The principle of national treatment, or the non-discrimination clause, is a principle that applies across many fields of international economic law. This book offers a horizontal examination of the principle as it applies within international trade law, international investment law, and...

Intellectual Property Rights as Obstacles to Legitimate Trade?' helps to understand one of the underlying rationales of the TRIPS Agreement in light of some of the most pertinent IP issues. The WTO/TRIPS Agreement for the first time put IP rights in the context of trade rules, such as when does...

This book comprises contributions on recent developments in China from a law and economics perspective. For the first time Chinese and European scholars jointly discuss some important attributes of China’s legal and economic system, and some recent problems, from this particular viewpoint.

The WTO and WIPO have in the first 10 years of this century seemed like less favorable venues for increasing IP standards and enforcement. This resulted in a shift of focus by a number of industrialized countries, which still wanted to achieve higher standards but in bilateral and regional free...

The ACTA was motivated by a desire to establish equivalent provisions in international trade agreements containing rules on anti-counterfeiting. This is important at a time when free trade agreements are being negotiated by different parties. For the European Union it is also of importance to...