In this month's interview, we ask the authors of World Trade Law in Practice (Markus Gehring, Marie-Claire Cordonnier Segger and Jarrod Hepburn), about the Doha negotiations, what to do if your client suspects there has been a breach of world trade law rules and the increasing focus on sustainability and climate change, among other topical questions.

03 Mar 2010 - World trade law
Q: What is world trade law in essence? In essence, world trade law involves the examination of trading relationships between countries.  The international principle of free trade requires international laws and rules that facilitate and liberalize trade in the global context. Q: International trade laws seem to be very complex. How can I tell where a world trade law solution might be applicable in my practice? In actuality, international trade law situations are not overly complicated. As a practitioner, when a client presents you with a scenario that involves jurisdictional issues and economic activities, you should at least briefly examine the possibility that international trade law might be involved at some level. View full interview

07 Jan 2010 - Best practice in international public procurement
- From reading the introduction to your book, you seem to be passionate about public procurement. What is it about the field that attracts you? I have practiced in this area of law for more than 15 years, and every day I find new challenges.  I am always fascinated by the conflict between private and public interests and how the actors involved -governments as much as contractors and suppliers - have to achieve their goals and find new ways to improve the systems available to them.  Every day, clients present different problems to solve and new aspects to consider. - What do you think the main impact of the financial crisis has been on government procurement? In many countries, the financial crisis has led to  ... View full interview

07 Dec 2009 - The global financial crisis
It is over a year now since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.  Why do you think Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail and what do you think was the impact of its collapse on the wider economy? It is hard to say why Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail by the US Treasury and Federal Reserve.  After all, both government agencies had a long track record of bailing out financial institutions in distress, including: • the 1984 bailout of Continental Illinois National Bank after the Penn Square lending excesses; • the 1995 bailout of Wall Street investors in Mexican government securities following the peso devaluation of December 1994; • the 1998 bailout of Long Term Capital Management and  ... View full interview

13 Nov 2009 - Business Families and Family Businesses
Why are business families important?   Family businesses are an essential part of the backbone of the UK economy.  They produce more than 30% of the national gross domestic product and account for more than 40% of private sector employment, which equates to 9.5 million jobs.  Sixty five percent of the 4.5 million private sector enterprises in the United Kingdom last year contributed £73 billion in taxes - 15% of the total tax revenue.  Finally, family firms have a turnover of more than £1 trillion - over double that of the private equity sector - and employ more people than all the FTSE companies combined.   But it is also about more than just the numbers. Family businesses traditionally  ... View full interview

12 Oct 2009 - Islamic Finance
What is sukuk? One of the most striking features of the recent growth in Islamic finance has been the development of the market for issuance of sukuk. This is the Shariah product used to access the capital markets and is generally, if erroneously, referred to as the 'Islamic bond'. Strictly speaking, a sukuk is not a debt product at all.  Rather, a sukuk is a certificate which represents a proportional beneficial ownership in the asset underlying an Islamic finance transaction and gives the sukuk holder a right to receive a pro rata portion of the income stream of the underlying transaction.    Another way of looking at it is to see the sukuk as a capital markets overlay to an underlying Islamic  ... View full interview

14 Jul 2009 - Derivatives: The Practitioner's View
It has been popular to blame derivatives for being a driver of the current financial crisis. What has in fact been their role?   Derivatives remain integral to the world financial system, and indeed almost 95 per cent. of the world's largest companies continue to use derivatives (even some of Warren Buffet's companies).  At the end of 2008, the notional amount of CDS contracts was $38 trillion; of equity derivatives $8.7 trillion; and of interest rate derivatives $403.1 trillion.  The derivatives which caused problems though, were actually (by notional amount) a tiny part of the overall market; for example  - credit default swaps referencing toxic mortgage backed securities did  ... View full interview