The University of Michigan Press is pleased to announce the second volume in an annual series, the World Trade Forum. The Forum's members include scholars, lawyers, and government and business practitioners working in the area of international trade, law, and policy. They meet annually to discuss integration issues in international economic relations, focusing on a new theme each year. The World Trade Forum 1998 deals with the issue of regulatory barriers. Contributors focus their attention on the implications that government intervention has on the principle of nondiscrimination, the cornerstone of the World Trade Organization. The chapters, which cover both the positive and the normative level, deal in particular with the issue of "like product" definition, and with mutual recognition agreements. The relevant WTO case law is presented and analyzed, and the roundtable discussions are primarily aimed at clarifying to what extent a constitutional function should be assigned to the WTO organs, if at all. Contributors include: Christoph Bail, Jacques Bourgeois, Marco Bronckers, Thomas Cottier, William Davey, Paul Demaret, Piet Eeckhout, Crawford Falconer, Olivier Guillod, Meinhard Hilf, Gary Horlick, Robert Howse, Robert Hudec, Patrick Low, Aaditya Mattoo, Petros C. Mavroidis, Patrick Messerlin, Damien Neven, Kalypso Nicolaidis, David Palmeter, Ernst Ulrich Petresmann, Andre Sapir, and Michel Waelbroeck. Thomas Cottier is Professor of Law, Institute of European and International Economic Law, University of Bern Law School. Petros C. Mavroidis is Professor of Law, University of Neuchâtel.

Central to this book is an analysis of the obligation upon states to ensure non-discrimination in the form of adherence to the principles of national treatment and most-favoured nation treatment. These are critical principles for both international trade law and international investment law, yet the case-law in both fields reveals significant inconsistencies regarding key elements of non-discrimination. Tribunals have invoked ‘regulatory purpose’ to assist in identifying relevant discrimination, but have done so without offering a definition of regulatory purpose and in significantly differing ways. This book explains these inconsistencies and offers a new definition of regulatory purpose.

The principle of non-discrimination is fundamental to the regulation of international trade in goods and services. In the context of trade in goods, the concept of 'like products' has become a key element of the legal analysis of whether a trade obstacle violates GATT non-discrimination obligations. The equivalent concept of 'like services and service suppliers' in GATS rules on non-discrimination has received little attention in WTO jurisprudence. In light of the remaining uncertainties, Nicolas Diebold analyses the legal problems of the GATS 'like services and services suppliers' concept using a contextual and comparative methodology. The 'likeness' element is not analysed in isolation, but in context with 'less favourable treatment' and regulatory purpose as additional elements of non-discrimination. The book also explores how far theories from non-discrimination rules in GATT, NAFTA, BITs and EC as well as market definition theories from competition law may be applied to 'likeness' in GATS.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement covers international commerce in goods and services including measures that directly affect trade, such as import tariffs and quotas, and almost any type of internal measure with an impact on trade. Legal and Economic Principles of World Trade Law contributes to the analysis of the texts of World Trade Law in law and economics, reporting work done to identify improvements to the interpretation of the Agreement. It starts with background studies, the first summarizes The Genesis of the GATT, which highlights the negotiating history of the GATT 1947–8; the second introduces the economics of trade agreements. These are followed by two main studies. The first, authored by Bagwell, Staiger and Sykes, discusses legal and economic aspects of the GATT regulation of border policy instruments, such as import tariffs and import quotas. The second, written by Grossman, Horn and Mavroidis, focuses on the core provision for the regulation of domestic policy instruments - the National Treatment principles in Art. III GATT.

The principle of non-discrimination is fundamental to the regulation of international trade in goods and services. In the context of trade in goods, the concept of 'like products' has become a key element of the legal analysis of whether a trade obstacle violates GATT non-discrimination obligations. The equivalent concept of 'like services and service suppliers' in GATS rules on non-discrimination has received little attention in WTO jurisprudence. In light of the remaining uncertainties, Nicolas Diebold analyses the legal problems of the GATS 'like services and services suppliers' concept using a contextual and comparative methodology. The 'likeness' element is not analysed in isolation, but in context with 'less favourable treatment' and regulatory purpose as additional elements of non-discrimination. The book also explores how far theories from non-discrimination rules in GATT, NAFTA, BITs and EC as well as market definition theories from competition law may be applied to 'likeness' in GATS.