Law Commons^™

Managing The Rule Of Law In The Americas: An Empirical Portrait Of The Effects Of 15 Years Of Wto, Mercosul, And Nafta Dispute Resolution On Civil Society In Latin America, Stephen Joseph Powell, Ludmila Mendonça Lopes Ribeiro

Stephen Joseph Powell

The objective of this article is to analyze the effect of World Trade Organization (WTO), Common Market of the South (MERCOSUL), and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) disputes involving Latin American (LA) countries on perfection of the rule of law by LA governments.

Specifically, we examine the extent to which dispute settlement facilitates the strengthening by LA governments of human rights for their civil societies. Professor Powell previously has noted that trade and human rights are inextricably linked because trade rules weaken the ability of governments to promote sustainable development, to alleviate the widening gap between rich and poor, …

Should Or Must? Nature Of The Obligation Of States To Use Trade Instruments For The Advancement Of Environmental, Labor, And Other Human Rights, Stephen Powell

Stephen Joseph Powell

States have been careful to couch their human rights commitments in terms that avoid binding and measurable actions to ensure the human rights either of their own citizens or those in other countries. Despite the promise of a dozen U.N. treaties, states continue to equivocate as to measures necessary to meet critical individual needs. This essay argues that, nonetheless, the question whether economically powerful states may be held to human rights observance is not solely moral in nature. Instead, through a combination of treaties, custom, and historical facts, the human rights obligation of developed states has taken on penumbral legal …

Regional Economic Arrangements And The Rule Of Law In The Americas: The Human Rights Face Of Free Trade Agreements, Stephen Powell

Stephen Joseph Powell

In past studies, we explored the more visible and controversial linkages between international trade law and non-trade issues that span a broad range of vital interests we may collectively describe as human rights law. We have addressed the widespread criticism that international trade rules are insensitive to basic human rights and that globalization has done little with its enormous power to preserve exhaustible natural resources and otherwise promote sustainable development, to alleviate the gap between rich and poor, to encourage states to grant their citizens basic human rights contained in U.N. treaties, to resolve the often conflicting policies underlying essential …