Section g Test (Time limit – 45 minutes)

Task 1. Read the text and fill in the gaps with the words from the box below:

Model: 1 – d

a) signed	f) conflicting	k) the legal ground-rules
b) community of trading nations	g) an agreed legal foundations	l) dispute settlement
c) interpreting	h) producers of goods	m) overriding purpose
d) international body	i) WTO agreements
e) agreed limits	j) a forum for trade negotiations

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only ___(1) (d) international body ____ dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the ____(2)____, negotiated and ____(3)____ by the bulk of the world’s trading nations. These documents provide ____(4)____ for international commerce. They are essentially contracts, binding governments to keep their trade policies within ____(5)_____. Although negotiated and signed by governments, the goal is to help ____(6)____ and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.

The system’s ____(7)____ is to help trade flow as freely as possible – so long as there are no undesirable side-effects. Because the agreements are drafted and signed by the ____(8)____, often after considerable debate and controversy, one of the WTO’s most important functions is to serve as ____(9)____. A third important side to the WTO’s work is ____(10)____. Trade relations often involve _____(11)____. Contracts and agreements, including those negotiated in the WTO system, often need ____(12)____. The moat harmonious way to settle these differences is through some neutral procedure based on ___(13)____. That is the purpose behind the dispute settlement process written into the WTO agreements.

Task 2. Match the term in line A with their equivalent in line B

A	B
14. WTO	a) the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
15. GDP	b) the South Asia Free Trade Agreement
16. NAFTA	c) gross domestic product
17. GATT	d) the International Monetary Fund
18. IMF	e) the North America Free Trade Agreement
19. SAFTA	f) the World Trade Organization

Task 3. Read the situations or questions (20 – 40) and choose the right answer.

20. What is the underlying characteristic of the WTO?

(a) It facilitates economic co-operation between different countries.

(b) It resolves disputes between economic trade blocks.

(c) It facilitates the development of less developed countries.

(d) It acts as an umbrella institution that regulates the agreements concluded at the Uruguay round, the organization’s ultimate goal being the promotion of free international trade.

21. Does the WTO come with its own institutional framework?

(a) No, the WTO depends on the relevant frameworks of national governments.

(b) No, the WTO provides certain institutional arrangements but only on an ad hoc basis.

(c) Yes, the WTO provides a certain institutional framework which changes depending on the nature of free trade agreements.

(d) Yes, the WTO provides a common institutional framework for the implementation of free trade agreements.

22. What are the three key ‘components’ of the WTO?

(a) A Senate, a Judiciary and a Directorate.

(b) A Trade Commission, a Dispute Settlement Body and a Council of Ministers.

(c) An Executive apparatus, a Legislative apparatus and an Enforcement apparatus.

(d) A Board of Governors, the Assembly of Member States and a Steering Committee.

23. Does the WTO apply its framework in exactly the same fashion throughout the world?

(a) Yes, the WTO applies its framework in exactly the same way throughout the World.

(b) Yes, the WTO applies its framework in exactly the same way around the world, unless it deals with trade blocks.

(c) No, the WTO makes allowance for regional variation.

(d) No, the WTO makes allowance for variation in the case of economically stronger countries.

24. What are the two main functions of the WTO?

(a) The promotion of free trade and economic liberalism.

(b) The administration of the WTO agreements and the resolution of international trade disputes.

(c) The promotion of world peace, economic stability and financial co-operation.

(d) The administration of the WTO’s institutional framework and the promotion of economic co-operation amongst its members.

25. Theoretically, what is the most significant organ of the WTO?

(a) The Committee on Trade and Development.

(b) The Council for Trade in Goods.

(c) The General Council.

(d) The Ministerial Conference.

26. Practically, what is the most significant organ of the WTO?

(a) The Committee on Trade and Development.

(b) The Council for Trade in Goods.

(c) The General Council.

(d) The Ministerial Conference.

27. Where is provision made with regard to the WTO’s institutional arrangements?

(a) In the WTO Agreement.

(b) In the GATT.

(c) In the UN Charter.

(d) In the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.

28. With regard to the WTO, subsidies are covered in two separate international economic law agreements. Which are they?

(a) The GATT and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.

(b) The Reform Treaty and the Treaty of Rome.

(c) The North American Free Trade Agreement and the Organization of American States Charter.

(d) The International Monetary Fund’s Articles of Agreement and the European Central Bank’s Statute.

29. What are countervailing measures?

(a) Measures which a State may initiate against another State when that other State has legally subsidized any of its domestic industries.

(b) Measures which a national government may initiate against another State when that other State has not subsidized any of its domestic industries.

(c) Measures which a State may initiate against another State when that other State has illegally subsidized any of its domestic industries.

(d) Measures which a national government may initiate against another State when that other State has not illegally subsidized any its domestic industries.

30. What is the role of the IMF?

(a) It controls the budgets of national governments.

(b) It acts as a forum for international economics.

(c) It observes world exchange rates, balance of payments and multilateral payments.

(d) It seeks to promote free international trade.

31. What is the IMF’s primary objective?

(a) The overall promotion of world trade.

(b) The fixation of the value of world currencies.

(c) The promotion of free trade.

(d) The promotion of its policies in certain countries around the world.

32. How does the IMF meet its primary objective?

(a) By promoting free international trade.

(b) By overseeing the balance of payments, acting as a forum of world negotiation and regulating world exchange rates.

(c) By acting as an arbitrator for the dispute settlement of world trade matters.

(d) By aligning its primary objective with the monetary objectives of national governments.

33. Why has the IMF been criticized in the past for being ineffective in the implementation of its policies and legal provision around the world?

(a) Because it did not manage to persuade States to achieve consensus in certain legal matters and because the implementation of its policies has been ab initio ineffective.

(b) Because different States seek to promote their national interests to the detriment of the IMF’s efforts.

(c) Because the IMF cannot promote its policies in the case of trade blocks.

(d) Because the IMF is not an independent international organization.

34. Why have lawyers (and economists) been accused in the past for compromising the role of the IMF?

(a) Because they have not paid attention to the calls of national governments for global deregulation of the world exchange rate markets.

(b) Because they have not paid attention to the calls from other international organizations for the further liberalization of the world exchange rate markets.

(c) Because they did little to escape legal technicality.

(d) Because they did little for co-operating with economists.

35. In world economic matters States do not always correspond to the calls of the IMF. Why is this?

(a) States have different agendas.

(b) States do not have the political will to follow the IMF’s calls.

(c) States oppose the IMF’s policies.

(d) States may not always have the same interests as the IMF.

36. There are two schools of thought in the interpretation of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement. Which one has prevailed?

(a) Realism

(b) Parochialism

(c) Legalism

(d) Interprevitism

37. How would you describe international monetary law?

(a) Rather detailed and for this reason exact.

(b) Rather minimal and for this reason abstract.

(c) Rather detailed and for this reason convoluted.

(d) Rather minimal and for this reason parochial.

38. Is the IMF’s policy on exchange rates of soft-law or hard law nature and why?

(a) Of soft-law nature, the reason being national sovereignty in currency matters.

(b) Of soft-law nature, the reason being clarity.

(c) Of hard-law nature, the reason being legal precision.

(d) Of hard-law nature the reason being global uniform standards.

39. Under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, should a sovereign State which is a member inform the Fund of its monetary policy decisions?

(a) No, IMF member States do not have to inform the Fund.

(b) No, IMF member States do not have to inform the Fund but should inform regional monetary organizations.

(c) Yes, IMF member States have to inform the Fund in relation to their monetary policy decisions.

(d) Yes, IMF member States have to inform the Fund in relation to their monetary policy decisions and in relation to all their national economic arrangements.

40. How would you classify the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade?

(a) An international economic law agreement.

(b) An international environmental law agreement.

(c) An international economic law agreement which marginally touches on environmental law matters.

(d) An international environmental law agreement which marginally touches on economic law matters.

Task 4. Complete the text with the right preposition from the box.

Some are used more than once.

between on at from with of in

Across Europe, millions of citizens and thousands of companies, big and small, benefit ___(41)____ the European single market. Companies have entered new markets, have struck up transnational partnerships, have restructured production to exploit the opportunities ____(42)____ a home market of 370 million. Ordinary folk have benefited in two ways. ____(43)____ the one hand, they have extra freedom and mobility to shop, work or live ____(44)___ another EU country than their own. As consumers, they profit ____(45)___ increased choice of goods and services as well as ___(46)____ the keener prices that the single market has brought them. Despite its achievements, work is needed to complete and consolidate the single market. While goods, services and capital now move freely, people are still subject to identify checks ____(47)___ some internal borders. The problem here is to reconcile personal mobility ____(48)____ the need to control international crime and curb illegal immigration. ____(49)____ the business level, partnerships ____(50)___ the European Commission in Brussels and national governments are needed to ensure that single market rules are applied correctly. Managing and improving the enterprise is an ongoing challenge.

Evaluation Scale

Points	Mark(s)	ECTS mark(s)
45-50	5	A
40-44	4	B
35-39	4	C
31-34	3	D
26-30	3	E
16-25	2	F
0-15	2	FX

Appendix

Listening

Tapescripts

T. – 1

Roman Law

Roman law is the legal system of both the Roman republic and the Roman Empire, from its earliest days to the time of the Eastern Roman Empire, even to the time of the Emperor Justinian I after the fall of Rome itself.

Roman law is the foundation of many legal systems of the world.

- So-called Civil law systems are based on Roman law. The legal systems of most countries in continental Europe and South America fall into this category, frequently through the Napoleonic Code.

- In the Common law the influence of Roman law was less important. The Common Law developed into a tradition of its own in England, from where it expanded to the United Kingdom (apart from Scotland), to the United States (apart from Louisiana), and to most former British colonies.

Roman law has its beginnings in the code known as the Twelve Tables (449 BC). From there Roman law became highly advanced for its time, developing over the centuries many of the legal institutions that are taken for granted today.

For example, Roman law developed the differentiation between contract and tort. Previously (as in ancient Greek law), contract violations were simply a kind of tort. Also, the differentiation between possession/possessio (which is a factual state: someone had something) and ownership/dominium (which is a right; later formulated as the right to do whatever one wishes with something) was developed in Roman law, most visible in the rei vindicatio, the action of the owner against the possessor to release a piece of property. Finally, the origins of today's concept that contracts are valid when there is a meeting of the minds can be found in the Roman rules.

Roman law also developed the concepts of one law for the citizens and another law for foreigners-the beginnings of private international law.

Roman law speaks volumes of the Roman mindset in general. Praetorial intervention ensured that the law could adapt to the changing needs of a rapidly expanding empire. This was achieved, however, under the guise of consistency and attachment to traditional values. The Praetor ''changed'' the law not by rewriting it but by offering new remedies to cope with new problems. This attachment to the past and suspicion of change is arguably characteristic of Roman thinking.

The Emperor Theodosius I produced a compilation of Christian Imperial law in AD 438 under the title Codex Theodosianus. The compilation included only edicts on various topics issued by emperors themselves from the time of the first Christian emperor Constantine (AD 306-337). In the next century, the Emperor Justinian arranged for the re-organization of most of Roman law in his four-part Corpus Iuris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), the greatest achievement in the codification and preservation of Roman law. The first portion, the Codex, contained numerous laws of emperors ranging as far back in time as the emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138). The second portion, the Digesta or Pandectae, was an enormous collection of extracts from learned juristic scholars' discussions (some as old as the Roman Republlic) of various legal problems which, though purely academic in nature had earned the force of law. This section became a fifty book set that took three years to compile and was completed in 533. The Emperor also ordered the production of a textbook, still as or more useful than its modern counterparts), during the early 530s. It was intended as an overview of Roman law for legal students and consisted of just four books. Its contents were granted the force of law, an unusual distinction for a textbook. The fourth and least important portion of the Corpus Iuris Civilis were the Novellae Constitutiones, the ''New Laws'', produced after the promulgation of the Codex Iustinianus. They contain legal material enacted subsequent to the publication of the rest of the Corpus, which had been intended, unrealistically, to be the final and perfect statement of Roman legal development. In addition, they were published in Greek, the language of Justinian's early Byzantium (and the whole of the Roman east throughout imperial history) in contrast to the rest of the Corpus' Latin. After the completion of the project, no further laws were (supposedly) needed and commentary upon the whole of the Corpus Iuris Civilis was forbidden. Of course, the Novellae themselves prove that Law continued to thrive and no legal system can ever be fully complete. The Corpus has been called the most influential law work ever written as it has been on the reading list for legal students in countries using Civil law for nearly 1500 years so far.

Roman law methods are divided into three types of process that refers to the governmental periods of Rome (Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire (the principate and dominate). The ''legis actiones''- period during the kingdom and the first part of the republic. In the 3^rd century BC the Roman law process had evolved into the ''formulas''-period which continued until the first part of the principate. And finally the ''cognition''-period during until the end of the dominate.

T. – 2

The development of international human rights law

In the nineteenth century, the positivist doctrines of state sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction reigned supreme. Virtually all matters that today would be classified as human rights issues were at that stage universally regarded as within the internal sphere of national jurisdiction. The major exceptions to this were related to piracy jure gentium and slavery. In the latter case a number of treaties were entered into to bring about its aboli­tion. Concern also with the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers and with prisoners of war developed as from 1864 in terms of international instruments, while states were required to observe certain minimum standards in the treatment of aliens. In addition, certain agreements of a general welfare nature were beginning to be adopted by the turn of the century. The nineteenth century also appeared to accept a right of humanitarian intervention, although its range and extent were unclear. An important change occurred with the establishment of the League of Nations in 1919. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League set up the mandates system for peoples in ex-enemy colonies “not yet able to stand by themselves in the strenuous conditions of the modern world”. The mandatory power was obliged to guarantee freedom of conscience and religion and a Permanent Mandates Commission was created to ex­amine the reports the mandatory authorities had undertaken to make. The arrangement was termed “a sacred trust of civilization”. Article 23 of the Covenant provided for just treatment of the native populations of the territories in question. The 1919 peace agreements with Eastern Euro­pean and Balkan states included provisions relating to the protection of minorities," providing essentially for equality of treatment and oppor­tunities for collective activity. These provisions were supervised by the League of Nations, to whom there was a right of petition.

Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles provided for the creation of the International Labour Organization, among the purposes of which were the promotion of better standards of working conditions and support for the right of association. The impact of the Second World War upon the development of human rights law was immense as the horrors of the war and the need for an adequate international system to maintain international peace and protect human rights became apparent to all. In addition, the rise of non-governmental organizations, particularly in the sphere of human rights, has had an immense effect. While the post-Second World War world witnessed the rise of intergovernmental committees and organs and courts to deal with human rights violations, whether by public debate, states' reports, comments, inter-state or individual petition procedures, recent years have seen the interposition of domestic amnesty laws and this has given rise to the question of the acceptability of impunity.

T. – 3