Middle East Studieshttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/99612024-03-28T12:37:49Z2024-03-28T12:37:49ZFighting Iran with Trade SanctionsBhala, Rajhttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/167352019-04-12T14:39:45Z2014-01-01T00:00:00ZFighting Iran with Trade Sanctions
Bhala, Raj
How do American trade sanctions against Iran work? Have they worked? Championed by six American Presidents and sixteen Sessions of Congress, these sanctions against Iran have spanned nearly forty years. In that time, the bilateral relationship between the United States and Iran has been dreadful, with each side fixated on monstrosities perpetrated by the other: the 1953 coup d’état of a democratically-elected Iranian leader orchestrated by the United States; the subsequent American support for human rights abuses by the Peacock Throne; and the November 1979 seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran by Iranian militants and subsequent state-sponsored terrorist atrocities.
To Iran, America became the “Great Satan” to be confronted wherever and whenever possible. To the United States, Iran perpetrated “evil” and was to be targeted for sanctions. American trade sanctions against Iran thus became, and continue to be, an important part of international trade law. Around the globe, practice in this field is touched by the dysfunctional relationship between the “Great Satan” and “Evil” Āyatollāhs.
The practical significance does not mean that the technical rules, or policy justifications for those rules, are easily or well understood. The rules have become more intricate as they have evolved over nearly forty years. The policies for them have been subject to polarizing debates. Accordingly, four issues are addressed herein:
(1) What transactions with Iran are prohibited?
(2) What are the penalties for violating those prohibitions?
(3) What is the logic for the regime of prohibitions and sanctions?
(4) Have the sanctions worked?
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZDiversity within Unity: Import Laws of Islamic Countries on Haram (Forbidden) ProductsBhala, RajKeating, Shannonhttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/147842019-04-12T14:47:26Z2014-05-15T00:00:00ZDiversity within Unity: Import Laws of Islamic Countries on Haram (Forbidden) Products
Bhala, Raj; Keating, Shannon
How do Muslim countries treat importation of goods that Islamic Law (Sharı’a) considers
Haram (forbidden), namely, alcoholic beverages and pork products? Why do they do so? What
might Muslim countries do, in accordance with the rules of the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO), to alter their policies?
Based on painstaking empirical research of the WTO protocols of accession and schedules of tariff
concessions of every Islamic country in the world, this article answers each of these three questions, which may be summarized in aggregate as “diversity within unity.” All of the pertinent countries are members of both the WTO and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), and a majority of their populations profess adherence to one of the world’s great faiths–Islam. Therein is their unity.
2014-05-15T00:00:00ZTrans-Pacific Partnership or Trampling Poor Partners? A Tentative Critical ReviewBhala, Rajhttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/136322019-04-12T14:37:58Z2014-04-01T00:00:00ZTrans-Pacific Partnership or Trampling Poor Partners? A Tentative Critical Review
Bhala, Raj
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could be the most economically and politically significant free trade agreement (FTA) in the Asia-Pacific region. Conceived in 2006 by just four small countries, it now embraces 12 that account for 40 percent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It looks to be a 21st century accord in terms of the breadth and depth of trade barriers it identifies and disciplines.
But, with plenty of likely exceptions, TPP appears to fall short of a ‘free’ trade accord in the Neo-Classical Economic sense. It seems to manage trade in sensitive sectors. Worse yet, negotiated in an almost shamefully non-transparent manner, TPP may well advance an American corporate agenda, with insufficient regard to the most pressing matter in the Asia-Pacific region: poverty alleviation.
2014-04-01T00:00:00ZFirst Generation Indian External Sector Reforms in ContextBhala, Rajhttps://hdl.handle.net/1808/130452019-04-12T14:33:16Z2013-01-01T00:00:00ZFirst Generation Indian External Sector Reforms in Context
Bhala, Raj
India's first generation external sector reforms are a fascinating case study of emergence from a post-Independence socialist-style economy to the world’s largest free market democracy. Part I of this article reviews the Indian license Raj system that prevailed after the 1947 Partition of India until the decade of the 20th century. Part I explains the hallmarks and inefficiencies of that system. Part II discusses the reforms that began in earnest in 1991.
Part II focuses on reforms in the external sector, foreign direct investment, and the financial sector. Unfortunately, those reforms lost momentum by the early 2000s.
Thus, Part III analyses what happened, namely, backsliding on tariff cuts, persistent tariff escalations, and difficulties in the banking sector and in attracting FDI. Part III points out that India fared poorly as a result relative to its neighbours on the Sub-Continent.
Part IV concludes that the economic challenges India still faces in pushing ahead with reforms so that it remains not just the world's biggest free market democracy, but so that it becomes the most exciting and dynamic one, are largely political. Get the politics right, and India's future is bright.
Full-text available at SSRN. See link in this record
2013-01-01T00:00:00Z