Chapter Objectives
Structure Of The Chapter
Laws, rules, and standards
Issues
The political environment
The legal environment
Terms of access
Winds of change
Chapter Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Review Questions Answers
References
The legal/political aspect is very important in global marketing. "International law" can be defined as rules and principles that states and nations consider binding upon themselves. This raises two interesting characteristics of international law. The first is that "law" belongs to individual nations and international law only exists to the degree that individual nations are willing to relinquish their rights. The second is the lack of an adequate international judicial and administrative framework or a body of law which would form the basis of a truly comprehensive international legal system.
The international business is also subject to political decrees made by governments both in "home" and "host" countries. Home governments can apply pressure not to deal with disapproved parties. These measures may take the refusal to grant an export licence, or withdrawal of export guarantee cover. The host government may take measures like taxation, ownership controls, operating restrictions or expropriation.
Chapter Objectives
The objectives of this chapter are:
To give an understanding of the major factors which must be considered in the legal/political environment when planning to market globally
To describe the "Terms of Access" and show the importance of these as vital elements of facilitating trade
To give, in detail, a description of the main elements of the latest GATT Round
To show the importance of legal/political aspects in global marketing.
Structure Of The Chapter
The chapter begins by looking at the major factors which the marketer must consider in assessing vulnerability to the legal/political environment. It then goes on to describe in detail the