International and Foreign Legal Research:

A Coursebook

Marci Hoffman & Mary Rumsey

Chapter 9: Exercise

Part 4—International Trade Law

  1. Under what specific international agreement are WTO members required to notify the WTO of subsidies on goods?
  1. Your client, a company that does business in Brazil, is concerned that Brazil offers subsidies to certain Brazilian companies in the same line of business. Find a New and Full Notification from Brazil to the Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, dated October 2007. Give its WTO document symbol. (You will probably want to use the WTO Documents Online Advanced Search, http://docsonline.wto.org/gen_search.asp?searchmode=advanced.)
  1. Using Merritt R. Blakeslee, The Language of Trade (3d ed. 2000), http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/trade/glossac.htm, locate the definition of countervailing duties (CVD). Give the URL for the webpage containing this definition:
  1. What is the amount of the tariff, if any, that the US imposes on ornamental fish?
  1. What Library of Congress subject heading(s) would you use to retrieve books on laws relating to trade subsidies and China?
  1. Using the UNCTAD collection of bilateral investment treaties (BITs), http://www.unctadxi.org/templates/DocSearch____779.aspx, find a BIT between Cuba and China. Give the year in which this treaty was signed:
  1. Using Westlaw’s database of WTO dispute settlement documents (WTO-DEC), find the Report of the Panel in United States - Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services. Give the date of this Panel Report:
  1. Using the WTO Analytical Index, find the Panel decision used to demonstrate the interpretation and application of Article 3 of the TRIPs Agreement, specifically the interpretation of the language “treatment no less favourable than that it accords to its own nationals with regard to the protection of intellectual property.” [The Panel decision will have a name like “EC—Bananas”—a country and a product.]
  1. Using any source, including the NAFTA Secretariat site, http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/DefaultSite/index.html, find out when the Panel decided the matter of the U.S. Safeguard Action Taken on Broomcorn Brooms from Mexico. Give the exact date of the final panel report:
  1. What dictionary is cited in a footnote in WT/DS285/RW, 30 March 2007?