*** BOB KIEFFER: L'Organisation mondiale du commerce et l'évolution du droit international public. De Boeck/Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 5480711 - Fax: (32-10) 482750 - Internet: http://www.larcier.com ). "Droit international" series. 2008, 371 pp. ISBN 978-2-8044-2632-3.
This impressive book on the World Trade Organisation and changes in international public law starts by agreeing with Cioran that one cannot have strong views if one has not studied anything in depth. This phrase characterises the humility of the researcher, and is understood as an avowal of impotence in the face of the world's complexity. But it is a highly unfortunate phrase in terms of the sheer interest of these pages where there is a meeting of scientifically justified expert opinion on law and governance against the backdrop of globalisation. In reality, this meaty book - following on from a thesis for Robert Schuman University in Strasbourg for which the highest marks were awarded - fills a genuine gap in French legal literature on trade issues, as Pascal Lamy explains in the preface. The book will not necessarily carve out strong ideas in its readers, but it will certainly provide them, as Prof. Yves Petit of Bourgogne University in France explains in the preface, with "better understanding of the World Trade Organisation and the new global governance it incarnates, about which many false truths have been spread".
In the general introduction, the author starts by describing the backdrop. What about governance? It is one "of those fashionable words that inspire political debate to as wide an extent as they disturb lawyers" and for which there are no authoritative definitions. The most widely accepted definition is that put forward by the European Commission in 1995 in a report on global governance. Generally speaking, governance can be described as "the search for a coherent answer to the question: How can one govern without a government?" Moreover, while governance and law pursue a common objective, the challenge of managing international society, law these days is becoming a modality of governance. In addition, all History's closures (the author points to the Tordesillas Treaty that followed the discovery of the New World in 1494, the Westphalia Treaties that ended the Thirty Year War, the European Accord set up at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the establishment of the Society of Nations at the end of the First World War and the creation of the United Nations after the Second World War) have been followed by an attempt to reorganise global governance, the previous model having proved inadequate. The World Trade Organisation is described as the outcome of another ending: "As the first international organisation with a universal vocation to be set up after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the WTO, created under the Marrakech Agreements signed on 15 April 1994, represents the provisional end of this evolution," writes Bob Kieffer. Another essential piece of the puzzle is globalisation, a concept which, in order to be properly understood, requires a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach. Globalisation is not a new phenomenon. The author quotes scientific sources arguing that it goes back as far as the arrival of Homo sapiens on the scene. Closer to our time, it is described as being carried by Europe and then by the United States. Like the Roman Empire and the British Empire in their time, the United States will not be able to maintain its place in the world eternally and competitors are already lining up. One of these competitors is the European Union, for which, various authors claim, the creation of the WTO was a "way of relying on the rest of the world to counter US trade practices". A vain attempt because other competitors were already stirring and lurking in the wings (China, India and new groupings of countries), which leads the author to conclude that "one has to acknowledge the fact that it is no longer possible for international law to be no more than an internationalised version of European or US law. Globalisation is slowly starting to deserve its name. " This is followed by further observations: the WTO's law provides a convincing illustration of the fact that 'soft law' is often a bedfellow of 'hard law,' and law tends to be aligned with the "pensée unique," since "liberal democracy is now the only political system, and capitalism is now the only economic system" along with its corollary, free trade - international law legitimising them to the extent that they serve human development. "Sustainable human development" has now appeared "as the new ideological precept of international law". Nevertheless, this apparent ideological convergence hides persistent contradictions at both the institutional and the material level, confirming the 'fragmentation' thesis, a neologism coined by Prof. Rosenau to signify that fragmentation juxtaposes integration. One of the messages running through the book is that this tension relays the current evolution of international law.
In the first part of the book, the author studies WTO law to assess changes in international public law. The starting point is "primitive, disconnected, piecemeal law made by and for countries". But globalisation has gradually emptied sovereignty of substance and we are also witnessing a rise in the power of competitors to nations, competitors calling in the name of governance for a lifting of the state's control over international public law. In the second part of the book, the author demonstrates that the intensity of these demands has been expanding in line with the extension of the material domain of international law. The gaps in international law are being filled but at the same time it is becoming less coherent, characterised by the scourge of fragmentation. Finally, in the third part of the book, the author looks at whether the WTO has actually speeded up the process of globalisation and whether it can be used to regulate globalisation. Special attention is paid in this domain to the sophisticated dispute settlement system, in order to determine whether the WTO is better equipped than other international organisations to provide a legal framework for unbridled globalisation. The research shows, at any rate, that the WTO makes a huge contribution to global governance. At the end of the day, one would agree with Pascal Lamy that "due to the holistic approach selected by the author," this book will be rightly appreciated by students, lawyers, diplomats and other legal practitioners and also, more generally, by "anyone fascinated by the issues and challenges of global governance".
Michel Theys
*** NICOLAS THIRION (Ed.): Le marché et l'Etat à l'heure de la mondialisation. Actes du 1er colloque David-Constant de la Faculté de droit de l'Université de Liège. De Boeck/Larcier (see above). "Droit/Economie International series". 2007, 311 pp. ISBN 978-2-8044-2817-4.
In this book, specialists from across the board - legal experts and those from other fields, Belgian and European theoreticians, as well as publishers and advertisers, subject certain fundamental processes to a critical analysis, which under the cover of globalisation, are profoundly changing the different legal systems. This change involves the logic of the market and its influence on the way the state set-up is organised and works. It also impacts on the question of how the rule of law can be best adapted to integrated international organisations (European Union, World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund) and how this evolution and sociological, historic and philosophic factors can influence the most apparently technical legal constructions. “The Logic of the Market” is therefore examined from an angle of its impact on the Belgian system of funding public service activities, the public sector and how it works, as well as contractual relations between the public and private sector and in light of the phenomenon of privatisation. One contribution focuses on consumer protection in Europe and aims at clarifying the question of the free market and binding legislation.
(PBo)
*** MARC CHERVEL: Mondialisation des marchandises et marchandisation du monde. Matériau de pensée économique pour le nouveau siècle. Publisud (15 rue des Cinq-Diamants, F-75013 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 45807850 - Fax: 45899415 - email: publisud.editions@cegetel.net - Internet: http://www.editionspublisud.hautefort.com ). "Le développement dans les faits" series. 2008, 582 pp, €58. ISBN 978-2-86600-873-4.
This book is to a certain extent, the testament of a French economist who is dubious about the prevailing ideas, which he regards as quite disturbing. The book looks at recent and non-published economic writings the author produced as he was dying (he died at the age of 72 in 2004) and which those close to him brought together. In their preface, they explain that these pages are in a certain way his “final legacy in which a quintessential thought process matured from the debates and experience on the real problems of continually changing development”. Three proposals underpin this book. Firstly, how neo-classical liberal economic theory claims the status of a science for itself and imposes its rules and laws, when in fact it is the subject of sharp opposition. They then explain how in developmental economics, there is a contradiction between the facts and ask whether or not this paradigm and its model are invalid and if so, are they simply being used to keep the world as it is. The existing impasse, however, is meeting intellectual resistance, which Marc Chervel crystallises into an “effects method” in opposition to a “price references method” based on “the neo-classical balance and optimum theory”, which is deceptive and misleading in developing countries. This theory is both provocative and dense (the book is not really for the layman) and seeks (according to those close to the author) to, “impact on future generations more than his own too well meaning and partisan generation”.
(PBo)
*** PETER B. KENEN, ELLEN E. MEADE: Regional Monetary Integration. Cambridge University Press (The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK. Tel: (44-1223) 326050 - Fax: 326111 - Internet: http://www.cambridge.com ). 2008, 230 pp, £13-99. ISBN 978-0-521-71150-0.
With the setting up of the Euro zone in 1999 and the adoption of the US dollar by Ecuador and Salvador, the international monetary landscape has undergone frenetic change and the number of currencies in circulation appears likely to decline. Is this part of a long term evolution? These questions are tackled in the avowed goal of working out whether, “these projects and others are likely to prosper in the years to come”. The question of what shape or forms they might assume is also examined, as well as the benefits and possible costs to participatory and third countries. The theory of optimal monetary zones is initially analysed, which leads to the conclusion that “the traditional framework needs reworking”. The book then adopts an historic, contemporary and empirical analysis of the Euro zone and other regional integrations such as Nafta, Mercosur and Asean and “illustrates the economic and institutional conditions for successful monetary integration”. This approach is successful because, “these comparisons shed light on the problems sustainable monetary integration construction produces, as well as the different ways of rectifying them”. This is a very comprehensive book, useful to students, researchers and policy makers.
(TBa)
*** ANETA B. SPENDZHAROVA: Banking Sector Liberalization and Reform in the Post-Communist Region after 1989. Assessing the Impact of Domestic Politics, International Conditionality, and Economic Development. Institute for Advanced Studies (56 Stumpergasse, A-1060 Vienna, Austria. Tel: (43-1) 59991237 - Fax: 59991555 -- Internet: http://www.ihs.ac.at ). "Political Sciences Series", No. 116. 2008, 33 pp, €8.
“Deregulation is nothing more than a step towards re-regulation, in other words, regulation by other means”. Drawing on this theory, Aneta B. Spendzharova (a member of the Department of Political Science at the Vienna Institute for Advanced Studies) sets out to explain the ins and outs of liberalisation of the banking sector in post-Communist countries. Why this sector in particular? Because it, “reveals the difficulties in building market institutions in transition economies”. The author explains that by combining three elements: internal policies (opening up the country in question to foreign banks, the fight against corruption), the pressure from international organisations such as the IMF and economic development (increase of GDP per capita and capitalisation of the stock market). The author seeks to answer questions on how these factors should be organised and in what order they appear. She makes the link between existing market liberalisation theory in industrialised countries and economic reform in twenty five transition countries. It is a convincing piece of work.
(TBa)
*** Europe's World. Europe's World (Bibliothèque Solvay, Parc Léopold, 137 rue Belliard, B-1040 Brussels. Tel: (32-2) 7387592 - Fax: 7391592 - email: subscriptions@europesworld.org - Internet: http://www.europesworld.org ). 2008, No. 8, 216 pp, €12. Annual subscription: €30.
This extremely good publication is available in French and English and in its spring edition its “Special Dossier” focuses on financial services. One contribution traces the, “accidental route of Europe to the single financial market”. The different writers point out that the European Union is now erecting financial rules with Washington and that the “increased muscle of European finance” is impressing US companies so much so that they are calling for European style regulation, namely, “flexible but principles-based”. Other essays focus on speculative funds, while the Governor of the Bank of France, Christian Noyer, describes the future of banking supervision in Europe. Gérard de la Martinière, the president of the French Federation of Insurance Companies, outlines the, “problems that the expanding European insurance industry has to avoid”, Manfred Weber, the president of the German Banking Association, draws up a balance sheet of the “vast and incomplete mosaic” of the current single financial market. Relations with Russia, the Balkans and soft power are some of the other themes discussed.
(MT)