This book provides a comprehensive analysis of how EU state aid law is shaping the future of EU investment policy in a global context. It examines in detail how EU state aid policy and practice interact with the EU investment regime on the internal market and affect the external trade relations of the Member States and the EU alike. The debate this book engages in concerns competence, i.e., which body delineates the scope of state aid law and policy (now and in the future) when and where it intersects and collides with another distinct legal field: investment protection. Pursuing a doctrinal approach to the topic in the light of EU law and international law, the book analyses the interaction of the EU’s trade, state aid and investment policy. This is done by posing the following research question: How is EU state aid law shaping the future of EU investment policy in a global context? Further, the book puts forward three corresponding arguments. First, this influence can be seen in the EU’s incorporation of clauses promoting fair competition and state aid policy in international trade agreements. Second, EU state aid law and policy contributed to recent internal developments which led the Member States to terminate their bilateral agreements with each other (intra-EU BITs) by the end of 2019. Third, the EU has been working to replace the BITs between its Member States and third countries (extra-EU BITs) with its own trade agreements, which are aligned with EU legislation. This combined analysis of EU law and international law yields a number of interesting conclusions. The book addresses a highly topical and rapidly evolving area of EU law and international investment law. It is also the first book to provide a comprehensive approach to the interplay of state aid rules and EU investment policy internally and externally, i.e., within the EU and on a global scale. As such, it closes an important gap in the extant literature on international and EU law.

This book is for undergraduate and postgraduate students of EU law. It provides critical reflection by situating EU law in an unparalleled manner against its wider political and economic contexts and captures the significance of EU law by including contemporary topics that are not in traditional accounts of EU law.

Modern competition law was first employed by countries over one hundred years ago in order to address issues relating to restrictions of trade at the national level. Recent international economic integration has weakened the distinction between the domestic and the international in several fields of economic activity, and consequently the laws which regulate such activity, competition law included. Several attempts to address the paradox of adopting national competition rules to address international issues have been made at the international, regional and (lately) bilateral levels. This book discusses the international dimension of EU competition law, and examines the position taken by the EU in four distinct categories of international agreements which are devoted to competition or include competition provisions. In particular, it analyses the EU's position with regard to bilateral enforcement cooperation agreements, bilateral free trade agreements, plurilateral-regional agreements and the long negotiations for the adoption of a multilateral competition regime.

How globalized information networks can be used for strategic advantage Until recently, globalization was viewed, on balance, as an inherently good thing that would benefit people and societies nearly everywhere. Now there is growing concern that some countries will use their position in globalized networks to gain undue influence over other societies through their dominance of information and financial networks, a concept known as "weaponized interdependence." In exploring the conditions under which China, Russia, and the United States might be expected to weaponize control of information and manipulate the global economy, the contributors to this volume challenge scholars and practitioners to think differently about foreign economic policy, national security, and statecraft for the twenty-first century. The book addresses such questions as: What areas of the global economy are most vulnerable to unilateral control of information and financial networks? How sustainable is the use of weaponized interdependence? What are the possible responses from targeted actors? And how sustainable is the open global economy if weaponized interdependence becomes a default tool for managing international relations?

Impending technological advances will widen an adversary’s attack plane over the next decade. Visualizing what the future will hold, and what new threat vectors could emerge, is a task that traditional planning mechanisms struggle to accomplish given the wide range of potential issues. Understanding and preparing for the future operating environment is the basis of an analytical method known as Threatcasting. It is a method that gives researchers a structured way to envision and plan for risks ten years in the future. Threatcasting uses input from social science, technical research, cultural history, economics, trends, expert interviews, and even a little science fiction to recognize future threats and design potential futures. During this human-centric process, participants brainstorm what actions can be taken to identify, track, disrupt, mitigate, and recover from the possible threats. Specifically, groups explore how to transform the future they desire into reality while avoiding an undesired future. The Threatcasting method also exposes what events could happen that indicate the progression toward an increasingly possible threat landscape. This book begins with an overview of the Threatcasting method with examples and case studies to enhance the academic foundation. Along with end-of-chapter exercises to enhance the reader’s understanding of the concepts, there is also a full project where the reader can conduct a mock Threatcasting on the topic of “the next biological public health crisis.” The second half of the book is designed as a practitioner’s handbook. It has three separate chapters (based on the general size of the Threatcasting group) that walk the reader through how to apply the knowledge from Part I to conduct an actual Threatcasting activity. This book will be useful for a wide audience (from student to practitioner) and will hopefully promote new dialogues across communities and novel developments in the area.