• To understand the basic legal principles underlying the World Trade Organization and the EU.
  
• To use the basic principles of EU law & International business law, applying them to different areas of law. Students will thus study the Single European Market (four freedoms – goods, workers, capital, and services (and the right to establishment) – as well as competition law, consumer protection and basics of European corporate law.
  
• In each case, students will be introduced to actual cases to exemplify how the European Court of Justice, the EU's court, and the Appellate Bodies at the WTO, have used their powers to create and interpret the law, and the practical impacts of their decisions. Other relevant areas of international commercial law will also be explored, such as the international protection of intellectual property rights, principles of international contract law, choice of law, and principles of international commercial arbitration.
  
• to give business students a basic understanding of how law, particularly EU law & International law, impinges upon the work of any business organization whether sole trader to multinational.

Introduction to International Economic Law:

General introduction to international law: definition & scope, sources of the law, enforcement mechanisms of international rules.

• Introduction to international economic law & globalization, including the legal regime of the World Trade Organization and that of the European Union.
• Supremacy of the rules v. domestic law
• Direct effect of rules
• Law making mechanisms
• Enforcement of rules

Trade in Goods under the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) - World Trade Organization (WTO ) (1)

• Basic principles of the WTO system:

• Most Favored Nation Treatment (MFN)
• National treatment
• Rules regarding quotas, quantitative restrictions & internal taxation

Trade in Goods under the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) - World Trade Organization (WTO ) (2)

  Exceptions:

• Rules affecting dumping and subsidies
• Exceptions to the main principles: Safeguards agreement
• Further exceptions: Protection of the health and life of consumers, animals, plants and the environment & security exceptions
• G ATT/WTO dispute settlement & Enforcement

The European Single Market (1) : Free movement of goods,

Arts.28-29 – imports/exports

Arts. 23-25 Tariffs, duties and other charges

Art.90 Discriminatory taxes

Discriminatory barriers to trade:

• Quantitative and qualitative restrictions
• promotion of domestic products

The European Single Market (2) : Free Movement of Goods

• Exceptions
• Protection of Public morality
• Protection of Public policy
• Public Security
• Protection of health and life of humans, animals or plants
• Mandatory requirements
• Consumer protection
• Fairness of commercial transactions
• Freedom of assembly and the right of expression
• Protection of the environment

International & European Principles of International Commercial Arbitration

• Sources of the law on international commercial arbitration
• (European Convention, UNCITRAL MODEL Law, New York Convention 1958 )
• The Arbitration Agreement
• Procedure: Choice of arbitrators and institution of proceedings
• Procedure: Applicable laws
• The award and its challenge, grounds for challenge
• Enforcement of arbitral awards
• Grounds for refusal to enforce a foreign award

Amir A. Abdi 2004: Outline of International Commercial Arbitration