Law Commons^™

Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

My first visit to China, in 1994, was purely as a tourist, and came about almost by accident. In late September of that year I attended the XIV World Congress of the International Society for Labor Law and Social Security in Seoul, South Korea. In the second week of October I was scheduled to begin teaching a one-term course in American law as a visiting professor at Cambridge University in England. Despite my hazy notions of geography, I realized it made no sense to return to the United States for the intervening week. The obvious solution was to continue flying …

Are Workers Rights Human Rights And Would It Matter If They Were?, Richard Mcintyre

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops by J.S. Ross. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 396pp.

and

Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? by Kimberly Ann Elliott and Richard B. Freeman. Washington: Institute for International Economics, 2003. 175pp.

Flexibilization, Globalization, And Privatization: Three Challenges To Labour Rights In Our Time, Katherine V. W. Stone

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Three dynamics are coalescing to reshape labour relations in the twenty-first century in the United States: They are flexibilization, globalization, and privatization. Flexibilization refers to the changing work practices by which firms no longer use internal labour markets or implicitly promise employees lifetime job security, but rather seek flexible employment relations that permit them to increase or diminish their workforce, and reassign and redeploy employees with ease. Globalization refers to the increase in cross-border transactions in the production and marketing of goods and services that facilitates firm relocation to low labour cost countries. And privatization refers to the rise of …

Offshore Outsourcing And Workers Rights, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

No abstract provided.

Anti-Offshoring Legislation: The New Wave Of Protectionism- The Backlash Against Foreign Outsourcing Of American Service Jobs, Adam Mordecai

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.

Labor And Finance As Inevitably Transnational: Globalization Demands A Sophisticated And Transnational Lens, Katherine V.W. Stone, Timothy A. Canova, Claire Moore Dickerson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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.

The Importance Of Core Labor Rights In World Development, Jonathan P. Hiatt, Deborah Greenfield

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article discusses the meaning and significance of core labor standards and the importance of linking them to trade agreements. It explains why the "protectionist" label often attributed to such linkage efforts by their detractors is misleading, as the example of China illustrates, repression of labor rights constitutes a form of unfair competition which undermines efforts to create a more just and stable world economy.

Minimum Wages, Inequality, And Globalization, T. H. Gindling, Katherine Terrell

Michigan Journal of International Law

The authors argue in this paper that the institution of the minimum wage is also an important factor in explaining changes in earnings inequality in Costa Rica, and that it can be an important factor in many developing countries. This study is a departure from the literature on institutions and development, which tends to analyze the impact of a more generally defined set of institutions using data on a number of countries. In this paper the authors analyze detailed changes in one institution in one country, using panel data over time. They argue that it is important to understand how …

Teaching Adr In The Labor Field In China, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

The editors have asked us to be quite personal in our ruminations on the future of comparative labor law and policy. For me, over the past several years, the focus has been on China. My first visit to China in 1994, purely as a tourist, was almost by accident. In late September of that year I attended the XIV World Congress of the International Society for Labor Law and Social Security in Seoul, South Korea. In the second week of October, I was scheduled to begin teaching a oneterm course in American law as a visiting professor at Cambridge University …

Employer Beware? Enforcing Transnational Labor Standards In The United States Under The Alien Tort Claims Act, Sarah J. Adams-Schoen

Scholarly Works

The Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) arguably allows non-U.S. citizens to bring claims for violations of customary international law (CIL). Although CIL litigation typically embraces only egregious human rights violations, the scope of CIL actually encompasses all universally recognized rights, including some labor rights. This Comment explores the possibility that the ATCA may be used to litigate claims by non-U.S. citizens alleging violations of international labor rights. It concludes that the Act likely provides a vehicle for aggrieved employees to bring suit in U.S. court for violations of international labor standards. Finally, this Comment recognizes that the impact of ATCA …

Introduction And Symposium Overview: The Changing Labor Markets Of The Western Hemisphere: Labor Issues Relating To The Ftaa, Ann C. Hodges

Law Faculty Publications

In 1994, thirty-four countries in the Western Hemisphere met in Miami to begin negotiations designed to establish a comprehensive free trade agreement. The initial meeting led to a "Declaration of Principles" and a "Plan of Action" which committed the signatory countries to take steps toward open markets and free trade in the hemisphere. Subsequent meetings in 1998 and 2001 have moved the countries toward creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), with an expectation that the agreement will be in place by 2005.

Enslaved To Fashion: Corporations, Consumers, And The Campaign For Worker Rights In The Global Economy, George Demartino

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of Levi’s Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Global Marketplace by Karl Schoenberger. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000. 288pp.

Levi’s Children presents a sobering account of the tribulations of a transnational corporation with a heart trying its best to navigate honorably the polluted moral waters of the global economy. San Francisco-based Levi Strauss and Company, maker of the iconic Levi’s jeans and other apparel, sought to maintain a commitment to social responsibility in the face of intensifying financial pressures to do otherwise. Author Karl Schoenberger puts this account to good effect, illuminating the extraordinary …

Workers’ Rights: A Winding Road In The Trucking Dispute Between The United States And Mexico, Michael S. Plotkin

Richmond Journal of Global Law & Business

No abstract provided.

Labor Rights, Globalization And Institutions: The Role And Influence Of The Organization For Economic Cooperation And Development, James Salzman

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article has four sections. The first recounts the history of the OECD, from its creation as the overseer of the Marshall Plan to its current prominence as global economic analyst, and explains its operations. The second section explores its influence on the development of labor rights, examining the well-known OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, publications on trade and labor by the Employment, Labor and Social Affairs Directorate, and the events surrounding South Korea's accession to the OECD. Each of these activities, though quite different from one another (and, in combination, very different from the activities of other IGOs), provided …

To The Yukon And Beyond: Local Laborers In A Global Market, Katherine V.W. Stone

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the possibilities for effective protection of labor rights in the emerging global labor market. It explores existing forms of transnational labor regulation, including both hard regulation, i.e., regulation by state-centered institutions, and soft regulation, i.e., regulation through private actors responding to market forces. The author finds that existing regulatory approaches are inadequate to ensure that the global marketplace will offer adequate labor standards to its global workforce. She proposes new approaches to global labor regulation, approaches that blend hard and soft law by reshaping market forces and embedding them in a regulatory framework that is protective of …

The Globalization Of Baseball: Major League Baseball And The Mistreatment Of Latin American Baseball Talent, Arturo J. Marcano, David Fidler

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Reforming Labor Law For The New Century, Lance Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

The two articles that follow are the first published fruit of a conversation that was initiated in 1998 under the auspices of "Labor Law Reform for Developed Countries in the 21st Century," several years of conferences leading to the May 2000 Tokyo Conference of the International Industrial Relations Association. This project has had generous support from the Center for Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation and from the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law at Columbia Law School.

The participants have been labor law professors from Europe, Japan, and the United States. The group has focused its research and …

(Dis)Assembling Rights Of Women Workers Along The Global Assembly Line: Human Rights And The Garment Industry Symposium: Political Lawyering: Conversations On Progressive Social Change, Laura Ho, Catherine Powell, Leti Volpp

Faculty Scholarship

Some observers would like to explain away sweatshops as immigrants exploiting other immigrants, as "cultural, or as the importation of a form of exploitation that normally does not happen here but occurs elsewhere, in the "Third World." While the public was shocked by the discovery at El Monte, garment workers and garment worker advocates have for years been describing abuses in the garment industry and have ascribed responsibility for such abuses to manufacturers and retailers who control the industry. Sweatshops, like the one in El Monte, are a home-grown problem with peculiarly American roots. Since the inception of the garment …

Labor And The Global Economy: Four Approaches To Transnational Labor Regulation, Katherine Van Wezel Stone

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article examines the challenge to domestic labor regulation posed by the increasingly international economic and legal order. Part I analyzes the several ways in which increased global economic integration creates problems for labor. These problems include a decline in union bargaining power, a race-to-the-bottom in labor standards, and a weakening of labor's role as political actor. Part II identifies four approaches, or models, for transnational labor regulation that have emerged in the Western world in the past twenty years. These are: (1) preemptive legislation; (2) harmonization; (3) cross-border monitoring; and (4) extraterritorial jurisdiction. Part III explores the differences between …