Melbourne Law School - Research Publications
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ItemRemarks by Tania Voon(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2018)
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ItemEnding international investment agreements: Russia's withdrawal from participation in the energy charter treaty(Cambridge University Press, 2017-01-01)When states withdraw from bilateral investment treaties or denounce multilateral treaties related to foreign investment, a range of intersecting questions arise in domestic and international law. Recent developments have demonstrated potential incongruities between domestic and international approaches to investment protection, including as regards the effectiveness of withdrawal and the implications for existing investments. This essay reflects on international and domestic disputes involving the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from participation in the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) to highlight these interactions. These issues have become particularly pertinent today because more than 1,500 international investment agreements (IIAs) are nearing expiry of their initial term, providing an opportunity for termination. Moreover, some states have begun to terminate or denounce investment treaties, while many more are engaging in a process of renegotiation and reform. The Russian case study also highlights the potentially far-reaching effects of a state simply signing a treaty, even many years after the state has expressed its decision to withdraw from it, and notwithstanding tensions with the domestic legal framework.
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Item[Review of the book} Emily Sipiorski. Good Faith in International Investment Arbitration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019(Oxford University Press, 2019-11-01)
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ItemSustainable Healthy Food Choices: Dietary Guidelines and International Economic Law(Queensland University of Technology, Faculty of Law, 2018)Building on the companion piece by Christine Parker and Hope Johnson on international instruments supporting holistic dietary guidelines, this article examines potential concerns raised by such guidelines under international trade law and international investment law. Drawing lessons from the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (‘WHO FCTC’) and its relevance to recent disputes in international economic law, this article examines the role of international instruments in supporting domestic dietary guidelines that could be challenged in the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) or under investor-state dispute settlement. The article includes an assessment of the potential impact of international economic laws on holistic dietary guidelines and related regulatory interventions, as well as a discussion of how a WHO treaty on healthy and sustainable diets could influence the interpretation and application of key trade and investment provisions. The article concludes that holistic dietary guidelines can be implemented in a manner consistent with international economic law, at least if local products are not prioritised.
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ItemThe Trans-Pacific Partnership(De Gruyter, 2016)This article provides an overview of the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a treaty the parties have described as comprehensive and ambitious, yet also representing a balance of competing interests. The article focuses on the TPP’s chapters relating to investment, services, intellectual property and regulatory coherence, each of which provides insight into the motivations that drove the conclusion of the TPP and the negotiating dynamics that determined its final content. In areas such as investment, the TPP takes a more balanced approach than many earlier agreements, providing greater safeguards for the regulatory autonomy of states while still embodying core protections for foreign investors. In relation to intellectual property and services, the TPP goes beyond earlier agreements in several key respects, such as preventing the imposition of local presence requirements for service providers or requiring longer copyright terms than those demanded by other international treaties. The TPP chapter on regulatory coherence is one of the most novel features of the treaty, as regulatory coherence is not frequently included in earlier trade agreements, demonstrating the increased focus of states on addressing regulatory barriers to trade and investment. While all of these elements of the TPP are interesting in their own right, given the number and size of the parties involved in the agreement, they also provide valuable guidance about the direction of other ongoing and future preferential trade agreement negotiations, such as the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).
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ItemELIMINATING TRADE REMEDIES FROM THE WTO: LESSONS FROM REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2010-07)Abstract As the global financial crisis threatens to manifest in enhanced protectionism, the economic irrationality of dumping, countervailing, and global safeguard measures (so-called ‘trade remedies’) should be of increased concern to the Members of the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’). Long tolerated under the WTO agreements and perhaps a necessary evil to facilitate multilateral trade liberalization, elimination of trade remedies is far from the agenda of WTO negotiators. However, a small number of regional trade agreements offer a model for reducing the use of trade remedies among WTO Members in the longer term, consistent with WTO rules and broader public international law.
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ItemOPEN FOR BUSINESS? CHINA'S TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE MARKET AND THE WTO(OXFORD UNIV PRESS, 2010-06)