This study examines the possible incompatibility between environmental conventions and agreements promoting international trade. More specifically, it aims at discussing the Precautionary Principle and the WTO agreements on trade and how they might contradict each other on the international arena. The study focuses on the international trade with genetically modified organisms and discusses probable needs of reformulating the principles and/or conventions concerned if these are to function as tools of equal importance when handling environmental problems through policy making. The controversy is illustrated through a case-study of a trade dispute where the conflicting principles: the Precautionary Principle and WTO agreements on trade are involved, namely a dispute where a formal complaint to the WTO by the US, Canada and Argentina about the European Community supposedly applying a de facto moratorium on genetically modified organisms had the final outcome of the European Community being found to contravene international trade rules. The study concludes that actors on the international arena are still opinions apart concerning the way to perceive possible risks connected to biotechnology and genetically modified organisms. This incongruence is also found to apply to the status of the Precautionary Principle as a rule of international law as well as to which of the conventions that were applicable to the concerned dispute.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

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China entered the WTO, which has the meaning stands for globalization and contact with world economic, also means that China¡¦s market is open to foreign country. After China joined WTO, media industry used to be constrained by China central government also need to face the unrestricted trend gradually. What will be the effect when media industry interacted with the unrestricted trend, foreign investment and market competition? And what is the attitude that China will have when foreign and international companies enter media industry (liberalism and western culture entering China), which also deserves our attention. Therefore, my research engage in the theory, international rules and the practice of China to study the media industry market opening after China joined WTO. The research will divide into two directions based on economic of globalization. First, the related rules of media industry in the international economic and trade organization (WTO) came with economic globalization and the real practice after China joined WTO. Second , I will talk about the rising of transnation media group. And how American transnation media group giant disposition in China ? Above is my major research directions. The research would talk about the GATS of WTO regarding the opening rules of media market , the negotiation between China and America base on the WTO frame and the contents that China promises to open the market ,the how China would modify their domestic laws to response the changes after WTO and how China think about their media industry strategy and media core value to further talk about the changes of China internal media market. Furthermore, I would mention the investment and disposition of American transnation media group based on their business profit to further understand the current situation about those American company entered China, and I also take two famous international group as an example, they are, VIACOM and TIME WARNER , base on these two company¡¦s real operation to check the China¡¦s practice and control about transnation media groups to fully investigate how much China unrestricted media industry after attending WTO.

This thesis aims to analyze the social reactions against neoliberalism by using the Polanyian concept of double movement. The goal is to first to understand the nature of alternative globalization movement and provide a better framework of analysis for theorizing these social reactions. The criticisms of the alternative globalization movement against the World Trade Organization will be analyzed in order to provide a specific case example for the concerns and goals of the movement regarding the global political economy. It has been found out that the alternative globalization movement, which signalled a growing concern over the implications of the efforts to form a global free market on the state-society-market relations since the 1980s, forms the second counter-movement that resists the expansion of contemporary self-regulating market.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to clarify the affect that preferential and regional trade agreements have on the World Trade Organization (WTO), as being establisher of the international trading regime. The essay is an explanatory literature study, which strives to answer the following questions:</p><p>Are regional and preferential trade agreements a threat or a complement to the WTO?</p><p>Is an undermining of the MFN principle weakening the WTO?</p><p>How do regional trade agreements made by the EU affect the future of the WTO?</p><p>The empirical material is to be analyzed using an explanatory framework, which is based on neo-liberal instutionalism, theories on regime changes and a game theoretical approach, using prisoner’s dilemma. I will employ the EU-ACP relation, the Cotonou agreement to exemplify how an agreement of this kind can have an influence on multilateral trade. The result shows that preferential agreements do have an impact on the WTO, one that is fairly negative in scope. Preferential trade agreements do pose a threat to the WTO, in its current structure and may be harmful to the international trading regime. It is partly because the MFN is widely discouraged that PTAs are stumbling stones to the organization. By signing agreement that do not comply with WTO regulations and considering its role in international trade, EU does affect the future of the WTO.</p>

Univ., Diss.--Tübingen, 2006. / Literaturverz. S. [278] - 301.