International aspects of business law Coursework

International aspects of business law - Coursework Example Increasingly international trade organizations such as the WTO and bilateral free-trade agreements such as those in place with the United States and E.U. can significantly shape and alter the economic environment in a way that financial planners must identify and manage for investment clients with advance preparation. The importance of international law to traders in this context of financial investment services and commodities trading particularly cannot be understated, as it is a direct aspect of risk management operations that form a part of due diligence in any overseas investment strategy. Financial planners and traders must identify the risk elements that international law governs as a variable in estimating the success and expected returns of a project in order to successfully manage investment services for clients in the contemporary era of globalization. The history behind the WTO, bank frameworks, and financial regulation are all chief matters of international aspects of bu siness law which affect trade. The application of international law to trading activity of commodities, equities, and bonds globally is a specialized field and different in many ways from the sectors of international law which govern trade, commerce, and other forms of business development activity. For example, international traders generally have little worry over the application of labour or environmental law to their activities globally, as these are related to the general commercial operations of a business and not the trading activity particularly. Traders find their business operations most significantly impacted in the import and export process when the goods involved are passing through an international border. Most nations do not tax transit cargo that passes through sea and air ports, however most nations do tax and regulate imports and exports domestically through the application of international law and accepted practice. In order for a trader or financial planner to un derstand the requirements and how they apply differently from country to country, the GATT Agreements, or General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, begun in international negotiations at the end of the Second World War and birth of the United Nations, are the most important references for international trade. The GATT Agreements stand as the most comprehensive and accepted standards of international trade laws among nations as negotiated directly through their envoys and representatives. Therefore, international traders and financial planners who require the complete country-by-country listing of trade and tariff requirements as established in international law should base their investigation in the publications of the GATT Agreements, or General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the modern descendent of the International Trade Organization (ITO). DZ Cass has written about the GATT and ITO/WTO systemization of international trade law in his essa y, The 'Constitutionalization' of International Trade Law: Judicial Norm-generation as the Engine of Constitutional Development in International Trade (Cass, 2001). In the articles, Cass suggests that the GATT Agreements and further negotiations of the WTO represent a process of creating a type of constitution for international trade where nothing but the chaos and conflicting interests of sovereign