Why the card catalog—a “paper machine” with rearrangeable elements—can be regarded as a precursor of the computer.Today on almost every desk in every office sits a computer. Eighty years ago, desktops were equipped with a nonelectronic data processing machine: a card file. In Paper Machines, Markus Krajewski traces the evolution of this proto-computer of rearrangeable parts (file cards) that became ubiquitous in offices between the world wars.The s...

This book presents case studies on the human rights performance of state-owned enterprises from four Latin American and three European countries, as well as foreign investments by Chinese state-owned enterprises on these continents. State-owned enterprises are considered among some of the worst perpetrators of contamination and corporate human rights violations around the globe, both domestically and abroad. This volume examines whether companies implement the UN Guiding Principles on Busi...

This book addresses topical questions concerning the legal framework of trade in services, and assesses how these issues are dealt with in GATS and in selected preferential trade agreements. In addition, the chapters discuss whether the differences and similarities (if any) are evidence of greater coherence or greater divergence. The book combines the individual analyses to provide a more comprehensive picture of the current law on services trade liberalisation.A quarter of a centu...

A cutting†‘edge media history on a perennially fascinating topic, which attempts to answer the crucial question: Who is in charge, the servant or the master?†‹Though classic servants like the butler or the governess have largely vanished, the Internet is filled with servers: web, ftp, mail, and others perform their daily drudgery, going about their business noiselessly and unnoticed. Why then are current†‘day digital drudges called servers? Markus Krajewski explore...

This is the first book ever to assess comprehensively the impact of EU international agreements on services of general interest.Services of general interest remain high on the political and legal agenda of the European Union. However, the debates about the impact of EU law on services of general interest usually focus on internal market law such as the free movement of services, competition law, state aid rules and the law of public procurement. The external and international dimen...

Part one of Volume 4 (2013) of the European Yearbook of International Economic Law offers a special focus on recent developments in international competition policy and law. International competition law has only begun to emerge as a distinct subfield of international economic law in recent years, even though international agreements on competition co-operation date back to the 1970s. Competition law became a prominent subject of political and academic debates in the late 1990s when compet...

International rules on trade in services and intellectual property arenew additions to the multilateral trading system, but both have played an important role in the system since their entry. Accompanied by a detailed introduction, this volume contains essays which cover not only the law and jurisprudence of these topics but also the underlying economics and politics behind their incorporation into the multilateral system and continued prominence. The volume provides readers with a compreh...

International investment law is in transition. Whereas the prevailing mindset has always been the protection of the economic interests of individual investors, new developments in international investment law have brought about a paradigm shift. There is now more than ever before an interest in a more inclusive, transparent, and public regime. Shifting Paradigms in International Investment Law addresses these changes against the background of the UNCTAD framework to reform investm...

The EU has limited legislative competence in the field of social law. However, the Member States are increasingly modernizing social services and social (welfare) protection, attempting to make social services more efficient by increasingly looking to the market for the provision of such services. This policy move brings social services into the radar of EU law. The EU response to this sensitive issue has resulted in a piecemeal and fragmented approach towards the treatment of a new policy...

In 2014, the global economic system celebrates two anniversaries: Seventy years ago, on 22 July 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Articles of Agreement of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Worldbank) were adopted. Since then the global financial and monetary system underwent significant policy changes, but the institutional framework remained the same. More recently, twenty years ago, on...

The EU has only limited competence to regulate national health-care systems but recent developments have shown that health care is not immune from the effects of EU law. As Member States have increasingly experimented with new forms of funding and the delivery of health-care and social welfare services, health-care issues have not escaped scrutiny from the EU internal market and from competition and procurement rules. The market-oriented EU rules now affect these national experiments as pa...

The focus of volume 14 of the EYIEL is on “(Public) Procurement and Competition Law in European and International Economic Law”. It is testimony to the fact that areas of law originally perceived as purely economic are permeated by the challenges of society today and adapting to these by embracing innovation, promoting sustainability and social responsibility and including new values in their legal constitutions. Thus, the focus section provides a broad spectrum of contrib...