Law Commons^™

Science And International Trade – Third Generation Scholarship, Jeffery Atik, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

No abstract provided.

The Transatlantic Gmo Dispute Against The European Communities: Some Preliminary Thoughts, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

Any day now, a World Trade Organization panel is expected to rule in a dispute between the U.S. and the EU concerning market access for genetically-engineered foods and crops. This piece, written before the release of the WTO panel's report, analyzes novel systemic issues concerning the impact of WTO law on regulatory design, at both the national and international levels, that are raised by this dispute. These include (1) the application of WTO disciplines to regulatory schemes that require prior governmental approval to protect the environment and public health from newly-introduced products and substances; (2) the role of precaution as …

The International Trade Regime And The Municipal Law Of Federal States: How Close A Fit?, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

No abstract provided.

The International Organization For Standardization: Private Voluntary Standards As Swords And Shields, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

Private voluntary standards such as the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO’s) 14000 series have played an increasingly important role in encouraging corporations to adopt more sustainable business models on their own initiative and not in direct response to governmentally mandated requirements. ISO standards have a number of benefits, including promoting international uniformity; elevating environmental issues within an enterprise; promoting international trade; and providing a minimal level of environmental performance in countries with less than adequate regulatory infrastructure. Concerns about ISO standards include the relationship to public regulation; and ISO 14001’s essentially procedural, as opposed to performance-based, character. International trade agreements …

The Role Of Science In The Uruguay Round And Nafta Trade Disciplines, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

The central theme of this article is the necessity for deference to decision-making processes of national regulatory authorities in the application of these new trade disciplines and the need for trade-based reviews of national regulatory measures to operate within clearly defined limits. Accordingly, this article first examines and summarizes the relevant texts, including the original 1947 GATT, the Uruguay Round, and the NAFTA texts on standards. Next, the article considers the role of science in the standard-setting process with reference to the copious literature on this topic. Finally, the article takes up the difficult question of the application of the …

Make Trade Rules Attuned To The Ecological Needs And Interests Of Future Generations: Cli Recommendation No. 15, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

This recommendation observes that international trade agreements as currently structured do not establish minimum standards so as to protect the climate for present and future generations. Accordingly, it advocates potential strategies that could be employed in future rounds of international trade negotiations to mobilize the international trade regime in the pursuit of climate-friendly policies. These strategies include, among others, the elimination of climate-degrading subsidies, the liberalization of trade in climate-friendly goods and services, and the promotion of climate-friendly investments (particularly in the energy sector). In addition, the recommendation proposes a modification in trade rules to account for the greenhouse-gas intensity …

International Trade Law: Cli Background Paper No. 10, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

No abstract provided.

The President, The Environment, And Foreign Policy: The Globalization Of Environmental Politics, David A. Wirth

David A. Wirth

By comparison with domestic environmental issues, international environmental diplomacy is distinguished by the far greater role of the Executive Branch, and in particular the President, in making law. This essay explores the legal consequences of the President's dual role in international environmental diplomacy: his duty faithfully to execute statutory mandates adopted by Congress while also serving as the Nation's chief diplomat and negotiator of international agreements with foreign powers. The piece discusses the legal and policy dynamics surrounding two concrete examples affecting domestic and international environmental policy, in which Presidential power assumes dramatically different forms: (1) climate change, and in …

Justice, The Bretton Woods Institutions And The Problem Of Inequality, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

The Bretton Woods Institutions are, together with the WTO, the preeminent international institutions devoted to managing international economic relations. This mandate puts them squarely in the center of the debate concerning development, inequality and global justice. While the normative analysis of the WTO is gaining momentum, the systematic normative evaluation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is comparatively less developed. This essay aims to contribute to that nascent inquiry. How might global justice criteria apply to the ideology and operations of the Bank and Fund? Political theory offers an abundance of perspectives from which to conduct such …

Is Free Trade "Free?" Is It Even "Trade?" Oppression And Consent In Hemispheric Trade Agreements, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

In order for free trade as a policy to deliver fully on its social promise, it must be both “free” and “trade.” In fact, it must be free, in the sense of voluntary, to be trade at all. In other words, for normative and practical reasons, free trade requires that global economic relations be structured through agreements which reflect the consent of those subject to them. The neoliberal trading system today only imperfectly lives up to this obligation. In this essay, I will examine the role of consent in trade agreements, drawing on examples from CAFTA as representative of important …

Beyond Special And Differential Treatment, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

Developing country concern over flawed special and differential treatment (S&D) provisions has already contributed to the failed Seattle and Cancim WTO Ministerial Meetings. In order to succeed, the current WTO Doha Development Round must go beyond simply reforming existing S&D provisions, important as that is. Developing countries must re-focus WTO trade and development policy around the twin goals of deueWpment and fairness. Developing countries need a comprehensive agreement on S&D clarifying that development, not trade liberalization, is the number one economic policy goal of developing countries, and that fairness, not charity, is the basis for development. Such an agreement should …

The ‘Fair’ Trade Law Of Nations, Or A ‘Fair’ Global Law Of Economic Relations?, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Trade-Based Strategies For Combatting Child Labor, Frank J. Garcia, Soohyun Jun

Frank J. Garcia

International commerce facilitates abusive child labor when it offers a market for the goods produced through such practices. International trade sanctions are thus a logical avenue for confronting abusive child labor, by eliminating the commercial opportunities for such goods. However, it is not clear that domestic child labor sanctions would survive legal challenge under WTO law as currently interpreted. For international trade law to serve as a viable strategy for change, there must first be a clear theoretical and doctrinal case for the WTO-consistency of domestic child labor-based sanctions. In this chapter, we present this case, using the U.S. section …

Globalization, Global Community And The Possibility Of Global Justice, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

In this essay, I suggest five ways in which globalization is changing the cosmopolitan/communitarian debate over global justice, by creating, both inter-subjectively and at the regulatory level, the constitutive elements of a limited global community. Members of this global community are increasingly aware of each other’s needs and circumstances, increasingly capable of effectively addressing these needs, and increasingly contributing to these circumstances in the first place. They find themselves involved in the same global market society, and together these members look to the same organizations, especially those at the meta-state level, to provide regulatory approaches to addressing problems of global …

Trade Justice And Security, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

[Refers to Revised Draft, December 9, 2005] The social psychology literature on justice suggests that the perception of injustice produces the strongest human emotional response. Perceptions of injustice can lead to conflicts over the justice of social outcomes, threatening social cohesion and security. Trade law, and globalization more generally, are increasingly perceived as unjust with respect to the interests of developing countries and of the poor in all countries. To the extent that the various stakeholders in globalization perceive a lack of reciprocity between their investment and their return, they will naturally address their claims of injustice towards the global …

The Integration Of Smaller Economies Into The Ftaa, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

The Global Market And Human Rights: Trading Away The Human Rights Principle, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Nafta And The Creation Of The Ftaa: A Critique Of Piecemeal Accession, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Decisionmaking And Dispute Resolution In The Free Trade Area Of The Americas: An Essay In Trade Governance, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

The Moral Hazard Problem In Global Economic Regulation, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

Global regulation of international business transactions presents a particular form of the moral hazard problem. Global firms use economic and political power to manipulate state and state-controlled multilateral regulation to preserve their opportunity to externalize the social costs of global economic activity with impunity. Unless other actors can effectively counter this at the national and global regulatory levels, globalization re-creates the conditions for under-regulated or “robber baron” capitalism at the global level. This model of economic activity has been rejected at the national level by the same modern democratic capitalist states which currently dominate globalization, creating a crisis of legitimacy …

Building A Just Trade Order For A New Millennium, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Just Trade Under Law: Do We Need A Theory Of Justice For International Trade Relations?, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Trade And Justice: Linking The Trade Linkage Debates, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Checking The Staats: How Long Is Too Long To Give Adequate Public Notice In Broadening Reissue Patent Applications?, David M. Longo

David M. Longo

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Wealth Funds In The Making - Assessing The Economic Feasibility And Regulatory Strategies, Julien Chaisse

Julien Chaisse

The recent emergence of SWFs as active and important players in international financial markets has raised a host of questions about their likely effect on markets and states. This trend is further reinforced in 2010/2011 by the fact that despite the fears and turbulences that spread all over the world in reason of the global economic and financial crisis, SWFs have blatantly retained their influence. SWFs create a regulatory and theoretical challenge because they serve two masters with very different agendas. This article is the first to explore the challenges governments face when they wish to set up a SWF. …

The Three-Pronged Strategy Of India's Preferential Trade Policy - A Contribution To The Study Of Modern Economic Treaties, Julien Chaisse

Julien Chaisse

Before the inception of WTO, India generally did not pursue any regional economic agreement route to promote trade or to achieve any other goal. However, in the Post Cancun Ministerial period, it has progressively entered into a number of preferential trade arrangements with several Asian as well as non-Asian partners. Looking into India’s regional economic integration approach, the current analysis makes an attempt to identify the major determinants behind the shift in the country’s interest and the policy implications of this change. We conclude that India’s approach towards preferential trade can de depicted as a three-pronged PTA strategy: it can …

Electromagnetic Pulse And The U.S. Food Security Paradigm: Assumptions, Risks, And Recommendations, Maximilian Leeds

Maximilian Leeds

This paper analyzes the systemic dangers posed to the U.S. economy by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), either naturally occurring or maliciously generated, from a food security perspective. Section I examines the modern structure of the U.S. food supply chain, analyzing the just-in-time international distribution model and criticizing it as vulnerable to systemic shock and cascade failure. Section II examines the function and history of the electromagnetic pulse, assesses its potential to serve as a catalyst for systemic breakdown in the domestic food supply chain, and explores the current state of food security planning in the United States pertaining to this …

Protection Of Traditional Knowledge: Trade Barriers And The Public Domain, David R. Hansen

David R Hansen

Marine Mammals And International Trade: Balancing Social Conscience With Trade Obligations – A Summary And Update On The World Trade Organization Seal Products Dispute, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

The Interplay Between U.S. Statutory Rights And Public Policy Under The Faa And New York Convention In International Disputes, Daniel Schwarz

Daniel M. Schwarz

The “prospective waiver” doctrine allows U.S. courts to invalidate or sever arbitration clauses in otherwise valid agreements to arbitrate where arbitrating under foreign law would prevent a U.S. party from seeking relief under a U.S. statute. The loss of this opportunity is said to affront U.S. public policy. This paper acknowledges that courts’ application of this idea has resulted in the need for a more fundamental revisiting of the question of whose law should be “mandatory” in international arbitration. But more specifically, this paper proposes appropriate sets of factors for pre-arbitration courts, arbitrators, and post-arbitration enforcement courts to consider in …