(1) How can the free trade mandate of the World Trade Organization be reconciled with the concerns of labor, environmental, and consumer groups? What is meant by the word free in the term free trade? Does free mean no restrictions on the flow of labor, capital, goods, services, and technology? Should free trade be limited by other concerns such as local disruption? Should local cultural concerns be a limitation on the non-regulation of trade? How can the WTO dispute resolution and enforcement process be reconciled with a country’s assertion of national sovereignty over its national laws and regulations?
2. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) asserts that the 48 poorest nations of the world, including 33 in Africa, are failing to benefit from globalization and freer trade. In fact, there is evidence that poverty is worsening in many of these countries. What can be done to improve the effect of free trade on these impoverished countries? Should the WTO take a greater role in obtaining preferential tariff treatment for goods exported from these countries? How can developed countries continue to justify protection of domestic industries such as agriculture and textiles through the granting of subsidies?
3. Why would EU lawmakers choose the directive form of law over the regulation form of law? What difference does it make to EU nationals and companies? Why would the directive form of law influence a foreign (non-EU) company in choosing an EU country to invest or establish an office?
4. Corruption has been a major problem in some of the newer members of the EU and in former countries of the Soviet Union. What is the relationship between corruption and economic prosperity? Why have some EU countries been able to control corruption and others have failed? What has the EU done to assist anticorruption efforts in Bulgaria?
