This article analyses the relationship between national climate change policy instruments and WTO rules with particular emphasis on the case of Germany. Our main finding is that national policies whose aim is to reduce greenhouse gases can be brought into compliance with international trade law. Compliance can be achieved, first, through various methods of labelling electricity from renewable resources. Second, it can be achieved through trading systems for green certificates that respect basic WTO principles. Third, it can be achieved through energy taxes. To offset the competitive impacts of such taxes, border tax adjustments are a possibility. Although WTO law has not yet clearly defined the eligibility of border tax adjustments for energy taxes, the balance of evidence suggests that it would support such adjustments under certain circumstances. Fourth, compliance with WTO rules can be achieved through financial incentives to the producers of energy from renewable sources which are conferred in such a way that they do not pass through the hands of the government. Hence, climate change policies can even rely on ‘subsidies’ (in the economic sense) without getting into conflict with WTO rules. Fifth, when compliance cannot be achieved, national policies aiming at international environmental protection can claim an exception under GATT Article XX (b) or (g) if measures are not applied in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner. In addition, countries should further strive to find solutions to the global climate change problem in the Kyoto process.

According to traditional constitutional theory, foreign affairs is the prerogative of the executive. However, globalisation and the dual process of internationalisation of domestic affairs and domestification of international affairs imply that the days when foreign policy was the exclusive domain of the executive are over. The article explores the effects of globalisation on the role of Parliament in international relations in general, and WTO negotiations specifically, using the Norwegian Parliament as an illustration. Three findings are presented. First, at the international level attempts are made to develop a ‘parliamentary dimension of the WTO’. Second, at the national level the Norwegian Parliament has become more actively engaged in international relations. And, third, the Norwegian Parliament plays an important role in the processes of defining national interests and determining national negotiation positions in the WTO, especially with regard to possible trade-offs between the offensive interests of fisheries and the defensive interests of agriculture.

Using econometric methods, this analysis develops quantity impacts of impediments to trade in voice telephone services, focusing on the perspective of negotiated agreements. These impacts, estimated on the basis of market, demographic, and policy variables, establish a baseline from which the achievements of future trade rounds, including the Doha Round, could be compared. In a departure from previous literature in this area, this article draws on documents appended or pertaining to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to identify barriers to trade in voice telephone services, and to estimate quantity impacts on this basis. The article finds that market access and national treatment commitments scheduled by WTO members under the GATS, when complemented by commitments to pro-competitive regulatory disciplines, may be formulated into meaningful policy variables. These policy variables are found to be statistically significant in explaining market penetration in voice telephone services, as are variables for income and private sector ownership.

CHARNOVITZ: The Appellate Body's decision in the Tariff Preferences case demonstrates the value of a second-level review of panel decisions. Notwithstanding the composition of the panel – which was as highly qualified, balanced, and diverse as any panel could possibly be – the panel issued a decision that met widespread disapproval. In what is probably a record for third-party support of the plaintiff, eight countries asked the Appellate Body to reverse key points. Happily, the Appellate Body did reverse many of the troubling holdings in the panel report. Unhappily for the world community, the Appellate Body did not have an opportunity to review the panel's interpretation of GATT Article XX, which (like many previous panels) has chiseled away at vital exceptions.

This paper summarizes and critically reviews the dispute brought before the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning Canada – Measures Affecting the Importation of Dairy Products and the Exportation of Milk, euphemistically referred to herein as Canada – Dairy. This dispute is centered on the WTO Agricultural Agreement, though it also involves the WTO Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement and GATT – 1994.

For many developing countries trading in intellectual property has been a spectator sport. Active play in the high stakes game of ‘trading in knowledge’ has been for a few wealthy countries whose institutions and citizens own intellectual property (IP). These IP-owner countries have the equipment needed to play – the funding systems, patent lawyers, marketing support services, and thriving government subsidized research labs and universities – enabling them to turn their research and development into IP, intangible but highly valuable financial assets. In the game of ‘trading in knowledge’, capturing strategic IP portfolios is the goal, and lucrative licensing contracts are the touchdown.