Fast track was conceived as a mundane procedural mechanism to enhance the president's credibility in negotiating complex multilateral trade agreements by streamlining the congressional approval process into an up-or-down vote in return for enhanced congressional oversight. It allows the President to negotiate international trade agreements knowing that Congress will provide a timely vote on the agreement without amendments. Given its seminal importance to the trade debate, however, fast track has acquired greater significance and controversy. This incisive text examines whether fast track is an evolutionary advancement in U.S. international economic agreements or an end-run around the constitutional treaty provision; whether it is a reflection of the shared constitutional powers of Congress and the President in the area of foreign affairs or an unconstitutional abdication of Congress’s power to regulate foreign commerce and its ability to set its own procedural rules; whether fast track is needed to put the United States on even footing with other nations that have efficient international agreement approval mechanisms or a unique U.S. ratification short-cut not found elsewhere; whether there is a better way for the United States to approve and implement trade agreements; whether the arguments of the left and right on fast track need a new focus; and whether there is a role for the states to play in U.S. trade policy formation. Fast Track argues that the time has come for the United States to end its perennial debate over the process by which we approve international trade agreements – i.e., whether to resort to fast track or not – and begin a debate on how best to prepare American citizens to compete in a globalized world. There are signs that the United States is not ready and may even be falling behind. Without question, this book can help formalize a requisite national strategy. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

Fast Track tells the story of the negotiating authority behind the rise of U.S. leadership in international trade. This statutory authority embodied a bipartisan consensus that has lapsed. Hal Shapiro and John Gilliland recount this history and describe how to rebuild that consensus.

Fast Track is the story of the rise and fall of U.S. leadership in international trade. Fast Track authority is the process Congress devised to approve trade agreements, giving Congress input into negotiations in exchange for a timely up-or-down vote. Foes derided it as a procedural gimmick, but it helped forge a bipartisan consensus on trade policy. Despite its successes, it was also fragile. The bipartisan consensus has since frayed and Fast Track has lapsed, allowing other countries to fill the void. This book discusses how Fast Track worked and offers a path for rebuilding consensus in favor of its renewal.

Amid the mass protests of the 1960s, another, less heralded political force arose: public interest progressivism. Led by activists like Ralph Nader, organizations of lawyers and experts worked "inside the system." They confronted corporate power and helped win major consumer and environmental protections. By the late 1970s, some public interest groups moved beyond U.S. borders to challenge multinational corporations. This happened at the same time that neoliberalism, a politics of empowerment for big business, gained strength in the U.S. and around the world. No Globalization Without Representation is the story of how consumer and environmental activists became significant players in U.S. and world politics at the twentieth century's close. NGOs like Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen helped forge a progressive coalition that lobbied against the emerging neoliberal world order and in favor of what they called "fair globalization." From boycotting Nestlé in the 1970s to lobbying against NAFTA to the "Battle of Seattle" protests against the World Trade Organization in the 1990s, these groups have made a profound mark. This book tells their stories while showing how public interest groups helped ensure that a version of liberalism willing to challenge corporate power did not vanish from U.S. politics. Public interest groups believed that preserving liberalism at home meant confronting attempts to perpetuate conservative policies through global economic rules. No Globalization Without Representation also illuminates how professionalized organizations became such a critical part of liberal activism—and how that has affected the course of U.S. politics to the present day.

This report presents background and analysis on the development of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which expired on July 1, 2007. The report also includes a summary of the major provisions under the recently expired authority and a discussion of the issues that have arisen in the debate over TPA renewal. It also explores the policy options available to Congress and will be updated as the congressional debate unfolds.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership among eleven key nations of the Pacific Rim has already expanded trade and economic cooperation among the Parties. It also serves to encourage political cooperation among them and has served as a model for future 'wide and deep' free trade agreements. The chapters of this book will provide readers with a detailed understanding of the CPTPP's coverage, including provisions relating to tariff elimination, customs rules of origin, agriculture, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, telecommunications, intellectual property, investment and investor–state arbitration, financial and other services, government procurement, state-owned enterprises, electronic commerce and digital trade, small and medium-sized enterprises, competition law, labor and environmental protection, dispute settlement, and many others. No international lawyer, economist, trade negotiator, or enterprise can afford not to take advantage of the opportunities for business that the CPTPP offers. This book has been written by CPTPP negotiators, experts, and practitioners.

Over the past 10 years, the content and application of international trade law has grown dramatically. The WTO created a binding dispute settlement process and in resolving disputes, the judicial organs of the WTO have built up a substantial amount of new international trade law. Emerging from this new WTO process is an international trade law system that is in some respects self-contained and in other respects overlapping and linked to other international legal, economic and political regimes. The 'boundaries' of trade law are now generating enormous interest and controversy which, at a broader level, is subsumed within the debate over globalisation. The detailed development of the rules of international trade is being examined with increasing frequency by scholars, government officials and trade law practitioners. But how does it fit with existing systems? How it is modified by them? How does the international trade law system affect and modify other regimes? This Handbook places international trade law within its broader context, providing comment and critique on contemporary thinking on a range of questions both related specifically to the discipline of international trade law itself and to the outside face of international trade law and its intersection with States and other aspects of the international system. It examines the economic and institutional context of the world trading system, its substantive law (including regional trade regimes) and the settlement of disputes. The final part of the book explores the wider framework of the world trading system, considering issues including the relationship of the WTO to civil society, the use of economic sanctions, state responsibility, and the regulation of multinational corporations. Oxford Handbooks offer authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences.