Law Commons^™

The Title Vii Tug-Of-War: Application Of U.S. Employment Discrimination Law Extraterritorially, Latoya S. Brown

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Companies around the world increasingly are engaging in cross-border business transactions. Globalization is a must if companies want to continue to be competitive in the marketplace--indeed it is an inevitable reality. However, in the midst of this reality is another reality: the legal implications of establishing operations abroad. Transnational expansion introduces companies to an interesting game of tug-of-war in which companies may find themselves torn between compliance with U.S. law and compliance with the laws of the host country. This Note discusses this tug-of-war in the context of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Over 15 years …

Recent Development: Amenability Of Foreign Corporations To United States Employment Discrimination Laws, Kevin C. Tyra

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

As the Linskey court noted, the existence of employment exemption provisions in over thirty commercial treaties, if liberally construed, would create a loophole in Title VII enforcement. Given the ever-increasing number of United States employees of foreign-owned corporations, liberal treaty constructions could decrease the scope of Title VII.

Nevertheless, the effect on international commerce must be considered. Although equal employment opportunity is a laudable goal, this goal may conflict with the values of other cultures, as it did with the culturally-based organization and management philosophy of the C. Itoh Co. A more prudent approach to the problem of subsidiaries might …