This site is designed to provide updates and interesting links for courses in International Business Law. The page is organized to follow Professor Hotchkiss' text, International Law for Business, (McGraw-Hill 1994).
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The decision to go global involves considering a wide range of issues, ranging from market research to logistics. The internet is full of resources to help in analyzing the impact of that decision, and to make the global strategy successful. A good place to start looking for the rich variety of available resources is International Business Law, News and Investment Resources.
For a good illustration of the global nature of the automobile industry, see the AIADA Page.
If you are interested in the history of trade, there are some very good historical maps of trading routes at the time of Columbus, at a site from a Library of Congress exhibition: 1492:An Ongoing Voyage.
Many national governments have web sites that do an excellent job of explaining government policies toward international business. Two of note are the U.S. State Department and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Most international organizations also have web sites. The United Nations has an extensive web site, as does the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank .
Some Non Government Organizations (NGOs) also have very good web sites. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross has a very informative site.
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to major western legal traditions; specifically the common law and the civil law. For all of the countries used as examples in this chapter, a good starting point for laws and commentary available on the internet is the U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library.
There are a multitude of good Canadian web sites, available in French and English using any search engine. A good place to start looking for Canadian information is the Official Canadian Government Home Page, which has links to many places with legal and political information. The Supreme Court of Canada also has its own page, as does the Department of Justice.
Canada also has some excellent sites concerning its history, politics and culture. You may want to visit the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation home page, especially the link to Radio Canada International for audio clips and real time audio of its broadcasts.
Finally, take the virtual tour of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. If you always thought of Canada as only a colder version of the States, this should help change your mind.
Since the time the book went to press, the former East Germany and West Germany have fully united. For good current information on Germany, the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. has an excellent web site. A substantial amount of German Law is also available on the web, in German. For good current news, seeDeutsche Welle On Line.
There's not too much socialist law left in western countries. For current news of Central and Eastern Europe, a good site is Central Europe Online. The Baltic countries have a similar, though more business-oriented service, Baltics Online.
There are two (and probably more) very comprehensive services for legal and political information in the region. The first is a compilation of Central and East European Legal, Political, Business, and Economics WWW Resources from Gonzaga Law School. The second is BISNIS, the Business Information Service for the Newly Independent States, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
For an excellent introduction to Saudi Arabia and to Islam, you should go to the Islamic Affairs Department at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. Another comprehensive web site that of the U.S.-Saudi Business Association. For some much more critical commentary, see the site of the Committee against Corruption in Saudi Arabia. For a wider look at Islamic countries, a good entry point is Arabnet, which will take you to many very interesting sites.
Islamic Law resources are not always easy to find, and change fairly rapidly. One particularly good collection of Internet resources is the Catalog of Islamic Law on the Net, from the University of Leipzig.
A very interesting academic article on Islamic law is John Strawson's Encountering Islamic Law. One of the areas of Islamic law under worldwide discussion is the relationship of Islamic law to human rights, especially the rights of women and of freedom of religion. See Heiner Bielefeldt, Muslim Voices in the Human Rights Debate for a good survey of the many different Islamic viewpoints in the debate.
The U.S. House of Representatives' Internet Law Library has a very extensive Japan Page and the there is a very interesting page from the National Diet of Japan. You will also find much business information of interest at the Nikkei Net's Business Browser. There's plenty of serious material here, but also information on judo, sumo, sea cucumbers and videos for pets.
More specific to this chapter is the Guide to Japanese Law, which contains an excellent section on contract law in Japan.
You'll find an interesting introduction to China, by its government, at the Chinese Consulate in New York. A good source of current news about China is Inside China Today. For a comprehensive look at Chinese news and culture, see the China News Digest. A very good business site is ASM's Chinese Business World.
The best overall introduction to the EU and its current issues is the EU's own Europa page. You can access the page in all the EU's official languages. If you are an EU citizen, you'll find the Citizens First page to be very interesting. The Austrians have just taken on the Presidency and have an excellent web site concerning the current issues in the EU.
For a more formal collection of EU legal materials, see the University of Mannheim's European Documentation Centre. The University of California at Berkeley has an very good reference collection on European Union Internet Resources. It will lead you to many other interesting places. In 1998, the EU began its own collection of legal materials, Eur-lex. The collection isn't complete at this time, but is growing, and promises to be very current.
For Chapters 6-11, an excellent reference site is the Trade Law Home Page. The site has many references to original source materials, treaties, INCOTERMS, and electronic journal articles.
There are some excellent reference sites available on doing international deals. One such site is the U.S. Business Advisor. It will send you to a variety of excellent sources. Finally, don't miss Deloitte & Touche's on-line monograph Expanding Your Business Globally.
On the issue of cultural differences and their effect on contract negotiations, the Web of Culture contains some very interesting information, espcially about customs and language issues. JETRO, the Japanese External Trade Organization, has some particularly interesting material on cultural differences in dealing with Japanese business people.
In addition to the resources listed above for Chapter 6, There are some good sites on the web covering arbitration, mediation and conciliation of commercial disputes. The American Arbitration Association site has many good links to laws, rules and articles about resolving commercial disputes. Singapore has recently established a center for resolving commercial disputes. The Singapore International Arbitration Centre site has some interesting information in it, especially about the practice of conciliation. The best-known forum for arbitrating international disputes, the International Chamber of Commerce, has good brochureware at its site on the web.
There have been a couple of developments since the textbook went to print. First, the ICC put out new rules for letters of credit. UCP 500 (the old version was UCP 400) can be found at the Trade Law Home Page . You can also find a variety of interesting articles there about Letters of Credit and other methods of Financing. For a simple definitional article, see the Cotton Council International's Buyer's Guide to Letters of Credit.
You should also see the site of the wonderfully-named Simpler Trade Procedures Board, or SITPRO, which has a series of banking fact sheets with short articles such as "UCP 500" and "Reducing Letter of Credit Rejection Rates." Letter of Credit rejections are a major practical problem.
The second new development since the publication of the text is the revision of Article 5 of the UCC. The basic idea is to make Article 5 more consistent with the UCP. The revision is now under consideration in many state legislatures. The text and commentaries on Article 5 are avialable on line.
For a nice sales pitch from a bank seeking letter of credit business, see CoreStates Bank.
There are two web sources that do an excellent job of exploring the logistics issues in international commerce. Freightworld is a gateway site aimed at the transportation business. An Australian site on International Commercial Law has a wider range of topics, and much interesting material concerning the Australian applications of the law merchant. Many freight forwarders and customs brokers have informative web sites.
Of all of the substantive areas in the text, this area has changed the most since publication. The principles covered in the text are still valid, but there have been significant new developments in the institutions and the law of international trade. The following updates may be very helpful in any discussion of the topics in this chapter.
The U.S. government agencies dealing with trade issues now have their own web sites, varying considerably in their overall helpfulness. Among the most important are:
The government of Japan has also put its major agencies dealing with trade issues on the internet. The most important sites are:
Perhaps the most significant development since the publication of the text was the conclusion of the Uruguay Round on talks in the GATT. The GATT countries created a new organization for international trade, and created a new framework for trade relations. The new agreement uses the same basic principles of Most-Favored Nation status and National Treatment, but applies them to a much broader range of commercial activities, including services and intellectual property. The new World Trade Organization (WTO) has an excellent web site, explaining the new regime for global trade and its role in it. You may also want to explore the Guide to the WTO, an interesting Australian site. There is also a good collection of articles about the WTO at The WTO Page.
The North American Free Trade Agreement is designed to create a free trade area among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. There are literally thousands of web sites discussing the pros and cons of NAFTA, the implementation of the agreement, and ways to make money in the North American Market.
A good place to start in an exploration of NAFTA is to examine the North American Market. The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has a very interesting report on Canada, the North American Market and NAFTA available on the web. The Mexican Embassy in Ottawa maintains a comprehensive site on Canadian-Mexican relations, including trade and investment.
The U.S. government has extensive information available about NAFTA and its impact. The NAFTA Border Home Page, from the U.S. Department of Commerce is a good resource for NAFTA information, including the text of the agreement and the side agreements on labor and the environment.
Of course, NAFTA has a multitude of critics, ranging from Pat Buchanan to some labor unions. Many of NAFTA's critics have web sites. One interesting article, originally from the San Fransisco Chronicle, is "NAFTA Stumbles Short of Expectations."
MERCOSUR is a treaty among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, designed to create a customs union and a powerful trading bloc in the southern nations of South America. The OAS has the full text of the treaty at its home page. Mercopress, the Uruguay based South Atlantic News Agency, has a collection of current articles about MERCOSUR and its progress.
One of the more pressing trade initiatives is for free trade in the Western Hemisphere. Given the current political climate in the U.S. Congress, expanded free trade agreements are likely not on the short-term horizon. However, expanded free trade is still a long term prospect for the Americas. One very useful site exploring these issues is the Summit of the Americas Center at Florida International University. Another very interesting site is LATCO's Tools of the Trade.
In the Pacific, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), are beginning to be active in formulating regional trade policies. JETRO maintains an information page about APEC that is worth visiting.
There are several initiatives involving developing nations. The EU's trade initiative, the Lome Convention, is due to expire shortly. . The European Commission's DGVIII has an interesting report on EU-ACP Trade Evolution 1990-1995 at its web site. There is also a report to Congress on the progress of the Caribbean Basin Initiative available from the USTR.
In general, many international organizations are quite concerned about the effect of trade agreements on economic development. There is a particularly good collection of articles concerning developing nations and the world trading system available from One World, a clearinghouse for Non-Governmental Organizations.
Many commercial sites, especially those of freight forwarders and customs brokers, have excellent information available on import-export law and practice.
On the question of imports, the U.S. Customs Service maintains a very informative web site. A particularly good commercial site, Tradelaw, comes from the law firm of Riggle and Craven, in Chicago. The Summit of the Americas Center at Florida International University has an extensive collection of materials dealing with customs requirements throughout Latin America.
For U.S. exporters, the obvious place to look for good information about export controls and boycott compliance is the Bureau of Export Administration.
There are many commercial and government sites promoting exports. In addition to the trade agencies listed in Chapter 10, the U.S. Export-Import Bank maintains a useful web site. A very good gateway to sites dealing with export promotion is Michigan State University's CIBER site.
An excellent starting point for an examination of the forms of global business is the International Business Law, News and Investment Resources site. It is quite comprehensive and current. It has links to many sites dealing with doing business in various countries. One of the best is the law firm of Hwang Mok Park and Jin, in Seoul, South Korea. This site has comprehensive discussions on opening branch offices, establishing subsidiaries, and incorporating.
Among the groups critical of Transnational Corporations (also known as multinationals) is Corporate Watch. A more thoughtful critique of corporations comes can be found in an article, Redefining the Corporation: an International Colloquy.
Competition law (or antitrust law, as it is known in the U.S.) has been an area of rapid development in law for the last decade. Particularly in the newly emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe, and in the restructuring economies of Latin America, competition law it taking on new life.
The major centers of national and regional competition law now have considerable resources available on the web. The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division has a comprehensive web page, with links to a variety of international agreements. Law Journal Extra has a very interesting article explaining the implications of the International Enforcement guidelines at U.S. Antitrust Law and Contracts: New Rules and Guidelines. In Europe, the EU is the most active enforcer of competition law. DGIV, the Directorate responsible for competition law, has extensive materials avialable on line.
Other nations have put information about their competition law on the web. The Italian Competition Authority has information available about its policies and actions. The offices of Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the U.K. can all be reached from the Antitrust Division site mentioned above.
The OECD has many policy papers available on line at its Competition/Antitrust Policy Home Page.
The material in this chapter has undergone substantial revision, for two main reasons. The first is the creation of the WTO. For the first time, most of the world trading community will be working toward a global set of minimum standards for intellectual property protection. The second reason relates simply to the growth of the global information-based economy. As information and technology-related businesses have grown, their global legal infrastructure has also developed.
There are several very good gateway sites for intellectual property law. Two of the best are the Intellectual Property Mall at Franklin Pierce Law Center, and the Ladas & Perry Home Page. Both sites are full of links to interesting articles and places. There is an excellent collection of Intellectual Property law articles at the Intellectual Property Center.
The most important international organization dealing with Intellectual Property is the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). There is also good information about the worldwide system at the WTO site.
Many countries also maintain web sites of their government agencies regulating IP law. The Government of Hong Kong Intellectual Property Department has one such site, as does the Australian Intellectual Property Organization.
Patents
In addition to the sources listed at the start of the IP section, the University of Michigan maintains a good explanatory page on patents, with good international coverage.
There are several national and regional patent offices on the internet. Among them are the PRC Patent Office, the Japanese Patent Office, the U.K Patent Office and the European Patent Office.
Computer Law
The growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web have created numerous legal issues. Many of the sites linked above contain articles and links to sites pertaining to legal issues on the Internet. In addition, the Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains a site for intellectual property issues pertaining to the net, as does Cyberlaw.
Corruption
After many years, an international effort against corruption finally seems to be gaining some momentum. The starting point for government efforts to stem transnational corruption is the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A good descriptive article, Antibribery Provisions of the FCPA is avialable on the web. One article looking at the FCPA from the perspective of business compliance is Schmidt and Frank, FCPA Demands Due Diligence in Global Dealings.
It's too soon to say what the practical effect of these efforts will be, but there are several areas of current developments, the most significant of which proably comes from the OECD, and its recent recommendations on bribery in international business.
If you wish to know the extent of the perceived problem, try the Internet Corruption Rankings. An article by Busse, Ishakawa, Mitra, Primmer, Doe and Yavaroglu, "The Perception of Corruption: A Market Discipline Approach," an excellent exposition of the effect of the perception of corruption on foreign direct investment.
The NGO most active in campaigning against corruption is Transparency International, headquartered in Germany. Their web site contains a lot of very useful information. On a more official note, you may wish to go to the site of Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Interesting company sites dealing specifically with corruption include the Lockheed-Martin ethics page, and the Ingersoll-Rand Corporate Code of Conduct.