Table of Contents
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PhD. Cristina Elena Popa (Tache)
1. Editorial - Professor M. Elvira MÉNDEZ-PINEDO
2. Iceland and the European Economic Agreement: 25 Years of CooperationAbstract:In 2019 the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iceland presented for the first time a special report to the Parliament (Althingi) on the status and implementation of the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. This international/European treaty based on a two-pillar structure (EU on one side and EFTA-EEA States on the other) has transformed the Icelandic legal, political and economic environment in the 25 years since its ratification. The objective of this study is to review the story of this successful European cooperation (extension of the internal market and fundamental freedoms) while focusing on difficult issues that appeared in the aftermath of the financial crisis (Icesave saga, finally resolved in favour of Iceland by the EFTA Court). It also aims to explain some reasons behind Eurosceptism in the country. Primary sources are both legal acts and relevant case-law from European courts, combined with doctrinal studies in the fields of law and political science. Methodology is both descriptive and analytical since all legal issues are approached from a wider economic, political and sociological context. The most important finding of the study is that nothing substantially important has altered fundamentally the preference of Iceland for EEA cooperation rather than full EU integration.
Keywords:Iceland; European Economic Area; cooperation; international law.
JEL Classification:K22, K33
Page 5 - Associate professor Gina ORGA-DUMITRIU
3. CJEU and WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism - Convergence or Divergence?Abstract:This analysis shows the issue of the relationship between the EU and the WTO and the interactions between European judges and the decisions of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. The CJEU rejects or uses DSB decisions. In interpreting the fact that the competent Community institutions negotiate and conclude an agreement with third countries, it is considered that the freedom to agree with these third countries on the international effects of the provisions of the agreement is regulated and that the effects on which should produce them in the internal legal order of the Contracting Parties. Currently, the European Commission contributes to improving the procedures for resolving international economic and investment disputes, selects arbitrators and experts who, in the specific institutional organization, will help to implement the chapters on trade and sustainable development of EU trade agreements. Heuristically speaking, the research method used to design this study is a comparative one and concerns a certain methodological principle, in accordance with the object of analysis that will be presented.
Keywords: World Trade Organization, Court of Justice of the European Union, GATT, international trade law.
JEL Classification:K22, K33
Page 22 - Associate professor Maria do Rosário ANJOS; Associate professor Maria João MIMOSO
4. Free Competition in EU: An Exploratory Study about Tax Benefits to Foreign Investment as a Distortion Measure of Free CompetitionAbstract:This is an exploratory and comparative study about the political and institutional constraints of tax harmonization in EU and its effect on free competition. Objectives: to explore and compare the different tax systems in EU members for answer three questions: there are or not a disloyal competition resulted from the differences in tax between EU countries? Which is the impact in foreign investment in EU countries? Why EU do not have more tax harmonization to fight against tax disloyal competition between members States? Methodology: we used the comparative study about income taxes in several EU countries and the relation to GDP, as well the deductive method to analyze the results we find and some reference studies on the subject. Results: the principal reason for less tax harmonization is the great advantages for the biggest and strongest economies in EU. Secondary, they did and still do use the tax system for introduce a new way of disloyal and dissimulated competition between countries members. European governments don´t want tax harmonization. Some of them has used tax benefits to catch more foreign investment, economic growth and avoid an effective free commercial competition.
Keywords: competition; foreign investment; tax law harmonization; state aid.
JEL Classification:K11, K23, K33.
Page 38 - Lecturer Cătălina Georgeta DINU
5. Forest Concession in Romania and BrazilAbstract:The Romanian Forestry Code regulates the principle of conserving the biodiversity of forest ecosystems, by inserting sustainable management measures: the establishment of protected natural areas, ecological reconstruction, regeneration and forest care. The concession contract is not, in itself, a way of sustainable forest management, as is the case in other countries. Thus, the objective of this study is to analyze the legislation specific to the forestry field from the perspective of the concession contract, by identifying regulations that would be an example of good practice. In this sense, we have identified the regulations in Brazil, given the measures that this country has partially managed to implement for the protection of forest lands, as a model that will be followed in the near future, by the Romanian legislator. The comparative method of the legislation of the two countries aims to determine the deficiencies of this law from the perspective of the impact that the conclusion of a forest concession contract may have on the concessioned property itself, as well as the way in which the public interest is respected. The identification of sustainable management criteria, according to which the exploitation of public or private forest land is assigned, is an essential element to be taken into account in the case of a concession, in order to develop legislative proposals to improve the legal framework by which the principle of conserving the biodiversity of forest ecosystems should be applied. A particularly useful aspect for further research would be to address the issue in terms of international investment law.
Keywords: forest concession, agreement, management, natural resource.
JEL Classification:K23, K33, K39
Page 49 -
6. FIDIC Standard Forms of Contracts or National Contracts in Public InvestmentAbstract:FIDIC standardized models have been the basis for international contracts specific to large-scale construction and installation works carried out mainly in the field of public investment. They have been a source of inspiration for national standard contracts which have gradually come to be used in the public works contracting process. With the appearance in 1959 of the first bilateral investment treaty2, FIDIC investor protection clauses began to be harmonized with existing international investment treatment standards in the body of investment treaties, as any type of investment is based on a contract concluded on the basis of the pre-existence of a protection and promotion treaty.
Keywords: FIDIC, engineer, supervisor, international investment, claim, arbitration, national contract.
JEL Classification:K11, K23, K33
Page 56 - Lawyer Silviu CONSTANTIN
7. Surviving and ICSID Award. Post-Award Remedies in ICSID Arbitration: A Perspective of Contracting State’s InterestAbstract:In the general prospect of globalization, investments have always been surrounded by problems that needed to be solved neutrally and impartially. In other words, the global commercial system always required a universally applicable, impartial and neutral judicial system that can be used for settling a dispute arising between nationals of different states or nationals and foreign countries. The following article aims to analyze the unique features of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) system and its autonomous nature. Specifically, the article will deal with the remedies provided by the international framework to the ICSID awards and the procedural steps that must be undertaken by the parties in order to access a specific remedy with a special emphasis on the most powerful remedy, which is the annulment of an award. Furthermore, the article will focus on the interlink between those remedies and the ones provided by the national law of a Contracting Party or other international non-ICSID law streams. While the vast majority of the international doctrine and case law address the situation of the investor, thus focusing on its interest, this article will mainly focus on the interests of the Contracting State in its capacity as respondent to defend against a claim arising from a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). Given that the legal framework in discussion is a highly specific one, the article will first address the ICSID convention and its final and binding nature. Further on, we will discuss the control mechanism comprising the specific remedies provided by the Convention. We will then proceed to tackle two of the most important postannulment issues and finally, turn our attention to comparison between ICSID and non-ICSID legal framework.
Keywords: ICSID Arbitration; post-award remedies; contracting state; interests; annulment; resubmission; delay enforcement; avoid enforcement.
JEL Classification:K11, K3
Page 67 - Phd. Cristina Elena POPA (TACHE)
8. Ranking of Treatment Standards in International InvestmentsAbstract:Representing the most comprehensive part, of particular importance for international investment law, treatment standards continue to generate a number of differentiations, for whose comprehension and approach is often required to analyze the starting elements that led to the emergence, by splitting, of this branch of law. The provisions on investors and investment treatment in treaty bodies are intended to prevent possible restrictive behavior of the host state government and to impose discipline on its governmental actions, and in order to achieve this objective, the treaties define a set of standards with which host states must comply in their attitude in legal relations with the investors and their investments. This study highlights the rank of treatment standards in international investments as a concept and not as a listing, being used in this context, comparative and quantitative methods, with some tangential elements of maieutics specific to the philosophy of law for the continuous evolution of the particular legal phenomenon.
Keywords: standard in investments, principles, international law, foreign investment.
JEL Classification:K11, K23, K33, E50
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