Law Commons^™

Mechanisms For Consultation And Free, Prior And Informed Consent In The Negotiation Of Investment Contracts, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Cordes

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Investor-state contracts are regularly used in low- and middle-income countries to grant concessions for land-based and natural resource investments, such as agricultural, extractive industry, forestry, or renewable energy projects. These contracts are rarely negotiated in the presence of, or with meaningful input from, the people who risk being adversely affected by the project. This practice will usually risk violating requirements for meaningful consultation, and, where applicable, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), and is particularly concerning when the investor-state contract gives the investor company rights to lands or resources over which local communities have legitimate claims.

This article explores how …

Private Prisons, Private Governance: Essay On Developments In Private-Sector Resistance To Privatized Immigration Detention, Danielle C. Jefferis

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

A Lesson From Goodfellas: Why Current Illinois Consideration Based Pension Reform Proposals Still Fail, Lari A. Dierks

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Reconciling Agency Fee Doctrine, The First Amendment, And The Modern Public Sector Union, Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones

Northwestern University Law Review

Few institutions have done more to improve working conditions for the middle class than labor unions. Their efforts, of course, cost money. To fund union activities, thousands of collective bargaining agreements across the nation have long included provisions permitting employers to require employees to pay “fair share” or “agency” fees. In public unions—when the employer is the government—this arrangement creates tension between two important values: the First Amendment’s protection against compelled expression and the collective benefits of worker representation. When confronted with this tension forty years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the Supreme Court struck an …

Empirical Studies Of Contract, Zev J. Eigen

Faculty Working Papers

Since the mid 2000s, a cottage industry has slowly blossomed of empirical research dedicated to advancing accounts of contracts "on the books"--accounting for what contracts tend to purportedly obligate signers to do, and contracts "in action"--accounting for how contracting parties tend to behave. This article reviews this literature, which spans several disciplines, most notably law, economics, and management, identifying eight categories of empirical questions in common across all disciplines, highlighting key findings, points of consensus, and noting areas most pressingly in need of additional research.

A Moral Contractual Approach To Labor Law Reform: A Template For Using Ethical Principles To Regulate Behavior Where Law Failed To Do So Effectively, Zev J. Eigen, David S. Sherwyn

Faculty Working Papers

If laws cease to work as they should or as intended, legislators and scholars propose new laws to replace or amend them. This paper posits an alternative—offering regulated parties the opportunity to contractually bind themselves to behave ethically. The perfect test-case for this proposal is labor law, because (1) labor law has not been amended for decades, (2) proposals to amend it have failed for political reasons, and are focused on union election win rates, and less on the election process itself, (3) it is an area of law already statutorily regulating parties' reciprocal contractual obligations, and (4) moral means …

Chapter 13 Of The United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement: Has It Created An Open And Effective Government Procurement Dispute Resolution System?, Charles W. Levesque

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Chapter 13 creates new and additional opportunities for businesses on both sides of the Canadian-United States border to bid on federal government contracts on opposite sides of the border. In order to implement the Free Trade Agreement and the provisions of Chapter 13, the Canadian federal government created a new administrative agency, the Procurement Review Board of Canada (the Board), to adjudicate government procurement disputes. The Board is the focus of this article. Because the Board is charged with adjudicating contract disputes arising under Chapter 13 of the FTA, its decisions provide an insight into whether Chapter 13 is creating …