Law Commons^™

Designing Antitrust Agencies For More Effective Outcomes: What Antitrust Can Learn From Restaurant Guides, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

Antitrust policy should be concerned with the quality and effectiveness of the antitrust system. Some efforts at agency effectiveness include self-study of antitrust agencies to determine the factors that lead to improving agency quality. Such studies, however, often focus only on enforcement decisions and other agency initiatives such as competition advocacy. They do not reflect at least one other part of the equation: what do non-government users of the antitrust system think about the quality of antitrust agencies? This Symposium Essay advocates the use of a ratings guide by antitrust practitioners for antitrust agencies to add to the tools in …

Nuclear Chain Reaction: Why Economic Sanctions Are Not Worth The Public Costs, Nicholas C.W. Wolfe

Nicholas A Wolfe

International economic sanctions frequently violate human rights in targeted states and rarely achieve their objectives. However, many hail economic sanctions as an important nonviolent tool for coercing and persuading change. In November 2013, the Islamic Republic of Iran negotiated a temporary agreement with major world powers regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The United States’ media and politicians have repeatedly and incorrectly attributed Iran’s willingness to negotiate to the effectiveness of economic sanctions.

Politicians primarily focus on immediate domestic effects and enact sanctions without a thorough understanding of the long-term effects on the United States economy and the public within a targeted …

Governing For The Corporations: History And Analysis Of U.S. Promotion Of Foreign Investment, Michael R. Miller

Michael R Miller

This paper explores and analyzes U.S. government support for foreign investors, especially major oil companies.

Throughout the 20th Century the US government has repeatedly used its international political influence to benefit US corporate activities abroad. The US government and others assumed initially that this was in the larger interests of the United States because US companies would represent and promote the United States’ policy agenda.

However, US corporate activities abroad over the last century seem to indicate this assumption was flawed. In numerous examples, US corporations have either ignored or thwarted the stated interests of the US government. At first …

Legal And Institutional Remedies For Middle East States Wishing To Develop And Increase Foreign Direct Investment, Griffin Weaver

Griffin Weaver

The cost to overhaul a legal system is astronomical. For example, before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s several states received billions of dollars in loans to help change their “legal systems” and make them more western friendly. A couple of these states were West Germany and Japan, which received roughly 1.5 billion and 2.4 billion USD in loans. Considering most of this money was given in the 1950’s, the value today is probably three times or more those amounts. Without this aid both states would have been unable to make the changes to their …

The Imf’S Reassessment Of Capital Controls After The 2008 Financial Crisis: Heresy Or Orthodoxy?, Philip J. Macfarlane

Philip J. MacFarlane

While the IMF allows countries to limit the flow of capital through the use of capital controls, it has since the 1980s discouraged this practice and instead promoted capital account liberalization as a means for developing countries to attract the foreign investment needed for economic growth. The 2008 financial crisis, however, prompted the IMF to reconsider this view and increasingly support the use of capital controls for countries that were vulnerable to the effects of volatile capital flows. In 2012, the IMF changed its official position on the use of capital controls from permitted but discouraged to accepted in certain …

Sacred Cows, Holy Wars: Exploring The Limits Of Law In The Regulation Of Raw Milk And Kosher Meat, Kenneth Lasson

Kenneth Lasson

SACRED COWS, HOLY WARS Exploring the Limits of Law in the Regulation of Raw Milk and Kosher Meat By Kenneth Lasson Abstract In a free society law and religion seldom coincide comfortably, tending instead to reflect the inherent tension that often resides between the two. This is nowhere more apparent than in America, where the underlying principle upon which the first freedom enunciated by the Constitution’s Bill of Rights is based ‒ the separation of church and state – is conceptually at odds with the pragmatic compromises that may be reached. But our adherence to the primacy of individual rights …

Essential Facilities Doctrine And China’S Anti-Monopoly Law, Yong Huang, Elizabeth Xiao-Ru Wang, Xin Roger Zhang

Elizabeth Xiao-Ru Wang

No abstract provided.

The Rise And Rise Of The One Percent: Getting To Thomas Piketty's Wealth Dystopia, Shi-Ling Hsu

Shi-Ling Hsu

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, which is surely one of the very few economics treatises ever to be a best-seller, has parachuted into an intensely emotional and deeply divisive American debate: the problem of inequality in the United States. Piketty's core argument is that throughout history, the rate of return on private capital has usually exceeded the rate of economic growth, expressed by Piketty as the relation r > g. If true, this relation means that the wealthy class – who are the predominant owners of capital – will grow their wealth faster than economies grow, which …

The Cost Of Doing Business In Asia: A Comparative Legal Study Of Environmental Regulations In The Emerging Markets Of Thailand, Malaysia, And Indonesia, Brooke R. Padgett

Brooke R. Padgett

Abstract: This article explores whether voluntary standards, customary law, or more binding bilateral investment treaties are best for corporations, the emerging markets of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and the environment itself. While corporations, markets, and the environment facially seem to have divergent priorities, environmental disasters are more costly after the fact than they are to prevent so in reality their priorities may not be so different after all. Some of the potential issues the paper will examine and address are big picture macro level such as fairness to future generations, intergenerational rights; the actual cost through questions of polluter pays, …

Preventing Cold War: Militarization In The Southernmost Continent And The Antarctic Treaty System's Fading Effectiveness, Dillon A. Redding

Dillon A Redding

This note argues that the preservation of Antarctica for peaceful research and internationally cooperative activity as envisioned originally by the Antarctic Treaty in 1961 has gone unrealized amid growing international interest in the strategic advantages offered by Antarctica, including the possibility of large swathes of mineral deposits and optimal locations for satellite stations. Part 1 describes the motivations behind the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) and outlines the relevant provisions of the Antarctic Treaty. Part 2 examines the military advantages to a state presence in Antarctica and the ways in which the ATS allows for such a presence to be carried …

Behavioral International Law, Tomer Broude

Tomer Broude

Economic analysis and rational choice have in the last decade made significant inroads into the study of international law and institutions, relying upon standard assumptions of perfect rationality of states and decision-makers. This approach is inadequate, both empirically and in its tendency towards outdated formulations of political theory. This article presents an alternative behavioral approach that provides new hypotheses addressing problems in international law while introducing empirically grounded concepts of real, observed rationality. First, I address methodological objections to behavioral analysis of international law: the focus of behavioral research on the individual; the empirical foundations of behavioral economics; and behavioral …