U.S. – EU Trade in Genetically Modified Organisms

The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) Context

By Elizabeth D’Agostino
Elizabeth D’Agostino is a third-year law student at Albany Law School. She was born and raised in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and received her B.A. in Political Science from Union College in Schenectady N.Y.  While at Union College, she received honors for her senior thesis: Agricultural Policy In America: The Rise of Industrial Farms and the Emergence of Alternative Farming (on file with Shaffer Library, Union College), and graduated magna cum laude in 2012.
Liz currently serves as an Executive Editor for Notes and Comments for the Albany Law Review and will join the Albany office of Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC upon graduation.
After spending a semester in Galway, Ireland in 2011, Ms. D’Agostino developed an interest in comparative politics, which expanded into an interest in comparative international law.  Additionally, Ms. D’Agostino has done extensive research on the social, political and health impacts of Genetically Modified foods. This paper is a result of blending the two interests and was prepared for Professor Halewood’s course in International Trade Law.

Recently, negotiations for the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership have intensified with a large focus on the agricultural portion of the proposed agreement. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a potential trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, currently in negotiation phase that aims to remove trade barriers and create uniformity in technical regulations between the two “like-minded” superpowers.

While trade between the European Union and United States is historically strong, one area of trade that has remained minimal is the agricultural sector. Arguably, the current reason for this lag in agricultural trade is due to the two nation-state’s differing approaches toward Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

This paper will discuss the fundamental differences in the international trade policies of the United States and the European Union pertaining to GMOs in the context of the TTIP agreement negotiations. It will also pose some predictions as to the potential progress and outcome of the large-scale trade agreement.

Biotechnology is a sufficient enough portion of the agreement that it could hold up negotiations entirely and potentially kill the agreement.  However, given what appear to be some very recent concessions on the part of the European Union, there is hope that a “watered down” version of the biotechnology provisions will pass for the sake of achieving implementation of the entire TTIP agreement.
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To read the paper, open HERE.

Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards in the United States and the European Union

Where Are They Now?

By Mark Apostolos
Mark Apostolos is a 2013 cum laude graduate of Albany Law School. He graduated from Muhlenberg College where he studied political science and minored in business administration. In law school, he was the Treasurer of the Health Law Society and a Senior Editor for the Government Law Review. He also worked as a research assistant for Professor Elizabeth Renuart, an intern at the Health Law Clinic, and a clerk for United States District Court Judge Mae A. D’Agostino. He was a summer associate at Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo P.C. in New York City, where he currently is working.
Mark prepared this paper for Prof. Alexandra Harrington’s course in International Organizations, Fall of 2012.

Automobile emissions standards have long been regulated in the United States and other countries throughout the world. Although these countries all have had similar goals in mind, their laws and regulations have emitted dissimilar ways of addressing them. These differing regulations have run parallel with the auto manufactures' development and manufacture of different vehicles for diverse regions of the world.

This paper explores and traces the differences between the history and framework upon which the United States’ and the European Union’s emissions regulations systems work. The purpose is to determine whether these emissions regulations, with other concerns aside, have had an impact on the automobile industry in these two regions.
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To read the paper, open HERE.

Why Should Treaty Violations Matter:

If Somebody Else Will Pay for Them?

by Yannick Adler
Yannick Adler is a third year student at Albany Law School and graduate of Bielefeld University in Germany, where he majored in Economics and minored in German Law. He also holds an MBA from Union Graduate College.
Before attending law school, Yannick worked for a mid-cap corporation in an accounting capacity; he also spent a year working with disabled children at a school in Bielefeld.
Yannick is currently serving as the Executive Editor of the Albany Law Journal of Science and Technology. During law school he interned for the New York State Office of General Services and Bogdan, Lasky and Kopley, a local firm. After law school, he plans to return to Germany.
This paper was prepared for Prof. Harrington's International Organizations class.

The recent sovereign debt crisis within the European Union has caused several regulatory responses.  Among other measures the Union created (by treaty) two instruments called European Financial Stability Facility and European Stability Mechanism.

This paper will show how the European Union has set up this framework.   It will also show how this framework (or specifically the two instruments) violates the establishing treaties of the European Union and domestic constitutional provisions at the example of Germany and its recent decision to ratify the European Stability Mechanism.

This paper also includes a short note considering the mixing of fiscal and monetary policies within the European Union framework, and how these acts can become toxic to the government debt markets.
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To read the paper, open HERE.