Organizational and legal structure of the World Trade Organization. The WTO and domestic legal systems. Regional integration agreements. The basic legal principles: non-discrimination (Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment and National Treatment), reciprocity and related general exceptions. Basic features of: Trade in goods, Non-tariff barriers to trade, Anti-dumping and subsidies, General Agreement on Trade in Services (G.A.T.S.), and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Settlement of disputes. New issues and new perspectives in WTO system.
The basic problems underlying conflict of jurisdictions and conflict of laws. Sources of Procedural and Private International Law. Conflict of Jurisdictions: jurisdiction in “transnational” cases, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments (Italian Law no. 218 of 31 May 1995; EU Regulation no. 1215/2012); international commercial arbitration (New York Convention of 10 June 1958 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards). Conflict of Laws – General Issues: structure and purpose of choice-of-law rules; connecting factors and their possible combinations; characterization; preliminary questions; renvoi; knowledge, interpretation and application of foreign law; non-unified foreign legal systems; public policy (“ordre public”); mandatory rules; the principle of reciprocity.
The law applicable to legal capacity and capacity to act. The law applicable to companies and legal entities. The law applicable to property and intellectual property rights. The EU uniform rules on the law applicable to contractual and non-contractual obligations (Regulation no. 593/2008 and Regulation no. 864/2007).