Law Commons^™

Trade Openness And Antitrust Law, Anu Bradford, Adam S. Chilton

Faculty Scholarship

Openness to international trade and adoption of antitrust laws can both curb anti-competitive behavior. But scholars have long debated the relationship between the two. Some argue that greater trade openness makes antitrust unnecessary, while others contend that antitrust laws are still needed to realize the benefits of trade liberalization. Data limitations have made this debate largely theoretical to date. We study the relationship between trade and antitrust empirically using new data on antitrust laws and enforcement activities. We find that trade openness and stringency of antitrust laws are positively correlated from 1950 to 2010 overall, but the positive correlation disappears …

Reimagining Trade Agreements For Workers: Lessons From The Usmca, Alvaro Santos

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A backlash against the post-Cold War order of liberal globalization has taken hold in the rich North Atlantic countries. Concerns about wages, working conditions, and economic opportunity are central to the critique of international trade agreements of the last three decades. While labor rights have progressively been included in trade agreements, they have done little to reshape workers’ well-being and workplace conditions. The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) may signal a pivot to a new model requiring reforms of domestic labor law and other issues important to workers. However, there is much more to be done to rebalance the power …

Inmates For Rent, Sovereignty For Sale: The Global Prison Market, Benjamin Levin

Publications

In 2009, Belgium and the Netherlands announced a deal to send approximately 500 Belgian inmates to Dutch prisons, in exchange for an annual payment of £26 million. The arrangement was unprecedented, but justified as beneficial to both nations: Belgium had too many prisoners and not enough prisons, whereas the Netherlands had too many prisons and not enough prisoners. The deal has yet to be replicated, nor has it triggered sustained criticism or received significant scholarly treatment. This Article aims to fill this void by examining the exchange and its possible implications for a global market in prisoners and prison space. …

The International Sugar Trade And Sustainable Development: Curtailing The Sugar Rush, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Divide: An Alternative Approach To International Labor Rights After The Battle Of Seattle, Stephen F. Diamond

Pepperdine Law Review

The massive protest by labor, human rights, and environmental activists at the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in late 1999 was a singular event in global trade politics. It represented a major setback for the proponents of free trade and for the "globalization" process itself. It reflected, and has now influenced, the contours of American domestic politics as well. At the heart of the Seattle events was a new coalition between trade unions, led by the American AFL-CIO, and a wide range of protest groups and non-governmental organizations. This new coalition represents a potent force but …

Architectural Digest For International Trade And Labor Law: Regional Free Trade Agreements And Minimum Criteria For Enforceable Social Clauses, Marley S. Weiss

Marley S. Weiss

Until the advent of binding “social clauses” in free trade arrangements, and incorporation of stronger social rights in the European Community treaties, the rapid widening and deepening of international commercial integration proceeded largely separate from international labor rights obligations. Inclusion of a “social clause” in a trade agreement ensures that the parties´ international labor rights commitments have equal dignity and binding force with their trade obligations. The threat of economic sanction for non-observance of labor commitments akin to the penalties for trade rule violations also may provide some “teeth” to induce compliance, unlike the lack of economic sanctions for violation …

The New Politics Of Linkage: India's Opposition To The Worker's Rights Clause, Kevin Kolben

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article examines why India has opposed a World Trade Organization (WTO) workers' rights clause, and calls for a new way of thinking about international institutions and the link between trade and labor rights. Many labor rights supporters argue that labor rights principles should be integrated into the WTO, either via the addition of a workers' rights clause or through a 'judicial" reading of labor rights values into the existing WTO framework. But India has led a large block of developing countries in opposing any link between labor rights and the WTO. This opposition has been based primarily on economic …

Labor As Property: Guestworkers, International Trade, And The Democracy Deficit, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

In the 1914 Clayton Act, Congress declared: "The labor of a human being is not a commodity or an article of commerce." The practical reason for this section of the Clayton Act was to exempt collusion in labor negotiations from antitrust liability. The law also gave effect to the rejection of the commodification of human labor. Since the passage of the Clayton Act, developments in law and society have chipped away at the law's symbolic anti-commodification message. This paper examines the commodification of labor in the international trade and guestworker debates. Historically, the concept of "comparative advantage" in international trade …

Global Economic Forces And Individual Labor Rights: An Uneasy Coexistence, Alice De Jonge

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Workers’ Rights as Human Rights edited by James A. Gross. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. 272pp.

and

International Labor Standards: Globalization, Trade, and Public Policy edited by Robert J. Flanagan and William B. Gould IV. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003. 275pp.

Should The World Trade Organization Incorporate Labor And Environmental Standards, Chantal Thomas

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Global Labor Rights And The Alien Tort Claims Act, Sarah H. Cleveland

Faculty Scholarship

Are labor rights human rights? Are some worker rights so fundamental that must be respected by all nations, and all corporations, under all circumstances? If so, who has the authority to define such rights, and how should they be enforced? What is the effect on the global economy of enforcing international worker rights? These are some of the questions confronted by the authors of Human Rights, Labor Rights, and International Trade, a compilation of essays by an international group of scholars, labor rights activists, and corporate executives addressing contemporary topics in the dialectic among labor, trade, and human rights.

The Environmental Implications Of A North American Free Trade Agreement, James P. Duffy Iii

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Labor Force Recomposition And Industrial Restructuring In Electronics: Implications For Free Trade, M. Patricia Fernandez-Kelly

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The North American Free Trade Agreement: The Sale Of U.S. Industry To The Lowest Bidder, William Cunningham, Segundo Mercado-Liorens

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Economists' Assessments Of The Likely Employment And Wage Effects Of The North American Free Trade Agreement, William E. Spriggs, James Stanford

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Right To Unionize In The United States, Canada, And Mexico: A Comparative Assessment, David L. Gregory

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

North American Free Trade And Labor Issues: Accomplishments And Challenges, Shellyn G. Mccaffrey

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Strangers In A Strange Land: Foreign Compulsion And The Extraterritorial Application Of United States Employment Law, Michael A. Jr. Warner

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The increasingly interdependent nature of the world economy has made commonplace the overseas employment of United States citizens by United States multinational corporations. When an American company employs a United States citizen in a foreign country questions arise as to what extent the United States may regulate employment activity taking place outside of United States territorial boundaries. Historically, principles of territoriality and nationality have constrained the ability of a sovereign state to prescribe conduct occurring outside of its boundaries. Under traditional principles of jurisdiction, employee relations fell predominantly under the control of the local authorities where the person or persons …

The Strange New World Of United States Export Controls Under The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Joel B. Harris, Jeffrey P. Bialos

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article examines whether the President's reauthorization of the Regulations is within the scope of the authority provided by IEEPA and explores the potential long term consequences of "life under IEEPA" for the United States system of export and boycott-related controls.

Section I analyzes whether the President's emergency powers under the IEEPA permit the maintenance of regulations originally promulgated under a statute that has since lapsed (i.e. the EAA). The Article demonstrates that when Congress promulgated the IEEPA, Congress expressly evinced its intent to give the President broad emergency authority to regulate exports and boycott-related practices during periods of the …