Voitovich presents a clear and lucid discussion of the manner and form in which international economic organizations (IEOs) participate in two main stages of the international legal process: law making and law implementation. The book is based on normative instruments and fragments of practice of about fifty IEOs. In order to ensure a proper and timely realization of their normative acts, IEOs exercise a number of law implementing functions which are subject to a thorough comparative examination. The author concludes that existing IEOs, not being ideal institutional models, possess a sufficient arsenal of law implementing instruments to make a considerable impact on the international legal regulations in the economic field. The book will be of interest to academics and economic political scientists.

Voitovich presents a clear and lucid discussion of the manner and form in which international economic organizations (IEOs) participate in two main stages of the international legal process: law making and law implementation. The book is based on normative instruments and fragments of practice of about fifty IEOs. In order to ensure a proper and timely realization of their normative acts, IEOs exercise a number of law implementing functions which are subject to a thorough comparative examination. The author concludes that existing IEOs, not being ideal institutional models, possess a sufficient arsenal of law implementing instruments to make a considerable impact on the international legal regulations in the economic field. The book will be of interest to academics and economic political scientists.

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

There can be little doubt that a group of prominent and influential organizations lie at the heart of international economic law (IEL). These include the Bretton Woods institutions, regional development banks and economic organizations, and various specialized global institutions primarily active in norm generation. This volume possesses the unique distinction of presenting the perspectives – both institutional and personal – of legal counsels in some key international economic organizations regarding their work and the role of law within the framework of their organizations, with particular attention to the conditions within which they can optimally contribute to the development of IEL. This last consideration is emphasized in three ‘external’ academic perspectives that focus mainly on what the role of counsels in international economic organizations ought to be. Each first-hand perspective focuses on counsel’s involvement in such aspects of IEL as the following: providing internal advice on the law of the organization; assisting members with respect to domestic institutions and law in the economic sphere; to what extent (if any) legal counsels are normally involved in policy making for issues that are not strictly of a legal nature; intellectual contributions both to the development of international law and the dissemination and exchange of legal knowledge among various stakeholders; ethical challenges and response to possible conflicts of interests; generation of soft law economic instruments; legal issues on replenishment of resources for development funding; setting of internationally recognized standards or best practices for commercial and financial legislation; informal networks of lawyers and lawyer functions which cut across institutional and territorial boundaries; and negotiation and management of free trade agreements from a legal perspective.

In the opinions proffered, in the preoccupations shared, indeed even in the silence of omissions, these contributions by distinguished key practitioners from major representative organizations that play a role in the international economic system will be warmly welcomed by the community of scholars, policymakers and practitioners concerned with international economic law.

This book offers a skilled arms-length evaluation, from a legal perspective, of the main criticisms that have been leveled recently at the key global economic organizations – that is, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and its fellow multilateral developmental banks (MDBs), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). THE FUTURE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS stands out from most of the growing body of literature on the IMF, MDBS, and the WTO in two main respects: the book’s scope and the author’s experience. Whereas numerous commentators have focused on particular strengths and weaknesses of one or the other of the GEOs, and have argued for changes on the basis of specific areas of operation, this book takes a wider view to examine all the GEOs at once. This broader scope reveals commonalities in the criticisms. For example, complaints about so-called “democracy deficit” obviously can be applied to all GEOs but with different nuances in emphasis and sting. Against the background of his own experience as a legal counsel for one of the regional MDBs and for the IMF and a legal career that has focused on international economic law, Head distills the swarm of complaints leveled at the IMF, MDBS, and the WTO into 25 specific criticisms and then offers succinct explanations of why some of those criticisms should be dismissed, why some of them are valid, and how those valid criticisms should form the basis for an important restructuring of the institutions, including amendments to the charters that establish and govern their operations. Head speaks largely to three audiences here: persons in various professional positions; persons in national governments and politics around the world who are responsible for implementing their government’s foreign policy; and to more general curious readers on whose involvement in civic life any society ultimately depends. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

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.