International Trade Law

Objective: To give learners a sound understanding of key legal issues and principles relating to international trade and a thorough knowledge and understanding of the importance of domestic and international policy issues to the world trading system.
Pre-requisite; XEA 309: International Economics; Economic Integration and Regional Trading System and GATT/WTO Agreements and Multilateral Trading System
Content: Concepts of the international sale of goods. Contracts of sale under the Vienna Sales Convention. Contracts for carriage of goods by air, sea and land; Bills of exchange and letters of credit in international trade; Financing international commerce and legal issues in foreign investment. Legal framework of the WTO/GATT; Regulatory legal principles of the WTO and how they operate at both the national and international level; tariffs and tariff negotiations, quotas, most favoured nation clauses, regional trading blocs, national treatment clauses and exceptions for environmental, health and safety and other policies, anti-dumping, export subsidies, countervailing duties and other topics of contemporary importance currently being debated; WTO/GATT and other relevant international organisations and treaties; Legal issues of intellectual property rights and electronic commerce in an international context. Settlement of international commercial disputes: litigation and conflict of laws; international arbitration; negotiation; mediation.