT "benefit"; anti-legalism and the tumultuous 1960s, the age of the Tokyo Round - new areas of concern reflected in stand-alone codes, GATT's adolescence - the DISC case, anticipating the Uruguay Round, the dispute settlement understanding, institutional basis - the WTO itself, new areas of GATT/WTO law - trade post-1995. Part 2 The effects of the Uruguay Round: intellectual property rights and trade - creating the TRIPS Agreement - intellectual property and the old GATT, the coming of TRIPS, Indian pharmaceuticals, Canadian generic drugs, Canadian term of patent protection, the US "fairness in music licensing" act; "free trade in investments" - the FIRA case, international instruments to protect investments before the adoption of the TRIMS Agreement, Bilateral Investment Treats (BITs) and Bilateral Protection Agreements (BIPAs), the OECD and investments, multilateral liberalisation of investment regimes, export subsidies law dovetails with TRIMS, investing in Indonesia's automobile industry, claims of MFN violations, claims of serious prejudice under the Subsidies Agreement, TRIPS arguments, the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI); "trade and the environment" - international trade rules and national regulation of the environment - pre-Uruguay Round, tuna-dolphin, the Thai cigarettes case, trade and the environment, post-Uruguay Round, the agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement), the "beef hormones" dispute, the sea turtle case, United States - import prohibition of certain shrimp and shrimp products, the Canadian salmon case, the asbestos case - how real is the change of emphasis, the appellate body and the asbestos dispute, conclusion; the trouble with trade in agriculture - pre-Uruguay Round, agriculture enters the global free trade system, Canada's "export subsidies", the Millennium Round in agriculture, submissions of WTO members at the outset of the new round,; safeguards - escape clauses and the power of self-protection; liberalising the textile trade - the only Uruguay Round Agreement of clear benefit to the Developing World; the power of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); national measures against dumping and subsidies. Part 3 External trade relations of the European Union: European external trade relations - uniformity without; the European Court of Justice meets GATT law - the power of first impressions. (Part Contents).