Law Commons^™

Strategic Delegation, Discretion, And Deference: Explaining The Comparative Law Of Administrative Review, Jud Mathews, Nuno M. Garoupa

Journal Articles

This paper offers a theory to explain cross-national variation in administrative law doctrines and practices. Administrative law regimes vary along three primary dimensions: the scope of delegation to agencies, agencies’ exercise of discretion, and judicial practices of deference to agencies. Working with a principal-agent framework, we show how cross-national differences in institutions’ capacities and the environments they face encourage the adoption of divergent strategies that lead to a variety of distinct, stable, equilibrium outcomes. We apply our model to explain patterns of administrative law in the United States, Germany, France, and Commonwealth jurisdictions.

When Bad Guys Are Wearing White Hats, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

Allegations of ethical misconduct by lawyers have all but completely overshadowed the substantive claims in the Chevron case. While both sides have been accused of flagrant wrongdoing, the charges against plaintiffs’ counsel appear to have captured more headlines and garnered more attention. The primary reason why the focus seems lopsided is that plaintiffs’ counsel were presumed to be the ones wearing white hats in this epic drama. This essay postulates that this seeming irony is not simply an example of personal ethical lapse, but in part tied to larger reasons why ethical violations are an occupational hazard for plaintiffs’ counsel …

International Activity And Domestic Law, Adam I. Muchmore

Journal Articles

This invited essay explores the ways States use their domestic laws to regulate activities that cross national borders. Domestic-law enforcement decisions play an underappreciated role in the development of international regulatory policy, particularly in situations where the enforcing State's power to apply its law extraterritorially is not contested. Collective action problems suggest there will be an undersupply of enforcement decisions that promote global welfare and an oversupply of enforcement decisions that promote national welfare. These collective action problems may be mitigated in part by government networks and other forms of regulatory cooperation.

From Institutional Misalignments To Socially Sustainable Governance: The Guiding Principles For The Implementation Of The United Nations Protect, Respect And Remedy And The Construction Of Inter-Systemic Global Governance, Larry Cata Backer

Journal Articles

Once upon a time, and for a very short time, there was something that people in authority, and those who manage collective memory, considered a stable system of political and economic organization. It was grounded on a complex division of authority between states, economic entities and social collectives. Contemporary economic globalization has destabilized this traditional system. Corporations are no longer completely controlled by the states that chartered them or within complex enterprises, even by those in which they operate. Social collectives now operate to change the political cultures that affect the public policy of states and the economic behavior of …

Private Actors And Public Governance Beyond The State: The Multinational Corporation, The Financial Stability Board And The Global Governance Order, Larry Cata Backer

Journal Articles

Transnational corporations are at the center of extraordinary and complex governance systems that are developing outside the state and international public organizations, and beyond the conventionally legitimating framework of the forms of domestic or international hard law. Though these systems are sometimes recognized as autonomous and authoritative among its members, they are neither isolated from each other nor from the states with which they come into contact. Together these systems may begin to suggest a new template for networked governance beyond the state, but one in which public and private actors are integrated stakeholders. This provides the source of the …

On The Evolution Of The United Nations’ 'Protect-Respect-Remedy' Project: The State, The Corporation And Human Rights In A Global Governance Context, Larry Cata Backer

Journal Articles

The advent of contemporary economic globalization has substantially altered the regulatory environment in which economic enterprises operate. Once assumed to be creatures of the states that recognized and regulated their existence, economic enterprises today are increasingly capable of arranging their activities beyond the regulatory scope of any state or groups of states. That gap between operational and regulatory capacity has produced a sustained reaction at the national and international levels. States have sought to extend their power over corporations beyond their borders. International organizations have sought to develop supra national legal governance frameworks. This paper examines one of the more …

Commercial Peace And Political Competition In The Crosshairs Of International Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

This article examines the mixed effect of arbitration upon the generation of international law norms; in particular, how arbitration can generate private law norms so effectively and yet still face strong resistance in public international law processes and controversies. The work of arbitration for international commercial litigation has been nothing less than spectacular. In both the private international and domestic civil contexts, arbitration has provided viable remedial solutions and functional adjudication when the law was either nonexistent or incapacitated. It has supplied a workable and adaptable trial system, which-on the international side-could also generate substantive legal norms. Arbitration thereby has …

The Arrival Of The "Have-Nots" In International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

Much has been written about the have-nots in domestic litigation and domestic arbitration, with an apparent assumption that their fate was mainly a domestic affair. In recent years, however, internet commerce has brought consumers to the international market, an increasingly globalized workforce has generated a class of international employees, and the link between international trade and human rights has revealed a host of victims. The arrival of these 'have-nots' in international arbitration means that previously latent questions about international arbitration's integrity as a system and role as a mechanism for transnational regulatory governance have been brought to the fore.

Using …

Transparency In International Commercial Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

Scholars have long been making the case for expanding transparency in the international commercial arbitration system, but recently these proposals have taken on a greater sense of urgency and an apparent willingness to forcibly impose transparency reforms on unwilling parties. These new transparency advocates exhort the general public's stakehold in many issues being arbitrated, which they contend necessitates transparency reforms, including compulsory publication of international commercial arbitration awards.

In this symposium essay, I begin by developing a definition of transparency in the adjucatory setting, and conceptually distinguishing from other concepts, like "public access" and "disclosure," which are often improperly treated …

Regulating International Arbitrators: A Functional Approach To Developing Standards Of Conduct, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

Some scholars have protested that arbitrators are subject to less exacting regulation than barbers and taxidermists. The real problem with international arbitrators, however, is not that they are subject to less regulation, but that no one agrees about how they should be regulated. The primary reason for judicial and scholarly disagreement is that, instead of a coherent theory, analysis of arbitrator conduct erroneously relies on a misleading judicial referent and a methodologic failure to separate conduct standards (meaning those norms or rules that guide arbitrators' professional conduct) from enforcement standards (meaning those narrow grounds under which an arbitral award can …

Context And Institutional Structure In Attorney Regulation: Constructing An Enforcement Regime For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

The question that looms large over the future of international arbitration is: How much should states yield to the international arbitration system? This Article attempts to answer the question as it applies to the specific context of regulating attorney conduct.

Fit And Function In Legal Ethics: Developing A Code Of Conduct For International Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Journal Articles

In this Article, I develop a methodology for prescribing the normative content of a code of ethics for international arbitration, and in a forthcoming companion article, I propose integrated mechanisms for making those norms both binding and enforceable. In making these proposals, I reject the classical conception of legal ethics as a purely deontological product derived from first principles. I argue, instead, that ethics derive from the interrelational functional role of advocates in an adjudicatory system, and that ethical regulation must correlate with the structural operations of the system. The fit between ethics and function, I will demonstrate, not only …

The Ballad Of Transborder Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

International commercial arbitration (ICA) is many things positive. Because business transactions cannot take place without a functional system of adjudication,ICA has enabled parties to engage in and pursue international commerce. As a result, it has had an enormous impact upon the international practice of law, the structuring of a de facto international legal system, and the development of a substantive world law of commerce. In a word, ICA has been a vital engine in the creation of a transborder rule of law. Furthering this design, the arbitral "method"has even been applied to the unruly political problems that attend international trade …

Introduction - Denver Journal Of International Law And Policy, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The reconciliation of national law with a transborder standard is at the heart of the European enterprise to create an integrated legal process. Such reconciliation is also necessary to establish a unified political community with common core values. The various cases that are analyzed in this issue address critical questions of law and policy, and demonstrate the court’s progress in elaborating a communitarian practice in the various subject areas.

In the cases that are studied, the ECJ rendered preliminary rulings on previously unresolved issues of Community law. The ECJ has the power under Article 177 ofthe EC Treaty to issue …

Debating The Proper Role Of National Law Under The New York Convention, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

One of the many consequences of the progressive development of globalization apparently has been to incite a vigorous debate among leading members of the international arbitral community about the role of national law in implementing the enforcement regime of the New York Arbitration Convention (Convention). The debate was provoked by federal court rulings in two recent cases: Chromalloy Aeroservices v. Arab Republic of Egypt (Chromalloy) and Alghanim & Sons v. Toys"R" Us (Toys "R" Us). Prior to these opinions, there appeared to have been an implicit consensus in the international community regarding the "anational"character of …

The Role Of Arbitration In Resolving Transnational Disputes: A Survey Of Trends In The People’S Republic Of China, Catherine A. Rogers, Frederick Brown

Journal Articles

The purpose of this Essay is to provide investors and practitioners with a realistic overview of the strengths and limitations of international arbitration in China. Part I of this Essay provides some general comments about the economic, social, and cultural reasons why arbitration is a popular choice among both international investors and Chinese nationals. Part I concludes that arbitration can only provide a partial solution to the ills of China’s legal system. Part II examines how the observations in Part I manifest themselves in recent developments affecting arbitration in China. Part III examines the range of efforts by foreign investors …

Cartesian Logic And Frontier Politics: French And American Concepts Of Arbitrability, Thomas E. Carbonneau, Francois Janson

Journal Articles

This comparative essay represents an attempt to introduce a measure of counterpoise in a growing and much-heralded development in the world law of arbitration. Recent decisional law in the United States, France, and other countries have challenged the strategic significance of the concept of arbitrability in the legal regulation of arbitration. The essay seeks, first, to clarify the function of arbitrability in the law of arbitration and, second, to argue against its judicial deconstruction in either the international or domestic context. The key objective of the analysis is to demonstrate the vital role of demarcation that arbitrability plays between state …

Tax Liability And Inarbitrability In International Commercial Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau, Andrew W. Sheldrick

Journal Articles

This essay engages in a narrow but crucial inquiry into the limits the inarbitrability defense may now impose upon the exercise of arbitral jurisdiction. While it is assumed that matters relating directly to status and capacity, testamentary dispositions, and title to immovable property fall outside the jurisdictional reach of international arbitrators, the question becomes whether any national regulatory laws, such as tax laws, benefit from the same status of inviolability.

Introduction: The Internationalization Of Law And Legal Practice, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The Eason-Weinmann Colloquium entitled "The Internationalization of Law and Legal Practice," held in March 1988, addressed the challenges posed to conventional legal practice and rules of law by the evolution of the international marketplace. In light of the increasingly international character of commercial transactions, could or should disputes in transnational business ventures be adjudicated exclusively within national processes and according to domestic strictures? Does the character of these transactions portend the creation of a new genre of lawyering? Are current academic curricula adapted to the molding of this new breed of lawyers? Is a functional international bar possible? Do we …

America And Other National Variations On The Theme Of International Commercial Arbitration, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

Despite attempts at harmonization through treaty relations and State participation in multilateral organizations, the international arena is a composite of unsettled and unsettling structures. The volatility of global politics and discordant national perceptions of legitimate lawful conduct constitute a precarious, usually unsuitable, basis for an international rule of law. Domestic concepts of legality rarely serve as adequate instruments for molding the character of international relations. The irreducible principle of national sovereignty makes the world community resistant to the adoption of universal juridical standards and consecrates the fragmentation of national self-interest as the ultimate source of legality among nation-states. This article …

Transnational Law-Making: Assessing The Impact Of The Vienna Convention And The Viability Of Arbitral Adjudication, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

Questions concerning the future orientation of the process are more pressing and demand a definition of the international mission and role of arbitral adjudication. Nations share the perception that national economies are no longer autonomous, that they must function within a larger global framework. The question then becomes not whether a uniform international law of sales is needed, but rather how it is to be achieved. The transnational preeminence that arbitration has gained as a remedial mechanism makes it a likely vehicle for elaborating a common law of international contracts.

This article assesses the impact of the Vienna Convention upon …

The Exuberant Pathway To Quixiotic Internationalism: Assessing The Folly Of Mitsubishi, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The writing on international commercial arbitration often is replete with statements affirming the necessity and advocating the progression of the institution. Indeed, the transnational consensus on commercial arbitration is exceptional - a rare example of viable cohesion in the fragmented arena of international affairs. The unifying spirit of the 1958 New York Arbitration Convention, the uniformity of approach among national courts to the implementation of the Convention, and national legislation supportive of the emerging international consensus on arbitration attest to a willingness to eradicate parochial concerns, to respond to felt needs, and to achieve functional international cooperation.

The United States …

Rendering Arbitral Awards With Reasons: The Elaboration Of Common Law Of International Transactions, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

With the growth of international trade, arbitration has emerged as the preferred remedy for resolving private international commercial disputes. In fact, among major Western legal systems such as those of England, the United States and France, statutory and decisional law developments indicate a nearly complete acceptance of international arbitral adjudication. This recognition of arbitral procedure and the enforcement of awards, which are given uniform legal recognition and enforcement by domestic legal systems, either as provisions in international conventions or as principles of national statutory or decisional law. These rules, in effect, represent an international consensus on arbitration and constitute a …

Terrorist Acts – Crimes Or Political Infractions? An Appraisal Of Recent French Extradition Cases, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

This article examines the progression of French jurisprudence on the extradition of transnational terrorists, focusing upon the issue of whether terrorist acts can be considered legally to be political offenses and hence exempt from extradition. The analysis of this issue integrates French judicial decisions into the general context of international practice – beginning with an assessment of extradition procedures and proceeding to a discussion of the special problems raised by the application of the political offense exception. A survey of international extradition decisional law reveals that the tribunals of various countries have elaborated a series of tests by which to …

The New Article 310 Of The French Civil Code For International Divorce Actions, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

The variety and complexity of the legal issues that can confront a French court in an international divorce action may best be illustrated by a description of the basic factual pattern of, and the initial arguments advanced in, some of the more typical cases:

1. French National Spouse v. Foreign National Spouse
2. The Validity of a Prior Foreign Divorce Decree
3. Foreign National Spouses With Immigrant Status in France
4. Spouses of Foreign Nationality with Domiciliary Status in France

Although disparate, the facts of these four hypothetical cases point to and are unified by two salient legal issues: one jurisdictional in nature and …

The Provisional Arrest And Subsequent Release Of Abu Daoud By French Authorities, Thomas E. Carbonneau

Journal Articles

On January 7, 1977, Abu Daoud entered France as a member of an official delegation sent to Paris by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). A day or so later, French police detained an then arrested him at the request of the West German and Israeli Governments. Offficials of both governments announced forthcoming requests for his extradition as a suspected organizer of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. This chain of events set the stage for the most recent case illustrating the political and legal obstacles which mitigate against the extradition and eventual prosecution and punishment of alleged transnational terrorists.

The 1976 Terrorism Amendment To The Foreign Assistance Act Of 1961, Thomas E. Carbonneau, Richard Lillich

Journal Articles

Key to any successful attempt to combat international terrorism is the elimination of sanctuary and safe-haven for terrorists. The United States has pressed consistently for international agreements – the anti-hijacking conventions and the Internationally Protected Persons Convention being examples – requiring States either to prosecute or extradite international terrorists found within their borders. Because its efforts to establish a "basic extradite-or-prosecute obligation" have not met with general success, the U.S. has had to consider, among other alternatives, various unilateral responses to help curb terrorist activities. One obvious response, drawing upon a wealth of domestic precedents, involves the possible invocation of …