The EU, the WTO and the NAFTA. Towards a common law of international trade?

Book abstract:

This is one of the four volumes published each year drawn from the lectures given each summer at the European University Institute in Florence in the fields of European Union law and human rights law. This particular volume addresses the overlapping regulatory trade regimes of the WTO, the EU and the NAFTA. How do these different regional and international systems operate side by side? What are the legal and political consequences of their co-existence?

The various contributions in this book seek to illuminate the phenomenon of multiple trading regimes and analyse their promises and dangers. The essays deal with discrete areas of the international trading system each placing considerable emphasis on the interlocking nature of the various components of that system. The co-existence of regimes, often governing simultaneously complex transnational transactions, is the focus of the volume.

The chapters are: Cain and Abel - convergence and divergence in international trade law; EC external commercial policy after Amsterdam: authority and interpretation within interconnected legal orders; Adjudicative legitimacy and Treaty interpretation in international trade law: the early years of WTO jurisprudence; The European Court of Justice and the WTO: problems and challenges; On kith and kine (and crustaceans): trade and environment in the EU and WTO; The North American integration regime and its implications for the World trading system; Epilogue: towards a common law of international trade.

This book would be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in international trade law, European integration or international relations generally.

The editor, J.H.H. Weiler is Manley Hudson Professor of Law and Jean Monnet Chair at Harvard University.