Law Commons^™

Investors As International Law Intermediaries: Using Shareholder Proposals To Enforce Human Rights, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

One of the biggest challenges with international law remains its enforcement. This challenge grows when it comes to enforcing international law norms against corporations and other business organizations. The United Nations Guiding Principles recognizes the “corporate responsibility to respect human rights,” which includes human rights due diligence practices that are adequate for “assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed.” Unfortunately, many corporations around the world are failing to implement adequate human rights due diligence practices in their supply chains. This inattention leads to significant harms for …

Improving Human Rights Compliance In Supply Chains, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

Corporations try to convince us that they are good global citizens: “brands take stands” by engaging in cause philanthropy; CEOs of prominent corporations tackle a variety of issues; and social values drive marketing strategies for goods and services. But despite this rhetoric, corporations regularly fall short in their conduct. This is especially true in supply chains where a number of human rights abuses frequently occur. One solution is for corporations to engage in meaningful human rights due diligence that involves monitoring human rights, reporting on social and environmental performance, undertaking impact assessments, and consulting with groups whose human rights they …

The Stewardship Of Trust In The Global Value Chain, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

Global governance has not yet caught up with the globalization of business. As a result, our headlines provide daily accounts of the extent and consequences of these "governance gaps." The ability of corporations to evade state control also contributes to an unusual, even frightening, phenomenon: corporations are governing like states. Some governance functions traditionally delivered by state actors are now increasingly undertaken by transnational corporations. One area that is experiencing this substitution is dispute resolution of human rights. Corporations and other business enterprises, individually or collectively, are creating a variety of grievance mechanisms to address human rights and other conflicts …

The Twilight Of The China's Decade?, Rett R. Ludwikowski

Scholarly Articles

The main goal of this article is to present to the European reader the implications of the crisis of the Chinese banking system which peaked in August 2015, and triggered a period of high volatility in the US. stockmarket. As a result, trade relations between China and the US. have deteriorated, which raises the question of whether the Chinese economic system will implode and contribute to the global crisis, or whether it can be controlled by Beijing?

The article assumes two things: that subsidies are at the core of US. criticism of Chinese trade priorities; and that to understand recent …

Reforming The Global Value Chain Through Transnational Private Regulation, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

In many industries, corporations have changed the organization of their production from a vertically integrated model to a model that is often characterized by outsourcing-shifting business activities to external parties -and offshoring, where production occurs at sites overseas. The global value chain (GVC) for an American corporation often involves several tiers of suppliers. One end of the GVC is often occupied by a multinational buyer (MNB), such as a large brand name corporation. At the opposite end of the value chain are the factories, farms, and other production sites that supply multinational corporations with their goods. This organization of production …

Apologies In The Marketplace, Kish Vinayagamoorthy

Scholarly Articles

In order to better appreciate the insufficiency of money in repairing relationships, Part I describes the benefits that an apology brings to the injured party, transgressor, and the broader community in which the parties belong. Part II explains the increasing significance of relationships to certain categories of commercial transactions and provides examples of the types of relational damage that a contractual breach can cause to these commercial relationships. Part III explains how the benefits previously described in Part I are applicable to repairing the types of commercial relational harm described in Part II. Given that relationships matter especially in transnational …

Germany's Basic Law And The Use Of Force, Russell A. Miller

Scholarly Articles

The German Basic Law's Regime for the use of force is evidence of and an explanation for the deep difference between Germany and the United States on security matters. It also might say something more grand about the power of law to constrain force.

Accountability For Property Crimes And Environmental War Crimes: Prosecution, Litigation, And Development, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Diamonds On The Souls Of Her Shoes: The Kimberly Process And The Morality Exception To Wto Restrictions, Karen E. Woody

Scholarly Articles

This Article analyzes the events predicating the Kimberley Process and examines the validity of the Kimberley Process in relation to international trade obligations. Part I describes the background of conflict diamonds and their role in African wars. The section outlines the need for regulation in the diamond industry and examines how other attempted measures at curbing the illicit diamond trade have fallen short. Part II details the Kimberley Process and its guidelines. This section analyzes the relevant U.S. legislation passed in 2003, the Clean Diamond Trade Act. Part II also suggests that because the Kimberley Process ("KP") is predicated upon …

Traditional Paradisms For The Causes Of War Applied To The International Trading System: Nation-State Institutions In A World Of Market-States, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

The first object of this paper, therefore, is to consider in very general terms the intellectual history of the study of the relation between trade and peace, using two key texts from the beginning and the end of the Cold War - first, Kenneth Waltz's "Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis" 3; and, second, Philip Bobbitt's "The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History.

The second part of this paper will argue that Waltz's normative commitments are revealed in the order of his presentation and Bobbitt's normative commitments are revealed in the ostensibly descriptive thesis …

International Antitrust At The Crossroads: The End Of Antitrust History Or The Clash Of Competition Policy Civlizations, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

This Review will suggest a theoretical explanation for the essentially pragmatic conclusion that the United States should continue to oppose negotiations at the WTO. This explanation has the virtue of drawing on the special quasi-constitutional role of antitrust policy in U.S. history, one that is in fact deeply connected to the political economy of U.S. federalism and which, therefore, leaves less room for U.S. acquiescence in the institutionalization of competition policy at the WTO than does even the pragmatic argument for continued U.S. opposition to multilateral and institutional approaches.

This argument draws on the continuing centrality of federalism as a …

The International Recognition Of Judgments: The Debate Between Private And Public Law Solutions, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

This article explores institutional alternatives for balancing the competing trade and non-trade concerns at the national and global levels in relation to the recognition and enforcement of judgments. It argues against a private international law convention of the kind that is currently being negotiated at the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and against quasi-constitutional and constitutional solutions, such as those employed by the European Union and the United States. Rather, the article argues that managing the tensions between trade and non-trade values and between state autonomy and globally established standards can best be achieved through a supplementary agreement in …

Wto And Un Law, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

This Article argues that the U.S. and EC views of the national security interests exceptions reflect competing conceptions of the WTO legal order. Under the first, the WTO is viewed as merely an agreement between states governing a limited issue area, the disciplining of protectionist policies, under which other issue areas are reserved to sovereign state decisionmaking or, alternatively, whatever other international institutions states have separately granted competence for management of the issue. Under this view, the United States might well argue that its Helms-Burton sanctions are outside the jurisdiction of the WTO and instead within the jurisdiction of the …

Preface: Symposium On Pacific Rim Trade, Geoffrey R. Watson

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Exports, Banking And Antitrust: The Export Trading Company Act: A Modest Tool For Export Promotion, George E. Garvey

Scholarly Articles

After discussing briefly some of the statute's economic implications and limitations, this article will analyze the more significant provisions of the Export Trading Company Act. The Act only recently has been implemented so there is insufficient experience or empirical basis for critiquing the performance of the enforcement agencies. It is not premature, however, to suggest that all administrative and enforcement policies should foster a limited role for government in the operation of export markets. Therefore, regulators empowered to exempt firms from potential antitrust liability should recognize the dual problems inherent in their regulatory activities: They must not impede the efficient …

The Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act Of 1981, George E. Garvey

Scholarly Articles

This article will explore the effects of the antitrust laws on international trade and the probable reasons for any adverse impact. It will then consider the primary alternative legislative proposal intended to remedy the perceived antitrust barrier to trade, the Export Trade Association Act of 1981. Finally, the article examines the responsiveness of the Antitrust Improvements Act to the problems and the potential hazards of an altered antitrust policy.