http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org FTAs and IT businesses Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:11:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en There has been coverage of Congressional Democrats warming up to free trade agreements, mainly because of increased labour and environmental standards: But responding to one of the biggest objections Democrats raised to DR-CAFTA, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab negotiated a deal with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/09/07/us-dems-warming-up-to-more-ftas/ Latin Business Chronicle has an article on US Presidential candidates and their views on free trade with Latin America. John Edwards, Democratic candidate, is the only one with a consistent critical stance of free trade agreements. Clinton and Obama both have mixed records, but both voted against DR-CAFTA in ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/08/25/us-presidential-race-and-free-trade/ (Via Legal Theory Blog.) Sokol on Non-Enforceable Competition Chapters in Free Trade Agreements D. Daniel Sokol (University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law; University of Wisconsin Law School) has posted Why is this Chapter Different from All the Others? An Examination of Why Countries Enter into Non-Enforceable Competition Policy Chapters in Free Trade ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/08/09/sokol-on-non-enforceable-competition-chapters-in-free-trade-agreements/ Here is a collection of links about the ongoing situation with DR-CAFTA and Costa Rica. Costa Rica is the only country not to yet ratify the Dominican Republic - Central America Free Trade Agreement. Many Costa Ricans Still Favour CAFTA - Poll data saying that most Costa Rican would vote ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/08/07/updates-on-dr-cafta-and-costa-rica/ Via the IP Kat, there is a new article out on FTAs and IT/e-commerce issues -- Bashar H. Malkawi, "E-Commerce in Light of International Trade Agreements: The WTO and the United States-Jordan Free Trade Agreement" International Journal of Law and Information Technology 2007 15(2):153-169. From the abstract: E-commerce offers economy-wide benefits. ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/07/17/new-article-out/ The Appendix to the report, The impact of Free Trade Agreements on Information Technology based business, is now out, as well as an updated version of the report (very minor corrections to the earlier version). The Appendix acts as a resource guide for materials related to the project, ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/07/16/appendix-now-out/ Those following free trade agreements and TRIPS-plus agreements will be familiar with the tortuous approval process of DR-CAFTA. While all other signatory states have already approved the agreement, Costa Rica is still in the process of passing it into law due to heavy political opposition. The opposition has been ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/07/06/43/ The Dominican Today reports that during his recent trip to Brazil, President Leonel Fernández expressed the DR’s interest in forming a trade alliance between the DR and Brazil, taking advantage of the DR-CAFTA1.  It is reported that the DR is keen to attract investment in order to develop its ethanol ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/06/29/dr-cafta-entices-investment-in-the-dr%e2%80%99s-biofuel-industry/ It is reported in the Associated Press that Google has asked the US Trade Representative’s Office to consider state censorship of the Internet as a form of non-tariff restriction on global trade when negotiating free trade agreements1.  The suggestion appears to have been based on a paper in which Timothy ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/06/27/state-censorship-as-a-non-tariff-restriction-on-trade/ This is a first impression of the E-commerce chapters of KORUS and DR-CAFTA. KORUS has more in-depth treatment on e-commerce than was in the DR-CAFTA agrement, including specific sections on Electronic Signatures, Online Consumer Protection, a set of principles on internet use and access, and cross border information flows. A ... http://freetrade.opencontentlaw.org/2007/06/14/korus-drcafta-ecommerce-compared/