Joseph Weiler - Böcker

The starting point of this book is the coexistence of the overlapping regimes of the WTO, the EU and the NAFTA. On this basis it explores the emergence of a nascent Common Law of International Trade. This exploration is rooted in three phenomena: Firstly, the fact that the very same regulatory measure may come simultaneously within the jurisdictional reach of more than one trade regime and may even be adjudicated simultaneously. Some regimes offer alternatives. The NAFTA, for example, offers GATT dispute resolution as an option for many of its own disputes. Secondly, convergence in the material law of the disparate international trade regimes. This, of course, is the heart of the emergent Common Law. Thirdly, the strengthening of private parties in all regimes. Once a preserve of the EU, the NAFTA allows private party dispute resolution of different types in relation to various matters and in the case of the WTO, although it is still an intergovernmental preserve, private actors are learning to manipulate the system. This volume, built on a recent series of courses at the Academy of European Law, is a reflection of this conviction. The various contributions deal with discrete areas in the double sense of the international trading system but each placing considerable emphasis on the interlocking nature of the various components of that system. It is our conviction that this is the appropriate way to understand and to teach this branch of the law.

This Critical Concepts series (a Routledge Major Work) is an anthology of influential works on international law. The collection covers the principal facets of both classical and contemporary international law. In making their selection, J.H.H. Weiler and Alan T. Nissel consulted with a wide range of experts and chose those pieces that in their view both shaped the field and have illuminated its contours. These articles have, or are expected to have, considerable "staying power."By juxtaposing classical with more contemporary articles, this anthology illustrates the motion of international law—the evolution of doctrine, practice and historiography of the field. The series begins with a consideration of the fundamental systemic (Volume I) and conceptual (Volumes II and III ) features of International Law. It then maps out substantive aspects (Volumes IV and V). The collection concludes (Volume VI) with what the authors call "multi-inter-disciplinary" approaches to the field.

The essays comprising this volume are the outcome of a major and unique project which looks in detail at the application of EC law by national courts and the interaction of the demands of EC law with the constraints imposed by national legal orders and,especially, national constitutional orders. The volume comprises seven country studies which are shaped around a common research protocol. These are supplemented by three cross-cutting studies which draw on the country studies as well as on broader contextual research work aimed at trying to understand the role of the European Court of Justice in the round. The results of this multi-national research are certain to provoke widespread interest among scholars of European law, international law and European politics, for they offer the first systematic and rigorous attempt to assess the impact of the ECJ among the leading member states of the European Union.