Telecommunication Law

Although many academic commentators have long argued that the World Trade Organization (WTO)-driven liberal rules of international agricultural trade regulation have a negative effect on the enjoyment of the human right to food, especially in developing countries, there is still a dearth of scholarship offering proposals to ameliorate the situation. This article fills this gap by presenting a discussion of the possible avenues for accommodating the food security-related human rights obligations of states in the extant legal framework for international agricultural trade regulation. It argues that such a development, among other measures, is a plausible response to the problem of food insecurity endemic in developing countries and which manifests in international agricultural trade regulation. The article contends that for the WTO to effectively address the human right to food concerns of developing countries, the free trade regulations, as practised in international agricultural trade, must be complemented with the human right to food as a supreme norm sine qua non lege. It is concluded that this eminently desirable outcome can be achieved through the assimilation of the human right to food into the ‘public morals clause’ of Article XX of the GATT, reading the human right to food into the Agreement on Agriculture, adopting some WTO Ministerial Conference proposals, re-configuring some WTO dispute settlement practices, and lastly, by adopting the proposal of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to food.

An Analysis of Trade Related International Regulations of Genetically Modified Food and their Effects on Developing Countries

This paper reviews current trade-related regulations of genetically modified (GM) food and discusses their effects on developing countries. There is a large heterogeneity in current import approval and marketing policies of GM food worldwide. At the international level, the harmonization efforts are led by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the World Trade Organization. While internationally harmonized guidelines for safety approval have been finalized, we show that there is no clear consensus on labeling regulations for GM food, and there is an increasing risk of conflicts among international agreements. We analyze the GM food regulations of two large rich importers, Japan and the European Union (EU) and discuss their differences and their potential impact on international trade. We also show that the effects of international and domestic trade related regulations critically depend on the type of traded products and their intended use: food and unprocessed products are subject to more stringent regulations than animal feed and processed products. Finally, we identify the main spillover effects of national and international regulations on developing countries' policy making, and suggest four policy arrangements on GM food to enable developing countries to satisfy production, consumption, international trade, and risk management objectives simultaneously while complying with their international obligations.

Can the WTO play a role in international financial regulation? This paper examines that question focusing specifically on the regulation of international derivatives, reasoning that if that complex and controversial category of instruments can be successfully regulated, international financial regulation generally is theoretically possible. It goes on to describe how such regulation may be achieved through the World Trade Organization (WTO) employing the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) framework, and then demonstrates that the vesting of such regulatory authority in the WTO is in the interests of international finance, international trade and international economic relations generally.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was a landmark in international environmental regulation. This chapter describes the development of understanding of atmospheric science that led to the initial Protocol, agreed in 1987, and the subsequent developments that shaped its revisions. Eleven years later, both industrial statistics and, perhaps more significantly, atmospheric measurements clearly show compliance with the Protocol, and indicate that it is beginning to achieve its enviromental aim. The framework for regulations that now cover: chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform (1,1,1-trichloroethane), methyl bromide, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrobromofluorocarbons (HBFCs) is described. The regulations themselves, which treat developing and developed countries differently, are examined together with limits to the scope for further changes that may be required to mitigate future environmental impact. Finally, the differences between the Montreal Protocol and the recently developed Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases are examined. The latter seeks to control emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

As early as in 1996, the ITU-R Study Groups and the Radiocommunication Bureau [1–3], as well as the Radio Regulations Board in 1997 and the World Radiocommunication Conference 1997 (WRC-97), started considerations of a newly emerging technology: high-altitude-platform stations (HAPS), or stratospheric stations, as they were mainly called in the early studies. This article presents an overview of the developments during the study periods in ITU-R and the phases between WRCs, including the WRC process. In particular, it presents the radio-regulatory aspects as they are reflected in the ITU Radio Regulations and in Conference Resolutions. The various ITU-R Recommendations developed during the last and current study periods dealing with HAPS are also summarized. Since developments on HAPS and associated frequency-sharing studies are still going on, an overview of the current situation in preparation for agenda item 1.20 of WRC-12 (consider the results of ITU-R studies and spectrum identification for gateway links for HAPS in the range 5850–7075 MHz in order to support operations in the fixed and mobile services, in accordance with Resolution 734 (Rev.WRC-07)) is also provided.

International companies commercially rear bumblebees worldwide, the trade of which is regulated through agreements established by the World Trade Organization (WTO). Scientific studies have shown multiple negative effects of introduced commercial bumblebees on native bees in Japan, Australia, Sweden, Israel, Chile, and Argentina, calling into question the compliance of exporting with some of the established WTO international sanitary regulations. We analyzed international WTO sanitary regulations focusing on the international trade of bumblebees from the European Union (EU) and Israel, especially regarding bumblebee exports to Chile and their side effects in neighboring Argentina. We have gathered evidence showing that exporters of bumblebees do not comply with WTO international trade agreements in at least two ways: (1) the quality of commercialized bumblebees differs from the quality declared in their certifications, and (2) the countries that sell the bumblebees violate sanitary agreements, producing negative effects on other native pollinating insects and causing a cascade of adverse impacts affecting both the environment and agriculture. This situation suggests that companies that raise bumblebees are currently in breach of WTO regulations and continue to contribute to major environmental damage in southern South America and elsewhere.

With the World Trade Organization (WTO), a new, most powerful actor has emerged in the field of international trade regulation that has come to govern the bulk of world trade and today constitutes the forum for successful international trade liberalization in both the goods and (for the first time on the multilateral level) the service sector. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which came into force on 1 January 1995 and is incorporated in the WTO regime, is the only global and legally enforceable services agreement and is binding on all 146 WTO Members. It covers in its scope and membership over 90 percent of all international trade in services. Also from its membership structure (all major industrialized nations are WTO Members but at the same time, the majority of Member States – about 100 out of 146 – are less and least developed countries), the organization has the potential to achieve a globally liberalized service market. This is also and especially true in the important field of maritime transport services, where the best chances to achieve an efficient global shipping service market without governmentsponsored distortions of competition, free of restrictions and government protectionism lie in the WTO framework, as has also been acknowledged by the European Commission. How far liberalization has occurred in that sector and the role that maritime transport services assume in the WTO shall be analyzed in detail in the following pages after a general introduction to the WTO/GATS framework.

Since 2016, when the Federal Communication Com-mission (FCC) initiated its first Processing Round for U.S. Market Access, more than twenty distinct entities applied for authority to launch and operate fixed satellite service (FSS) satellite constellations consisting of more than 70,000 satellites [1]. One of the fundamental challenges, from a technical, regulatory and financial perspective, of these systems is a low-cost, consumer broadband, user terminal solution that complies with today's strict regulations. At the national level, the FCC defines require-ments for satellite systems in its 47 CFR Part 25 Rules. The most pertinent of these regulations for user terminals are: power flux density (25.208), earth station gain mask requirements (25.209), offaxis equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) density envelope requirements (25.218), and requirements for Earth stations in motion (ESIMs) (25.228). These regulations were first developed with geostationary (GSO) systems in mind, and have evolved to consider the increase in number of non-geostationary (NGSO) systems and megaconstellations. At the international level, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) sets forth power flux density (PFD) and equivalent power density (EPFD) requirements in Article 22 of the Radio Regulations (RR). This work offers an overview of modern phased array user terminal technology (namely analog, digital and hybrid beamforming techniques), today's manufacturers of phased array technology, as well as the national and international regulations with which these devices must comply.

An environmental protection measure will have an effect on international trade when it affects market access of goods and services. The objectives of this paper are to explore the international trade rules that need to be complied by the government of Malaysia with respect to invoking environmental protection measures and secondly, to look into the government’s compliance with international trade rules when invoking such measures. The international trade rules that need to be complied in this study are the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Malaysia’s environmental protection measures can be found in Malaysia’s domestic laws such as the Plant Quarantine Act 1976, Food Act 1983, Fisheries Act 1985 and national policies. The methodology employed in this study was by analyzing WTO and GATT agreements and decisions by the Dispute Settlement Bodies of the WTO in international dispute cases and also by analyzing Malaysia’s regulations in order to find out how far the government has complied with these international trade rules. The significance of this study is to recognize Malaysia’s efforts in dealing with international trade rules when invoking environmental protection measures.

The failure of the Seattle Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to launch a much hyped Millennium Round of trade negotiations has attracted a good deal of journalistic and scholarly comment. Beyond this, some debate exist as to whether the WTO also ought to deal with pushing the trade agenda forward as well as addressing a range of social and environmental issues. A different reading of the sources of the WTO's current inertia is offered by placing Seattle within the context of the evolution of post-war international trade regulation. Utilizing an analytical framework extracted from comparative and international politics - historical institutionalism - it argues that the roots of the WTO's intertia lie not with The Seattle Ministerial Meeting, nor even with the post-Uruguay era, but with the creation of institutionalized trade regulation in the post-war period.

While global investment needs are enormous in order to bolster the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, developing countries are often excluded from global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. Beyond economic fundamentals like market size, infra¬structure and labour, the impediments to FDI in developing countries relate to the predictability, transparency and ease of the regulatory environment. In contrast, tax incentives and international investment agreements (IIAs) have been found to be less important (World Bank, 2018). To harness the advantages of FDI, it is critical that governments have policies and regulations in place that help to attract and retain FDI and enhance its contribution to sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, thus, call for appropriate international frameworks to support investments in developing countries. In this context, the Joint Ministerial Statement on Investment Facilitation for Development adopted at the 11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2017 called for the start of “structured discussions with the aim of developing a multilateral framework on investment facilitation”. Investment facilitation refers to a set of practical measures concerned with improving the transparency and predict¬ability of investment frameworks, streamlining procedures related to foreign investors, and enhancing coordination and cooperation between stakeholders, such as host and home country government, foreign investors and domestic corporations, as well as societal actors. Despite the deadlock in the WTO’s 17-year-old Doha Round negotiations, the structured discussions on investment facilitation, which have been under way since March 2018, show that the members of the WTO take a strong interest in using the WTO as a platform to negotiate new international rules at the interface of trade and investment. In contrast to previous attempts by developed countries to establish multilateral rules for investment, the structured discussions are mainly driven by emerging and developing countries. Most of them have evolved over the past years into FDI host and home countries reflecting the changing geography of economic power in the world. Their increased role has led to a shift of policy agendas, focusing on practical measures to promote FDI in developing countries while excluding contentious issues such as investment liberali¬sation and protection, and investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS). This policy brief provides an overview of the emerging policy debate about investment facilitation. We highlight that four key challenges need to be tackled in order to negotiate an investment facilitation framework (IFF) in the WTO that supports sustainable development: There is a need to properly conceptualise the scope of investment facilitation as a basis for empirical analyses of the potential impact of a multilateral IFF. Many less- and least-developed countries do not yet participate in the structured discussions. It is necessary to enhance their capacity to participate in the structured discussions and address their specific concerns. In order to enhance the contribution of FDI to sustainable development it is necessary to support the development of governance mechanisms at the domestic level. It is key to ensure transparency towards countries not yet participating in the discussions, the business sector and societal actors to support a successful policy process.

This chapter examines international environmental regulation from economic, political, and legal perspectives. Section 1 introduces the economics and politics of international environmental regulation. International agreements on environmental issues are often seen as symmetric contracts among states, solving cooperation problems among states with similar interests, or facilitating side-payments from states that favor environmental regulation to states that would not otherwise support regulation. In contrast, some realist political scientists suggest that when international environmental interests vary across states, international environmental agreements often result from coercion of weaker states by more powerful ones. With this framework in mind, the bulk of this chapter examines the negotiation and substance of the world's most important international environmental agreements. Section 2 examines the main agreements related to international environmental protection of the oceans, including those concluded to protect fisheries and those intended to reduce land-based marine pollution. Section 3 examines the main agreements relating to global air pollution and climate change - the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) and the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Kyoto Protocol). Section 4 explores the main trade and the environment issues and agreements, including the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes (Basel Convention) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as well as environmental issues in the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and European Union (EU). Section 5 concludes that most effective international environmental agreements have resulted not from symmetrical contracting alone but from negotiations that involve coercion by powerful, greener countries of weaker countries that are generally less interested in international environmental protection. In this sense, international environmental regulation is at least as much political as it is economic.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) was formed as a much-needed organization that will deal with trade issues and form binding rules for international trade. But today, in many discussions, the question is raised, is the WTO still relevant? The rules-based multilateral trading system has been around for so long that countries, companies, and consumers largely take it for granted. These rules are essential for ensuring trust in a stable and predictable trading environment. The aim of the research is to determine the extent to which the existing system of global trade regulation has collapsed and to what extent it is possible to recover, modernize and make it functional for the needs of WTO member countries. We will pay attention to the various interests of powerful and rich countries, emerging economies, large and small countries, as well as poor and underdeveloped countries. In the analysis, we take into account the pros and cons of maintaining the current WTO system, as well as the proposals for reform and sustainable development of this international organization. We will give a critical review of international trade regulation through the WTO system, which is currently changing and trying to justify its status and results. The current state of the WTO is a matter of general interest and it is important that all member countries engage in recovery, regardless of the issues and how different their views are. This paper should contribute to the ongoing discourse and provide materials for the future discussions on the topic of WTO survival and reform.

This article explores the intersections between the global tax reform launched by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Group of 20 (G20) to tackle base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) on the one hand, and international rules on trade in services, mostly—the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) under the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the other hand. The GATS entered into force in 1995 to expand trade in services. It covers all measures affecting trade in services, including direct taxation. While the GATS leaves policy space for WTO Members to adopt measures to ensure the effective imposition of direct taxes and to conclude agreements among themselves to avoid double taxation, its negotiators could hardly have envisaged the depth and breadth of the current BEPS reform package, as shown by a recent WTO dispute. This paper provides a systematic analysis of concurrent application of the GATS and the BEPS Package and recommends that WTO Members take actions to avoid potential conflict in applying both sets of rules.