Why do rules of origin (ROO) matter in Free Trade Agreements (FTA)?

As a person’s nationality confers the benefits of citizenship, ROOs determine the applicable preferential rate on the treatment of goods exported and imported between the signatories of a preferential trade agreement (PTA). ROOs are often guised as trade concessions in its intention to prevent non-members of PTAs taking advantage of preferential tariffs whilst simultaneously preventing trade deflection in the absence of external-tariff harmonisation (Cadot et Ing, 2016). However, the complexity and restrictiveness of ROOs act more like ‘non-tariff barriers’ that reduce the positive trade impacts of PTAs by approximately 66.67% (DFAT, 2018). The infamous ‘noodle bowl’ metaphor of inefficiency that…

The governance of international river basins has always been hindered by an obstructive ‘tug of war’ between a state’s right to its territorial sovereignty and the effectiveness of international water legal frameworks to ensure that common pool water resources are used ‘equitably’ and ‘reasonably’. The Mekong river is the eighth-largest river in the world and is home to more than 80 million people mostly from agrarian communities who depend on it for drinking, fishing, irrigation and transportation (Fisher, 2009). The proposed construction of hydropower infrastructure projects in the Mekong by riparian states exerts unsustainable pressure that exacerbates the already fragile…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s controversial announcement of the 2016 Intellectual Property Promotion Plan sought to protect intellectual property (IP) produced by artificial intelligence (AI). Will AI generated IP unintentionally manifest a new oligarchy that favours early adopters of AI tech when conducting medical research in a manner that will grant Japanese pharmaceutical companies with asymmetric monopoly power through a first mover’s advantage? Or will it usher a utopia where legal protection of AI-generated IP enables algorithms to be able to streamline the R&D process more efficiently and discover new cures at a rate that transcends human ability? …

Historical context

Threats to national and global security have evolved from traditional inter-intra state warfare to incognito acts of acts of cyber-terrorism that detrimentally affect the preservation of world peace. Post-Cold-War Estonia has undergone a digital renaissance where 99% of her government services are online, allowing her to cut approximately 2 percent of its GDP in salary and expenses (Hyvarinen, Risius et Friis, 2017). However, this overreliance on digital infrastructure is a double-edged sword for Estonia as it severely enhances her vulnerability to cyber-attacks; evident during the world’s first “state-led” distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber-attack by Russian political ‘hacktivists’…

The TRIPS has the potential to fulfil the WHO and UNDHR’s ‘right to life’ by promoting accessibility to affordable medicines. However ever since its inception in 1994, its effectiveness as a multilateral trade instrument to promote health security in the developing world has sparked controversial debate (Love, 2007). This paper will explore how TRIPS doesn’t promote health security through its restriction of knowledge transfer in favour of promoting an oligopolistic multinational pharmaceutical industry in both developed and developing countries (Archibugi, D. & Filippetti, A. ,2010). Comparative cost advantage theory can explain why developed countries utilised the TRIPS to restrict knowledge…

Despite being challenged with divergent foreign policy goals; the BRICS union will maintain its relevance because its members can leverage the non-prescriptive and non-binding nature of their union as a platform to achieve both their common and national interests. Constructivism theory can explain how the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) can fulfil the common interests of its members to further develop infrastructure investment projects and provide an alternative financial system that builds upon the existing Bretton Woods institutions (Chin, 2014). Power transition theory will then explain how the BRICS members can use their union as a containment strategy against both…

The museum was silent, and the halls were empty save for a nonchalant young man and an overly dressed elderly gentleman who strode past each exhibit with tenacious pride. An aura of uncomfortable silence united these two men, who seemed to share a brief tenuous comradery that soon forced its way into precarious over politeness.

They shared similar features but were different enough to spark insensitive conversation with regards to their relations. The old man’s nose was a flatter version of the young man’s one whose skin was a fairer version of the imperial yellow coat skin that clothed his…