Legal and Juridic

Borst, A. D. (1994). Fair trade prescription. Farmer Cooperatives, 61(5), 12.

Outlines anti-dumping (AD) or countervailing duty (CVD) laws for agricultural cooperatives. Aspects of judicial standing issues involving cooperatives; Lobbying Congress members to exclude the degree of legal vertical integration between growers and processors; Material injury investigation by the International Trade Commission; Enforcement of policies by the US Customs Service; Appealing AD and CVD cases.

Charnovitz, S. (1994). Free trade, fair trade, green trade: Defogging the debate. Cornell International Law Journal, 27(3), 459-525.

The article discusses various issues pertaining to the interaction between international trade and the environment. The author first analyzes several topics that have been the source of much confusion on the issue. Then, the trade and environmental policies of the European Union (EU) and the U.S. are discussed. The author refers to several studies in this regard including one by researcher Tim W. Ferguson on trade rules. According to Ferguson, the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) or other international agreements or treaties, can result in legal or diplomatic pressure on a government to weaken its product or process regulations. (Charnovitz, 1994)

Fair-trade laws.(2009). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1-1.

Fair-trade laws, in the United States, a former group of statutes that permitted manufacturers to specify the minimum retail price of a commodity. The first fair-trade law was adopted (1931) by California. Intended to protect independent retailers from the price-cutting competition of large chain stores, such statutes were originally nullified by the courts, which found most fair-trade rules in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. As a result, Congress passed (1937) the Miller-Tydings Act in order to exempt fair trade from antitrust legislation. In the late 1950s, however, many manufacturers began to abandon the practice of setting minimum retail prices, largely because of the difficulties involved in enforcing such agreements. With the post–World War II rise of bargain outlets for a wide range of consumer products, fair-trade laws became increasingly unpopular and were repealed in many jurisdictions. In 1975, federal legislation eliminated the remaining fair-trade laws. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Francis, D. R. (2001). The case for fair trade over free trade. Christian Science Monitor, 93(110), 11.

Suggests that the North American Free Trade agreement be studied by the United States Congress, in light of the proposal for a free trade bloc for the Western Hemisphere.

Long, D.  (2008) "Fair Trade and the Pirate Economy" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the The Law and Society Association, Hilton Bonaventure, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Increasingly the development of a local black market economy is not seen merely as the unfortunate result of a lack of sufficient local enforcement of intellectual property (and other) laws, Instead, it is increasingly viewed as a positive choice for developing countries to assist in creating viable local markets and providing “fairer” trade in such diverse items as software, records, films and medicines. Yet this “fair” trade may come at an unforeseen price in today’s global economy, including the costs of corruption and the human rights violations that form the basis of certain pirate practices in Europe and Asia. This paper suggests that to assure truly “fairer” trade, pirate economies must be moderated through appropriate domestic practices or the “benefit” from such economies may ultimately prove evanescent. (abstract from the author)

Mayeda, G. (2007). Playing fair: The meaning of fair and equitable treatment in bilateral investment treaties. Journal of World Trade, 41(2), 273.

Legal scholars and economists alike tend to approach the discussion of foreign investment in developing countries from the point of view of property rights. In this article, rather than focus on property and contract law, the author takes a slightly different approach. He argues that beyond property rights and protection against expropriation, norms of fairness in international law affect whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has a positive or negative impact on developing countries. For instance, many bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have clauses that require States to use fair and equitable treatment in their dealings with foreign investors. BITs have the potential to severely limit the flexibility of developing countries to implement social policies that further their development goals. However, BITs also have implications for the fair treatment of developing countries that go beyond the protection of foreigners against arbitrary or malicious State action. As some research has shown, BITs have little effect on the amount of FDI that developing countries attract.(Mayeda)