Law Commons^™

Nuclear Chain Reaction: Why Economic Sanctions Are Not Worth The Public Costs, Nicholas C.W. Wolfe

Nicholas A Wolfe

International economic sanctions frequently violate human rights in targeted states and rarely achieve their objectives. However, many hail economic sanctions as an important nonviolent tool for coercing and persuading change. In November 2013, the Islamic Republic of Iran negotiated a temporary agreement with major world powers regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The United States’ media and politicians have repeatedly and incorrectly attributed Iran’s willingness to negotiate to the effectiveness of economic sanctions.

Politicians primarily focus on immediate domestic effects and enact sanctions without a thorough understanding of the long-term effects on the United States economy and the public within a targeted …

Governing For The Corporations: History And Analysis Of U.S. Promotion Of Foreign Investment, Michael R. Miller

Michael R Miller

This paper explores and analyzes U.S. government support for foreign investors, especially major oil companies.

Throughout the 20th Century the US government has repeatedly used its international political influence to benefit US corporate activities abroad. The US government and others assumed initially that this was in the larger interests of the United States because US companies would represent and promote the United States’ policy agenda.

However, US corporate activities abroad over the last century seem to indicate this assumption was flawed. In numerous examples, US corporations have either ignored or thwarted the stated interests of the US government. At first …

The Ciudades Modelo Project: Testing The Legality Of Paul Romer’S Charter Cities Concept By Analyzing The Constitutionality Of The Honduran Zones For Employment And Economic Development, Michael R. Miller

Michael R Miller

Over the last several years, the Honduran government has been aggressively advancing a "model cities" project that it argues will provide options for its citizens to escape the extreme violence in their country without migrating to the U.S. The model cities, which are formally called "Zones for Employment and Economic Development" ("ZEDEs"), are purported to be autonomously governed areas that will attract foreign investment and compete for residents by establishing safer communities and better managed institutions governed by the rule of law.

The ZEDEs trace their origin to a concept formulated by development economist Paul Romer, who proposed the idea …

Legal And Institutional Remedies For Middle East States Wishing To Develop And Increase Foreign Direct Investment, Griffin Weaver

Griffin Weaver

The cost to overhaul a legal system is astronomical. For example, before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s several states received billions of dollars in loans to help change their “legal systems” and make them more western friendly. A couple of these states were West Germany and Japan, which received roughly 1.5 billion and 2.4 billion USD in loans. Considering most of this money was given in the 1950’s, the value today is probably three times or more those amounts. Without this aid both states would have been unable to make the changes to their …

The Imf’S Reassessment Of Capital Controls After The 2008 Financial Crisis: Heresy Or Orthodoxy?, Philip J. Macfarlane

Philip J. MacFarlane

While the IMF allows countries to limit the flow of capital through the use of capital controls, it has since the 1980s discouraged this practice and instead promoted capital account liberalization as a means for developing countries to attract the foreign investment needed for economic growth. The 2008 financial crisis, however, prompted the IMF to reconsider this view and increasingly support the use of capital controls for countries that were vulnerable to the effects of volatile capital flows. In 2012, the IMF changed its official position on the use of capital controls from permitted but discouraged to accepted in certain …

Incorporating The Third Party Beneficiary Principle In Natural Resource Contracts, James T. Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

Third world citizens—parties who often have the most to lose in natural resource contracts between their governments and foreign investors—often have no voice in negotiations of the contracts and consequently have no remedy under contract law when harms occur or when the contracts are not properly enforced. The privity doctrine, which permits contract suits only by parties to the contract, bars these citizens from suing because they were not in privity with any of the contracting parties, despite that these contracts are generally made for the benefit of these citizens. However, some countries have adopted—and this Essay argues other countries …

The Implication Of The Icsid Convention, The Resurrection Of The ‘International Minimum Standard’ And The Theory Of Internationalization Of State Contracts In Investment Treaty Arbitration., Felix O. Okpe

Felix O. Okpe

Under international investment law, it is axiomatic that the potential for investment disputes is rife in the conduct of foreign investments in host States. This is often the case where foreign investors allege that an act or omission attributable to the host State negatively impacts the investor’s proprietary interests. The settlement of the envisaged investment disputes is more common where the host State is a developing country in the context of the ICSID Convention. As a result, what has become paramount in the arbitration of investment disputes is the protection of foreign investment in the host State. This way, the …

The Cost Of Doing Business In Asia: A Comparative Legal Study Of Environmental Regulations In The Emerging Markets Of Thailand, Malaysia, And Indonesia, Brooke R. Padgett

Brooke R. Padgett

Abstract: This article explores whether voluntary standards, customary law, or more binding bilateral investment treaties are best for corporations, the emerging markets of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and the environment itself. While corporations, markets, and the environment facially seem to have divergent priorities, environmental disasters are more costly after the fact than they are to prevent so in reality their priorities may not be so different after all. Some of the potential issues the paper will examine and address are big picture macro level such as fairness to future generations, intergenerational rights; the actual cost through questions of polluter pays, …

China's Role In Well-Known Marks Protection: It's Now Or Never...Or Dilution, Ava Farshidi

Ava Farshidi

Infringement over the transliteration, converting text to another script, of well-known marks is a major problem for foreign companies in China. If a multinational company does not create its own Chinese transliteration, the Chinese public may create one, which will ultimately affect the company’s ownership of the mark in a different language. Although China became a member of both the Paris Convention for the Protection of Intellectual Property (“Paris Convention”) and the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”), China has adopted laws that directly conflict with these international guidelines for well-known marks, which has paved the way …

Preventing Cold War: Militarization In The Southernmost Continent And The Antarctic Treaty System's Fading Effectiveness, Dillon A. Redding

Dillon A Redding

This note argues that the preservation of Antarctica for peaceful research and internationally cooperative activity as envisioned originally by the Antarctic Treaty in 1961 has gone unrealized amid growing international interest in the strategic advantages offered by Antarctica, including the possibility of large swathes of mineral deposits and optimal locations for satellite stations. Part 1 describes the motivations behind the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) and outlines the relevant provisions of the Antarctic Treaty. Part 2 examines the military advantages to a state presence in Antarctica and the ways in which the ATS allows for such a presence to be carried …

Racking Up The Money: A Solution To The Ongoing Battle Between Rico And The Revenue Rule, Kye C. Handy

Kye C Handy

The Revenue Rule, a common law rule from British court systems, prevents foreign countries from bringing claims in the United States to enforce or adjudicate tax claims that did not happen in the United States. The Supreme Court in Pasquantino v. United States held that Canada’s right to collect imported liquor taxes was not barred by the Revenue Rule. However, the Second Circuit in European Community v. RJR Nabisco Inc., ruled the European Union and Colombia could not recover lost tax money or enforcement costs from cigarette smuggling under RICO because of the Revenue Rule. The European Community petitioned the …

Us-China Trade Relations—Litigation In The Wto 2001–2014., Stuart Malawer

stuart malawer

No abstract provided.

Has The Cftc Gone Too Far In Trying To Keep The American Economy Safe From Cross-Border Swaps?, Gabriel Lau

Gabriel Lau

With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) in 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) received the daunting task regulating swap markets. Following two iterations of proposed guidance and comment periods, the CFTC released its finalized “Interpretive Guidance and Policy Statement Regarding Compliance with Certain Swap Regulations” (“Guidance”) on July 26, 2013. In the Guidance, the CFTC gives its interpretation and policy outlook for promulgating rules with respect to the regulation of cross-border swaps. This paper examines both the critiques of the Guidance, including issues of international comity and rule promulgation procedures, and …

International Legal Control Of Domestic Administrative Action, Joel P. Trachtman

Joel P Trachtman

International law increasingly is designed to constrain the regulatory activities of countries where these activities have external effects on other countries. While countries retain the right to regulate, it is a qualified right, with a number of restrictions under international trade, investment, finance, human rights, and other areas of international law. The restrictions are often nuanced: while maintaining maximum policy autonomy, countries agree to international legal rules that establish increasingly complex preconditions for national regulatory action. In some cases, preconditions are formulated so as to establish procedural, as distinguished from substantive, predicates for national action. These varying types of preconditions …

Behavioral International Law, Tomer Broude

Tomer Broude

Economic analysis and rational choice have in the last decade made significant inroads into the study of international law and institutions, relying upon standard assumptions of perfect rationality of states and decision-makers. This approach is inadequate, both empirically and in its tendency towards outdated formulations of political theory. This article presents an alternative behavioral approach that provides new hypotheses addressing problems in international law while introducing empirically grounded concepts of real, observed rationality. First, I address methodological objections to behavioral analysis of international law: the focus of behavioral research on the individual; the empirical foundations of behavioral economics; and behavioral …

Labor Rights And Free Trade; Social Development Parallel To Economic Development, Hassan Razavi

Hassan Razavi

The trade-based distributional policies have reinforced the issue of social standards in societies and the encroachment of free trade on other international standards particularly the labor standards has linked this matter with the issue of comparative advantage, thus opening the door for claims which are not made in good faith. This research studies the linkage of free trade and social standards under the WTO umbrella and based on justice theories, develop a framework in which the claims for both the protection of human rights and economic growth could be met by developing the idea of parallelism within the current regime …

The Depth Of The Trade In Services Agreement, Harold Godsoe

Harold Godsoe

The setting against which plurilateral negotiations toward a new Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) are taking place is frustration. Service liberalization from GATS to bilateral PTAs to the Doha round have proven difficult and/or ineffective. The glaring and unexamined question is: why? This paper examines the current trade literature for what is known about TISA to date and subjects that information to a feasibility analysis for trade in service agreements. My goal is to understand what went wrong in previous attempts to liberalize services and/or trade and, consequently, what might being going wrong in TISA, and how it might be …

Enforcement In A Regime Complex, Sergio Puig

Sergio Puig

Today’s international business environment is fundamentally different than that of fifty years ago. Traditional trade meant selling into one nation goods that were made in another; now trade is mostly about making things in multiple countries and selling them everywhere. Yet the two main branches of public international law that address international business—international trade law and international investment law—have their providence and continue to be viewed as two discrete, separate systems. Through case studies, this Article explores how trade and investment are converging, and the resulting difficulties governments and private interests face when international rules are enforced. The tasks of …

An International Organization's Identity Crisis, Sungjoon Cho

Sungjoon Cho

No abstract provided.

How The World Trade Community Operates: Norms And Discourse, Sungjoon Cho

Sungjoon Cho

No abstract provided.