An examination of the core principles, landmark disputes, and modern developments in IEL reflecting a global approach.

Special economic zones (SEZs) have become a permanent feature of the world trade scene. This book, the first to provide a critical and comprehensive analysis of SEZs covering a wide spectrum of countries and regions, shows how SEZs, albeit established at the domestic level by different countries, raise multiple legal issues under international economic law. This first-rate book is the product of the Asia FDI Forum IV held in Hong Kong in 2018. Thoroughly exploring the development of the SEZ phenomenon and its players, the contributing authors (all leading economic law experts) review the issues raised by SEZs in the context of international trade law, international investment law and investment arbitration. They identify the extent to which SEZs have been coherent in their design and policymaking, in particular with regard to domestic law reforms. They address such aspects (both core themes and specific examples) as the following: investment protection in China’s SEZs; state-owned enterprises regulation; dispute settlement; under what circumstances incentives available in SEZs count as export subsidies prohibited under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules; compliance with internal market rules in European Union (EU) free zones; local populations as victims of land expropriation; Brazil’s Manaus Free Trade Zone; India’s experience with multiple SEZs; the administrative approval system in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone; economic corridors and transit routes as SEZs; ‘refugee cities’: SEZs for migrants; how China’s Supreme People’s Court serves national strategy; how foreign investors challenge free-zone regimes; impacts of the establishment of SEZs on tax revenues; SEZs and labour migration; and management models. The chapters also include insights into the new emerging generation of international investment agreements; WTO accession, transparency, and case law materials clarifying specific trade issues associated with SEZs; and new rules to protect the environment and labour rights, as well as analysis of crucially significant cases such as Goetz v. The Republic of Burundi, Lee Jong Baek v. Kyrgyzstan and Ampal-American and Others v. Egypt. With its critical and comprehensive analysis of the dynamic SEZ phenomenon across legal, economic, investment, regulatory and policy matrices – including a thorough analysis of the success factors and required policies for SEZs – this book takes a giant step towards answering the question whether SEZs fundamentally contradict norms of international law or whether SEZs have to be considered as laboratories which facilitate the implementation of international economic policies. Its careful examination of theory and practice and its approach to lessons learned from case studies will reward trade and investment officials, policymakers, diplomats, economists, lawyers, think tanks, business leaders and others interested in this ever more important area of law and economics.

A comprehensive insight into the legal framework of international economic relations, comprising the law of the World Trade Organization, investment law, and international monetary law, this book highlights the context of human rights, good governance, environmental protection, development, and the role of the G20 and multinationals.

This volume scrutinises the main challenges faced by States in their current international economic relations from an interdisciplinary perspective. It combines legal research with political and economic analysis and favours dialogue among scientific disciplines. Readers are offered a series of in-depth studies on a rich variety of topics: how to reconcile States’ interest to benefit from economic liberalization with their need to pursue social goals (such as the protection of human rights or of the environment); recent developments under WTO law and regional integration processes; international cooperation in the energy sector; national regulatory developments in the banking sector, sovereign wealth funds and investor-State arbitration.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are transforming economies, societies, and geopolitics. Enabled by the exponential increase of data that is collected, transmitted, and processed transnationally, these changes have important implications for international economic law (IEL). This volume examines the dynamic interplay between AI and IEL by addressing an array of critical new questions, including: How to conceptualize, categorize, and analyze AI for purposes of IEL? How is AI affecting established concepts and rubrics of IEL? Is there a need to reconfigure IEL, and if so, how? Contributors also respond to other cross-cutting issues, including digital inequality, data protection, algorithms and ethics, the regulation of AI-use cases (autonomous vehicles), and systemic shifts in e-commerce (digital trade) and industrial production (fourth industrial revolution). This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book brings together a series of contributions by international legal scholars that explore a range of subjects and themes in the field of international economic law and global economic governance through a variety of methodological and theoretical lenses. It introduces the reader to a number of different ways of constructing and approaching the study of international economic law. The book deals with a series of different theoretical agendas and perspectives ranging from the more traditional (empirical legal studies) to the more alternative (language theory) and it expands the scope of substantive discussion and thematic coverage beyond the usual suspects of international trade, international investment and international finance. While the volume still gives due recognition to the traditional theoretical project of international economic law, it invites the reader to extend the scope of disciplinary imagination to other, less commonly acknowledged questions of global economic governance such as food security, monetary unions, and international economic coercion. In addition to historically-focused and critical perspectives, the volume also includes a number of programmatic and forward-looking explorations, which makes it appealing to a broad audience with a variety of contrasting interests. Therefore, the volume is of particular interest to academics and postgraduate students in the fields of international law, international relations, international political economy, and international history.

As conflict and cooperation among states turn to an ever greater extent on economic issues, this fully updated and expanded second edition presents a comprehensive exploration of the legal foundations of the international economy. It not only examines the current status of the law, but also explores the origins, political tensions and development of outcomes that are often difficult to comprehend.Lowenfeld examines the major elements of economic law in the international arena including the World Trade Organization and its antecedents; dumping, subsidies, and other devices that alter the market; the International Monetary System, including the collapse of the Bretton Woods system; the debt of developing countries; the law of foreign direct investment, including changing perceptions of the rights of host states and multinational enterprises; and economic sanctions. The book also contains chapters on competition law, environmental law, and new chapters on intellectual property and the various forms of arbitration; demonstrating how these subjects fit into the framework of international economic law.Professor Lowenfeld brings to his task a lifetime of practice and teaching experience to produce a book that will be of use to international lawyers and non-specialists alike.