General Principles of Business and Economic Law

This book offers a brisk survey of the relationship between law and economic activity. Head provides a condensed overview of ¿business and economic law¿¿that is, the network of norms governing business organizations, commercial sales, banking, insurance, employment, business competition, intellectual property rights, environmental protection, bankruptcy, accounting, tax, and more¿that is sophisticated but straightforward enough to be understood by non-experts. Naturally, the detailed rules on these topics vary from one country to another. Despite this diversity, certain basic concepts of business and economic law do hold true in most countries. This book identifies and explains those general principles, and it does so in a lively narrative with helpful illustrations and references to further reading.

John Head is a professor of international and comparative law at the University of Kansas. He holds an English law degree from Oxford University (1977) and a US law degree from the University of Virginia (1979). Before starting an academic career, he worked in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton (1980-1983), at the Asian Development Bank in Manila (1983-1988), and at the International Monetary Fund in Washington (1988-1990). Both his teaching and his published works concentrate on the areas of international business and finance, public international law, and comparative law, with a special focus on dynastic Chinese law. In addition to the books published by Carolina Academic Press (see below), he also has published numerous articles and the following other books: "The Future of the Global Economic Organizations: An Evaluation of Criticisms Leveled at the IMF, the Multilateral Development Banks, and the WTO" (Transnational, 2005); "A General Introduction to Economic Law" (2d ed., Wisconsin, 2006); "The Asian Development Bank" (Kluwer, 2002); "Preventing Financial Chaos: An International Guide to Legal Rules and Operational Procedures for Handling Insolvent Banks" (Kluwer, 2000, co-authored with Robert Lee Ramsey). Head has taught in Austria, China, Hong Kong, Jordan, Mexico, Mongolia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom and has undertaken special assignments in numerous locations in Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East for international financial institutions and development agencies.