Commercial Trade Lawyer
International Investment Lawyer
International Regulatory Lawyer
There are many legal considerations associated with interactions between businesses. Even simple transactions such as a contract for the sale of goods can be complicated by differing legal systems in the countries involved. The issues are even more complex when dealing with international capital investments, especially if they involve technology transfer and intellectual property issues. Compliance with international treaties is another consideration. Lawyers who specialize in international law advise clients and prepare agreements in all of these areas. They are employed by a wide range of organizations including buyers, sellers, logistics providers, intermediaries, banks and government agencies.
A growing number of international lawyers are hired by international organizations to develop and enforce international agreements. They include organizations devoted to trade, such as the World Trade Organization and the commissions established under the NAFTA. They also include United Nations agencies that are working against drug trafficking, money laundering and war crimes.
Many international lawyers specialize in such areas as maritime law, international arbitration law, trade law, air, sea and space law, and patent law. While these occupations require different experience, in general they involve similar qualifications, skills and aptitudes.
There is also a wide range of opportunities open to paralegals, who support the work of international lawyers. Their work is similar to that of other paralegals. They generally have a community college diploma and they usually get into international trade work by working for a lawyer engaged in an international practice.
Trends
A number of trends are affecting the nature of international legal work, and the skills needed by successful practitioners. The globalization of business, reduced trade barriers, deregulation and privatization have combined to create many new opportunities in World markets. But many of the countries involved have only limited exposure to the free market system. Business practices and legal structures are evolving as they gain experience. International lawyers therefore must be able to anticipate problems and create contingency arrangements in situations where there are often few precedents to guide them.
The globalization process has been advanced by the implementation of a number of new or expanded trade agreements. As the scope of these agreements has expanded, many traditional business practices have been effectively outlawed. However, without precedent-setting decisions from international regulatory bodies, some of them have continued unabated, leading to ongoing disputes. International lawyers are needed to identify issues of non-compliance and to resolve them.
Another consequence of the globalization process has been a surge in the number of mergers and acquisitions, as multinational corporations scramble to stay competitive under new rules. Every day, companies are divided into separate entities, merged with other corporations, or bought out by competitors. International lawyers are called upon to negotiate and execute increasingly complicated deals.
The global trend towards privatization of public infrastructure is another trend creating new demands for international lawyers. Infrastructure projects tend to be very large, and sometimes too risky even for the largest corporations. In response, construction and engineering companies are combining their resources to form consortia, often with the participation of equipment suppliers and investors. These consortia often undertake the projects using complex financing schemes that were once considered unconventional. Putting all of this together can be a major challenge.
Commercial Trade Lawyers negotiate agreements and prepare associated legal documents to carry on trade in goods and services. They ensure that these agreements are enforceable in all of the countries involved in the transaction, and may also specify international arbitration procedures in case of a disagreement.
These agreements set out the conditions of the transaction, including the terms of payment, the mode of shipping, the allocation of risk and the requirements for timely performance of each party’s responsibilities. The trade lawyer is also expected to anticipate, and provide for, issues associated with the transfer of title and intellectual property protection, as well as compliance with international treaties and agreements.
Commercial Trade Lawyers also play a role in lodging or resolving complaints of unfair trading practices. This is a growing field as the scope of international trade agreements continues to expand.
Qualifications
Commercial Trade Lawyers required a Bachelor of Law degree, preferably with a specialty in international law. Many practitioners also have an MBA.
Lawyers who offer legal advice to clients on a fee-for-service basis must be a member of the bar in the jurisdiction where they practice. Corporate lawyers are not necessarily members of the bar. In some cases, lawyers may become qualified in both jurisdictions involved in the transactions, but more often they work with counterparts in the other country.
Language training is an asset but not necessarily required for many international law positions.
Skills and Knowledge
Commercial Trade Lawyers require detailed knowledge of the laws, regulations and international agreements affecting international trade in general, and detailed knowledge of the field that they specialize in. For example, lawyers dealing with international trade in services would need in-depth knowledge of immigration laws in each of the countries involved, whereas this would not be essential for other trade lawyers. All trade lawyers must be familiar with international trade agreements affecting the countries they deal with, as well as the related dispute resolution mechanisms.
Commercial Trade Lawyers need a solid understanding of litigation practices in different countries and the use of international arbitration. Negotiating skills are essential, and these lawyers also require the ability to adapt their negotiating styles to suit different cultural environments.
Knowledge of the principles of political science and international business practices is a major asset. This knowledge may be acquired through formal training or through on-the-job experience.
Aptitudes
Legal work in general appeals to individuals who have the ability to pay close attention to detail, and who enjoy discovering new ways of resolving legal problems. International trade law has the added challenges of working with people from other cultures and discovering ways of resolving differences between different legal systems. Some International Trade Lawyers travel extensively.
International Investment Lawyer
International Investment Lawyers specialize in negotiating deals for World direct investment and preparing the contracts to put those agreements into action. Direct investment involves specific physical assets in other countries, as opposed to stocks and other securities. They may be in private practice or they may be employed by companies that make substantial ongoing investments in other countries.
US companies invest in other countries to acquire existing production or distribution facilities, to create “Greenfield” facilities, and to form partnerships, joint ventures and various forms of strategic alliance. Handling mergers and acquisitions in particular is a rapidly growing field.
Project finance is another important specialty within this field. Many countries are in the process of implementing privatization policies and are seeking private investors to develop infrastructure projects involving water, sewage, energy, environmental control and transportation facilities. Financing for these projects can be complex, and often includes Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) or Build-Lease-Transfer (BLT) schemes that involve government guarantees for privately-raised finance. The developers of these projects are often consortia of companies seeking shares of the construction and consulting work.
Qualifications
International Investment Lawyers require a Bachelor of Law degree, preferably with a specialty in international law. Many practitioners also have an MBA.
Lawyers who offer legal advice to clients on a fee-for-service basis must be a member of the bar in the jurisdiction where they practice. Corporate lawyers are not necessarily members of the bar. In some cases, lawyers may become qualified in countries where investments are located, but more often they work with counterparts in the host country.
Language training is an asset but not necessarily required for many international law positions.
Skills and Knowledge
International Investment Lawyers require detailed knowledge of the laws, regulations and international agreements affecting international capital flows and World investment. They must be familiar with restrictions on World currency transactions, World ownership of land, and the repatriation of profits. They should also have an understanding of international tax treaties.
They must be familiar with international trade agreements protecting investors from unreasonable seizure of assets. They need a solid understanding of litigation practices in the countries where they operate, the use of international arbitration, and dispute resolution mechanisms under international treaties. Negotiating skills are essential, and these lawyers also require the ability to adapt their negotiating styles to suit different cultural environments.
Knowledge of the principles of political science and the international business practices is a major asset. This knowledge may be acquired through formal training or through on-the-job experience.
Aptitudes
Legal work in general appeals to individuals who have the ability to pay close attention to detail, and who enjoy discovering new ways of resolving legal problems. International investment law has the added challenges of working with people from other cultures and discovering ways of resolving differences between different legal systems. International Investment Lawyers travel extensively.
International Regulatory Lawyer
The growth in international regulation in the past few years has created a demand for international lawyers familiar with regulatory issues. These jobs are found in private practice, in government, and in the many international agencies responsible for overseeing these regulations. These agencies include the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Telecommunications Union, the International Labour Organization, and the International War Crimes Tribunal (part of the World Court in the Hague). All of these organizations have seen a sharp increase in the size and complexity of the regulations which they oversee, because of increased worries about health and food safety, concerns about airworthiness and aviation security, attempts to impose international labour standards, or the increasingly complex set of international trade rules administered by bodies like the WTO, NAFTA and other regional trade organizations.
Since the international regulatory regime is so diverse, and covers so many different topics, it is not possible to generalize about duties International Regulatory Lawyers carry out, or precisely what the requirements for these jobs are. The description below is representative of a wide variety of jobs in the regulatory field.
Qualifications
In general, regulatory lawyers working in the international field are required to hold an advanced degree in law, supplemented by significant studies in international regulatory law and several years as a legal practitioner. A recent job advertisement for the World Trade Organization, Office of Legal Affairs, specified these qualifications plus at least ten years of relevant practical experience in trade law as well as knowledge of the economic issues underlying trade disputes that are likely to come before the WTO.
A similar advertisement for the International Labour Organization, dealing with labour law and labour standards rather than trade law, specified similar general educational requirements, with university training in industrial relations and several years of experience in labour law and/or labour relations at the national or international level. For a similar job at UNCTAD, which deals with competition policy, a preferred background, in addition to law, is a university degree in economics, with an emphasis on competition policy, plus several years in a national competition authority or international agency dealing with similar issues.
Skills and Aptitudes
For most international regulatory agencies, fluency one of English or French, including an ability to write accurately, concisely and quickly, and a good working knowledge of the other, is necessary. Knowledge of an additional language is generally regarded as a significant asset. Since most regulatory agencies must deal with detailed matters, attention to detail is an important asset for jobs of this type.