Law Commons^™

The New Social Contracts In International Supply Chains, David Snyder

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article considers, from legal, practical, moral, and policy perspectives, Model Contract Clauses (MCCs) to protect the human rights of workers in international supply chains. The product of the ABA Business Law Section Working Group to Draft Human Rights Protections in International Supply Contracts, the MCCs are an effort to provide companies with carefully researched and well-drafted clauses to incorporate human rights policies into supply contracts (purchase orders, master vendor agreements, and the like). The Article discusses the impetus, goals, and strategies of the MCCs and explains the paradigm of the corporate, operational, and political landscape for which they are …

Global Networks And The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The importance of networks and the power of exponential growth within networks have become much more apparent to the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Article addresses the topic of global legal profession networks. The introductory section provides information about our global economy and society that helps explain why global legal profession networks are valuable. It argues that global networks are beneficial for clients, lawyers, and other legal services stakeholders.

After introducing some of the scientific literature about networks in general and legal profession networks specifically, Section II identifies ways in which lawyers participate in global legal …

Global Networks And The Legal Profession, Laurel S. Terry

Faculty Scholarly Works

The importance of networks and the power of exponential growth within networks have become much more apparent to the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Article addresses the topic of global legal profession networks. The introductory section provides information about our global economy and society that helps explain why global legal profession networks are valuable. It argues that global networks are beneficial for clients, lawyers, and other legal services stakeholders.

After introducing some of the scientific literature about networks in general and legal profession networks specifically, Section II identifies ways in which lawyers participate in global legal …

Borders Rules, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

International political borders have historically performed one overriding function: the delimitation of a state’s territorial jurisdiction, but today they are sites of intense security scrutiny and law enforcement. Traditionally they were created to secure peace through territorial independence of political units. Today borders face new pressures from heightened human mobility, economic interdependence (legal and illicit), and perceived challenges from a host of nonstate threats. Research has only begun to reveal what some of these changes mean for the governance of interstate borders. The problems surrounding international borders today go well-beyond traditional delineation and delimitation. These problems call for active forms …

Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There are two paradigms through which to view trade law and policy within the American constitutional system. One paradigm sees trade law and policy as quintessentially about domestic economic policy. Institutionally, under the domestic economics paradigm, trade law falls within the province of Congress, which has legion Article I authorities over commercial matters. The second paradigm sees trade law as fundamentally about America’s relationship with foreign countries. Institutionally, under the foreign affairs paradigm, trade law is the province of the President, who speaks for the United States in foreign affairs. While both paradigms have operated throughout American history, the domestic …

Global Standards For Securities Holding Infrastructures: A Soft Law/Fintech Model For Reform, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

Intermediaries such as stockbrokers and banks are ubiquitous in global securities markets, playing essential roles in markets, including trading, settling trades, and post-settlement holding of securities. This essay focuses in particular on the roles of intermediaries in securities holding systems. It proposes an IOSCO-led “soft-law-to-hard-law” approach to the development of Global Standards for reforms to these holding systems. States would be expected to adopt “hard law” reforms through statutory and regulatory adjustments to securities holding systems. The reforms would embrace not only important standards of a functional and regulatory nature, but also holistic standards relating to the private law, insolvency …

From Venetian Glass To Contemporary Intellectual Property: Revisiting Tailored Patent Regimes (Book Review), Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

This piece reviews Stefania Fusco's “Murano Glass Vase" and "Lessons from the Past." In Murano Glass Vase, Fusco recounts the history of the glassmaking industry in Venice, framing it as the natural experiment from which the patent system sprang into the world. Fusco emphasizes the mix of exclusionary rights and trade secrecy that formed the backbone of Venetian innovation policy against the backdrop of a heavily regulated and protectionist economy. In “Lessons from the Past,” Fusco draws on original research performed at the Venetian State Archives to further the Murano narrative by looking at how the Venetian government fueled an …

The Past, Present And Future Of The Cisg (And Other Uniform Commercial Code Law Initiatives), Harry Flechtner

Articles

As the keynote speaker of the Spring 2019 CISG Conference, Harry M. Flechtner, Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, candidly shares his perspectives on the development and progress of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) through the years. He begins with his initial introduction to the convention and then reflects upon several important issues and challenges facing the CISG, particularly involving uniform international law initiatives. Professor Flechtner looks hard at what's working and what's not and with a critical eye he draws attention to crucial matters yet to be resolved. While his perspective is light …

The Cisg: Applicable Law And Applicable Forums, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Despite being in effect for over thirty years, a debate continues on whether the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) has been a success. With 89 Contracting States, it clearly is widely accepted. At the same time, empirical studies show that private parties regularly opt out of its application. It has served as a model for domestic sales law, and as an important educational tool. But has it been a success? In this article I consider that question, and suggests that the scorecard is not yet complete; and that it will perhaps take significantly …

Corporations And Sustainability, Beate Sjåfjell, Christopher Bruner

Scholarly Works

This chapter introduces the Handbook, providing an overview of its aims and structure, as well as the core research questions that the contributions to it collectively address. It discusses sustainability-related problems associated with the legal form of the corporation, and provides background on state-of-the-art research in natural sciences and other relevant fields that inform our understanding of sustainability. It concludes with specific research questions and a presentation of the Handbook’s structure.

Corporations As Semi-States, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

When Ebola came to West Africa in 2014, Liberia could not cope. The State’s already fragile public health infrastructure was largely ineffective in responding to the illness and preventing its spread. And, the World Health Organization’s support was slow and stilted. By contrast, Firestone, a tire company that operates a vast rubber plantation in Liberia and runs its own hospital for 80,000 employees, family dependents, and persons in neighboring localities, responded to the virus much more effectively.

This Article uses Firestone’s Ebola response as an entry point to study a phenomenon too frequently overlooked. Many for-profit firms that maintain operations …

Forgotten Statutes: Trade Law's Domestic (Re)Turn, Kathleen Claussen

Articles

Since the first half of the twentieth century, the U.S. Congress has increasingly delegated its authority over tariffs to the U.S. president. Some of these statutes permit private actors to petition for tariff relief. Some also permit the president to initiate an investigation and subsequently to take trade-related or other action when certain criteria are met. Since the 1990s, however, a robust multilateral trading system has required the United States and others to resolve disputes over trade measures in Geneva, rather than through unilateral policy steps under these tariff authorities. In a stark departure from this movement away from unilateral …

The Casualty Of Investor Protection In Times Of Economic Crisis, Kathleen Claussen

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Law And Politics Of Socially Inclusive Trade, Timothy Meyer

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

American ambivalence toward international institutions is nothing new. In his farewell address, George Washington famously warned against foreign entanglements. After World War I, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, leaving the United States outside the formal post-war order it helped establish and neutering the new League of Nations. Throughout the late twentieth century, the United States refused to ratify multilateral agreements ranging from the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to a host of human rights agreements. Nor did the dawn of the twenty-first century change the …

The Vital Role Of The Wto Appellate Body In The Promotion Of Rule Of Law And International Cooperation: A Case Study, Padideh Ala'i

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Trade And The Separation Of Powers, Timothy Meyer, Ganesh Sitaraman

Faculty Scholarship

There are two paradigms through which to view trade law and policy within the American constitutional system. One paradigm sees trade law and policy as quintessentially about domestic economic policy. Institutionally, under the domestic economics paradigm, trade law falls within the province of Congress, which has legion Article I powers over commercial matters. The second paradigm sees trade law as fundamentally about America’s relationship with foreign countries. Institutionally, under the foreign affairs paradigm, trade law is the province of the President, who speaks for the United States in foreign affairs. While both paradigms have operated throughout American history, the domestic …

Analyzing The Trump Administration's International Trade Strategy, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Impacts Of Investment Treaties On Health And Human Rights, Gus Van Harten

Articles & Book Chapters

While investment treaties could help protect health and promote human rights, they are rather often used as a means to discourage governments from taking action. The treaties allow foreign investors to initiate investor-state dispute settlement (or ISDS) proceedings against states for their legislative, executive, administrative, and judicial decisions at any level. Thus, they provide a powerful tool for “foreign” investors to frustrate state action in virtually any area, including health and human rights. This article describes how ISDS provisions have impacted health-related decision- making by states and, in so doing, weakened their abilities to fulfill their human rights obligations.

Wto Dispute Settlement: Can We Go Back Again?, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

The world's twenty-year experiment with a rule-based international trading order is most likely ending. Trade wars are raging again for the first time in two decades as World Trade Organization (WTO) members unilaterally impose and counterimpose sanctions. In Geneva, the WTO Appellate Body, whose existence is essential to the functioning of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), is on a trajectory to shut down in December 2020. For all the fireworks, however, many commentators retain an optimism that the recent events will be a passing phase and that the world will return to a more law-oriented trading system after the …

Developing Countries And International Economic Law: The Case Of Burma, Vincent R. Johnson

Faculty Articles

Roughly a quarter of a century ago, developing countries, in large numbers, signed on to the 1994 revision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade3 ("GKTT 1994") and to membership in its umbrella institution, the World Trade Organization ("WTO"). Notwithstanding their erstwhile reluctance to do business with and compete against developed countries that in many instances had been colonial oppressors, they took on substantial obligations under the WTO agreements. Developing countries did so, in part, because they feared being left behind economically in a world where free trade prospered.

The Law And Politics Of Socially Inclusive Trade, Timothy Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

World Trade And Investment Law In A Time Of Crisis: Distribution, Development And Social Protection, David M. Trubek, Alvaro Santos, Chantal Thomas

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

World trade and investment law is in crisis: new and progressive ideas are needed. Rules that facilitated globalization and supported global economic growth are being challenged. A system of global governance that once seemed secure is now at risk as the US ignores the rules while developing countries struggle to escape restrictions. Some want to tear global institutions and agreements down while others try desperately to maintain the status quo. Rejecting both options, we convened a group of trade and investment law experts from 10 countries South and North who have proposed ideas for a new world trade and investment …