In the years ahead, trade disputes will continue to arise, especially as global competition intensifies and international trade agreements are amended and proliferate. In this challenging atmosphere, Kelley Drye brings its expertise to bear in helping to resolve these important disputes.
Since World War II, the international community increasingly has concentrated on fashioning non-discriminatory, non-distortive, and transparent rules to facilitate trade across national boundaries. At the multilateral, regional, and bilateral levels, there is an extensive and ever-growing body of inter-related regulations that govern trade in goods and services and that also establish various mechanisms and procedures for resolving disputes. The most prominent and basic of these international trade laws are the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the more recent General Agreement on Trade in Services, and their subsidiary agreements, all overseen by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The dynamic and complex nature of this international legal system and its far-reaching effects on the global economy, as well as on national and local economies, cannot be overstated. A sound understanding of the national rights and obligations that have been negotiated and of how their enforcement can be achieved through international dispute settlement is consequently invaluable - both in opening markets abroad and in preserving fair trade in the United States. Likewise, it is critically important to have a clear grasp of the significant role that private parties and their legal counsel can play in participating in and assisting the dispute-resolution process.
In representing predominantly U.S. and occasionally foreign companies, the professionals in our trade practice have considerable experience with international trade dispute settlement, particularly at the WTO and under the North American Free Trade Agreement. In coordination with such governmental agencies as the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, the U.S. Commerce Department, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the U.S. International Trade Commission, our lawyers and economists have been involved in a wide range of dispute settlements covering dumping and subsidy issues, intellectual property questions, safeguard actions, and environmental measures.
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