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Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

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Articles 211 - 240 of 624

Full-Text Articles in International Law

The Moral And Legal Basis For Sanctions, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

The Moral And Legal Basis For Sanctions, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

In order to analyze the moral and legal basis for sanctions in international relations, we have to begin at a stage where there is no centralized government in place. We first need to get a picture of the range of possible sanctions. Next, we need to see what role sanctions play in the international system. Finally, we turn to the intertwined moral and legal considerations that make well-designed sanctions efficacious in today's world. The fundamental objective of sanctions in interstate relations is to make it expensive for a target state to refrain from doing what the sanctioning state wants it …


World Conferences And The Cheapening Of International Norms, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

World Conferences And The Cheapening Of International Norms, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

As long as we understand that world conferences only address problems, we will not be disappointed in them. We will only be disappointed if we think that a world conference is supposed to solve problems. Is there any point in getting a lot of people together, at great expense, just to address a problem without any prospect of solving it? My answer is a qualified yes. A world conference is a cultural artifact. It has an impact upon our collective sense of civilization.


The Path Of International Law, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

The Path Of International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Is there a need for yet another student-edited international law journal? Practicing attorneys retrieve relevant articles when working on cases with international law issues, although they may be oblivious to the name of the journal or the prestige of the law school that supports it. For student editors, serving on a new international law journal is not just an intellectual experience; it is an empowering one. The more one looks into custom and treaty and the other sources of international law, the more one finds complexity and intellectual challenge.


Strategic Globalization: International Law As An Extension Of Domestic Political Conflict, Jide Nzelibe Jan 2010

Strategic Globalization: International Law As An Extension Of Domestic Political Conflict, Jide Nzelibe

Faculty Working Papers

Traditional accounts in both the international law and international relations literature largely assume that great powers like the United States enter into international legal commitments in order to resolve global cooperative problems or to advance objective state interests. Contrary to these accounts, this Article suggests that an incumbent regime (or partisan elites within the regime) may often seek to use international legal commitments to overcome domestic obstacles to their narrow policy and electoral objectives. In this picture, an incumbent regime may deploy international law to expand the geographical scope of political conflict across borders in order to isolate the domestic …


Consent, Estoppel, And Reasonableness: Three Challenges To Universal International Law, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

Consent, Estoppel, And Reasonableness: Three Challenges To Universal International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Like consent and estoppel, the concept of reasonableness, while failing to provide an adequate explanation of the source of obligation in customary international law, does play an important psychological role in adding to the pressure of international norms upon states. The result is to increase the sense of legality of the rules that are accepted by states as part of "customary international law." This is not to say that each and every alleged rule of universal international law must contain one or more of the elements of consent, estoppel, or reasonableness in order for it to be "valid."


The Concept Of Special Custom In International Law, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

The Concept Of Special Custom In International Law, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

General customary international law contains rules, norms, and principles that seem applicable to any state and not to a particular state or an exclusive grouping of states. For example, norms relating to the high seas, to airspace and outer space, to diplomatic immunities, to the rules of warfare, and so forth, apply equally to all states having occasion to be concerned with these areas. Similarly, the facts of a given case may suggest exclusively the application of general custom—such as cases concerning collision on the high seas between ships of different countries, cases involving general principles of international law, cases …


Federalism And Concurrent Jurisdiction In Global Markets: Why A Combination Of National And State Antitrust Enforcement Is A Model For Effective Economic Regulation, Katherine Mason Jones Jan 2010

Federalism And Concurrent Jurisdiction In Global Markets: Why A Combination Of National And State Antitrust Enforcement Is A Model For Effective Economic Regulation, Katherine Mason Jones

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The focus of the article is on the proper role of U.S. state governments in regulating international business. The specific issue analyzed is the desirability of having state attorneys general enforce federal antitrust laws in global markets concurrently with federal antitrust regulators. Congress granted state officials this power in 1976. In 2009, however, a large proportion of the world's commerce is now conducted in international, rather than national markets. This development has led Judge Richard A. Posner and others to advocate that the states be stripped of their statutory power to enforce federal antitrust laws on behalf of their residents …


Judicial Politics And International Investment Arbitration: Seeking An Explanation For Conflicting Outcomes, David Schneiderman Jan 2010

Judicial Politics And International Investment Arbitration: Seeking An Explanation For Conflicting Outcomes, David Schneiderman

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In taking on the controversial debate over the role of state attorneys general in antitrust enforcement, the article draws upon recent legal and historical scholarship on federalism to argue that globalization requires a paradigm change in concepts of U.S. federalism. While many assume that increasing international economic integration makes state participation in economic regulation with international implications inherently problematic, the article demonstrates that, to the contrary, states have an important role to play in the regulation of international business. States have a long history of challenging the federal government in a way that has promoted a robust national dialogue on …


Don't Tread On Me: Has The United States Government's Quest For Customer Records From Ubs Sounded The Death Knell For Swiss Bank Secrecy Laws, Bradley J. Bondi Jan 2010

Don't Tread On Me: Has The United States Government's Quest For Customer Records From Ubs Sounded The Death Knell For Swiss Bank Secrecy Laws, Bradley J. Bondi

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Privacy protection is a defining characteristic of Swiss culture and a pillar of the Swiss economy. For centuries, the Swiss people have coveted the principles of individual privacy, regularly reaffirming those principles in response to referendums designed to limit them. Swiss banking secrecy, one aspect of privacy, is protected by Swiss criminal and civil laws and professional duties. Swiss banks pride themselves on protecting customer identity and have leveraged their legal and cultural commitment to secrecy to gain a competitive advantage in the global banking market. This brief Article discusses the Swiss banking laws that prohibit a Swiss bank from …


Private Commercialization Of Space In An International Regime: A Proposal For A Space District, Zach Meyer Jan 2010

Private Commercialization Of Space In An International Regime: A Proposal For A Space District, Zach Meyer

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The Soviet Union inaugurated the Space Age in 1957 with the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, into the Earth's orbit. Human activity in space, once only a dream, had become reality. The hope for human advancement was immense. However, over the past five decades, the progress of the Space Age has not matched the measure of that hope. National space agencies have slowly and inefficiently explored and developed the space frontier. But, the success of a recent private competition suggests a better channel for facilitating space exploration and development: private commercial enterprise. However, certain problems are holding …


Transparency In Lending In The United States And The United Kingdom: Which Business Model Does It Best, Mara Hart Jan 2010

Transparency In Lending In The United States And The United Kingdom: Which Business Model Does It Best, Mara Hart

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The recent downturn of the global economy, spurred in large part by an unparalleled housing crisis and credit crunch in the United States and abroad, cannot be practicably understood or explained by an examination of isolated factors. Although the impact of the economic downturn has been felt globally, many blame the meltdown of the U.S. subprime mortgage market for their individual country's woes. Therefore, the mortgage regulatory scheme in the United States, in terms of lending practices and housing policies, is an important place to begin an inquiry into the origins of the global crisis. In order to better understand …


Short Selling In A Financial Crisis: The Regulation Of Short Sales In The United Kingdom And The United States, Katherine Mcgavin Jan 2010

Short Selling In A Financial Crisis: The Regulation Of Short Sales In The United Kingdom And The United States, Katherine Mcgavin

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In a well-regulated market with minimal risk of abuse, the liquidity and information efficiency benefits of short selling far outweigh its potential harm. Contrary to the recent hostility short sellers face from market regulators and the popular press, short sellers in aggregate are neither market villains nor agents of destruction. While a small minority of short sellers have exploited lax regulation and inattentive enforcement of anti-abuse rules to manipulate stock prices and earn substantial fees, these rare episodes suggest that the world's major capital markets need better enforcement of existing rules and not new rules per se. The failure of …


Proportional Pragmatism: A Defense Of International Arbitration Agreements In The Face Of Asymmetrical Paternalism, Rusty O'Kane Jan 2010

Proportional Pragmatism: A Defense Of International Arbitration Agreements In The Face Of Asymmetrical Paternalism, Rusty O'Kane

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

With foreign direct investment's increasingly important role in the global market, a more comprehensive regulatory system has emerged to guide key participants. Bilateral investment treaties have developed as an essential piece of the emerging regulatory system. Bilateral investment treaties are "[international investment] agreements between two countries for the reciprocal encouragement, promotion and protection of investments in each other's territories by companies based in either country." These treaties have drastically affected the way foreign investors interact with host countries, especially in the area of dispute resolution. A distinctive feature of many BITs is that they provide for alternative dispute resolution procedures …


Law Without Order In Chinese Corporate Governance Institutions, Donald C. Clarke Jan 2010

Law Without Order In Chinese Corporate Governance Institutions, Donald C. Clarke

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The substantive norms of Chinese corporate governance have been studied extensively inside and outside China. Yet much less attention has been paid to the Chinese institutional environment that determines whether and how far those norms will be made meaningful. While complaints about general lack of enforcement are common, less common are analyses that concretely tie institutional capacity to specific enforcement problems. This Article aims to fill that gap. It surveys a number of state and non-state channels for the enforcement of corporate governance rules and standards in China, from markets to regulatory bodies, looking at the specific capacities of each. …


Lowering The Cost Of Rent: How Ifrs And The Convergence Of Corporate Governance Standards Can Help Foreign Issuers Raise Capital In The United States And Abroad, Kyle W. Pine Jan 2010

Lowering The Cost Of Rent: How Ifrs And The Convergence Of Corporate Governance Standards Can Help Foreign Issuers Raise Capital In The United States And Abroad, Kyle W. Pine

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Since the early 1990s the United States has experienced a dramatic growth in the number of foreign firms choosing to trade their shares in U.S. markets. Meanwhile, Europe and other markets have not experienced this effect to the same extent. there has been an observable worldwide growth in stock market capitalization since the 1990s with an increasing number of foreign issuers choosing to cross-list their shares abroad, usually in the United States. Traditional explanations for why firms choose to cross-list have focused primarily on access to trade in more liquid markets. A more convincing theory for why firms cross-list, attributed …


Incremental International Tax Reform: A Review Of Selected Proposals, David L. Cameron, Philip F. Postlewaite Jan 2010

Incremental International Tax Reform: A Review Of Selected Proposals, David L. Cameron, Philip F. Postlewaite

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Business people, tax practitioners, and legal academics generally agree that the United States' international tax regime is broken. Criticisms abound that the system is overly complicated, disadvantageous to American businesses competing in a global economy, and frequently subject to manipulation and abuse. In the recent past, individuals and groups across the political spectrum have proposed numerous reforms to address these problems, some of which seek simply to modify current requirements while others jettison the current system in favor of dramatic alternatives. Two of the more ambitious proposals regarding international tax reform have centered on implementing changes that would significantly modify …


Rethinking The Foreign Direct Investment Process And Incentives In Post-Conflict Transition Countries, Kojo Yelpaala Jan 2010

Rethinking The Foreign Direct Investment Process And Incentives In Post-Conflict Transition Countries, Kojo Yelpaala

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Burdened by the remnants of conflict, continuing threats of security lapses, significant market failures and weak institutions, post-conflict transition countries can hardly be described as normal economies. The task of transforming them into vibrant, productive, and self-sustaining economies is no simple assignment. Constructing the blueprint for reconstruction and economic development requires creativity of the first order. Conventional theories or pure neo-liberal market driven policy levers preached by the Washington Consensus Group are not likely to be productive. The design of the investment regime for development should therefore focus on non-conventional policy constructs. Contrary to the received theories, the history and …


Of All Things Made In America Why Are We Exporting The Penn Central Test, Anthony B. Sanders Jan 2010

Of All Things Made In America Why Are We Exporting The Penn Central Test, Anthony B. Sanders

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Developing countries enter into bilateral investment treaties ("BITs") in order to increase foreign direct investment ("FDI"). Ignoring this straightforward fact has led to a great deal of confusion in the assessment of BITs and their protection of regulatory takings. This article addresses the question of how a BIT should approach regulatory takings with the purpose of increasing FDI in mind. It explores the background of the United States Supreme Court's Penn Central test and the test's incorporation into the post-NAFTA round of U.S. BITs. Then, the article examines whether an uncertain and flexible test such as Penn Central is suitable …


Inversions Under Section 7874 Of The Internal Revenue Code: Flawed Legislation, Flawed Guidance, Jefferson P. Vanderwolk Jan 2010

Inversions Under Section 7874 Of The Internal Revenue Code: Flawed Legislation, Flawed Guidance, Jefferson P. Vanderwolk

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The Obama Administration's international tax proposals would, if enacted, be likely to increase the U.S. tax costs of many multinational groups that are owned by a U.S. entity. One possible response by the managers or owners of such a group would be to restructure the group via an inversion transaction so that the group would have a foreign corporate parent instead of a US parent entity. Inversions were in vogue in the late 1990s and the early years of this decade until Congress passed the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, adding section 7874 to the Internal Revenue Code. The …


Credit Vs. Exemption: A Comparative Study Of Double Tax Relief In The United States And Japan, Lawrence Lokken, Yoshimi Kitamura Jan 2010

Credit Vs. Exemption: A Comparative Study Of Double Tax Relief In The United States And Japan, Lawrence Lokken, Yoshimi Kitamura

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The overriding issue in international taxation is the problem of double taxation. Under the tax laws of most countries, income may be taxed on the basis of either residence or source. That is, a country may tax residents of the country on worldwide income and may tax nonresidents on income from sources within the country. Thus, if a resident of one country has income from a business activity or investment in another country, the person may be taxed on the income on a residence basis by its home country and on a source basis in the other country. Most countries …


U.S. International Tax System At A Crossroads, Barbara Angus, Tom Neubig, Eric Solomon, Mark Weinberger Jan 2010

U.S. International Tax System At A Crossroads, Barbara Angus, Tom Neubig, Eric Solomon, Mark Weinberger

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The current U.S. international tax system, the administration's international tax proposals, and other potential international tax reforms all have ramifications for U.S. businesses, American workers, and the U.S. economy that must be fully discussed and understood. This report focuses on some of the most important facts and perspectives that should be considered as part of that discussion. This process starts by asking, at a minimum, questions like these: (1) How have the dynamics of the global economy changed? (2) What role should differences between the U.S. tax system and those of other countries play in determining an advantageous international tax …


The Significance Of South-South Bits For The International Investment Regime: A Quantitative Analysis, Lauge Skovgaard Poulsen Jan 2010

The Significance Of South-South Bits For The International Investment Regime: A Quantitative Analysis, Lauge Skovgaard Poulsen

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Initially, bilateral investment treaties ("BITs") were intended as legal instruments to promote and protect investments from rich capital exporting states to the developing world. While BITs signed between developing countries (hereinafter South-South BITs) began to emerge from the mid-1960s onwards with the 1964 Kuwait-Iraq BIT, a typical BIT was until recently negotiated between a developed and a developing country (hereinafter North-South BITs). In order to examine these questions, this paper will investigate whether there are systematic differences in investment-rule making between South-South and North-South BITs. As noted by UNCTAD in its cursory review of South-South BITs, such an analysis has …


Transfer Pricing And Fin 48: Removing Uncertainty Through The Advanced Pricing Agreement Process, Christopher Capuzzi Jan 2010

Transfer Pricing And Fin 48: Removing Uncertainty Through The Advanced Pricing Agreement Process, Christopher Capuzzi

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The increasing globalization of companies is indisputable, and the multinational enterprise offers many heuristic challenges. Among these are jurisdiction-specific taxation and accounting standards and principles. Enterprises often operate without regard to legal entity structures but rather along business lines. While entities may operate without regard to jurisdictional lines, local taxing and accounting regimes are steadfast on ensuring adherence to their respective principles. Chief among these is ensuring that there is a proper allocation of the tax base. The proper allocation of the tax base has long been at the forefront of concerns, so much so that normative transfer pricing principles …


Coping With Uncertainty: The Role Of Contracts In Russian Industry During The Transition To The Market, Kathryn Hendley Jan 2010

Coping With Uncertainty: The Role Of Contracts In Russian Industry During The Transition To The Market, Kathryn Hendley

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

In the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia earned a reputation for being a chaotic environment for business. Some commentators went so far as to label it as the "Wild East," a scary place where law was largely irrelevant and criminal gangs held sway. In a series of articles, I have begun to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the day-to-day reality of life for industrial enterprises in Yeltsin's Russia. The picture that emerges is more nuanced than the stereotype of industry beholden to the mafia that the popular media has perpetuated. In this article, …


International Tax Reform Should Begin At Home: Replace The Corporate Income Tax With A Territorial Expenditure, William B. Barker Jan 2010

International Tax Reform Should Begin At Home: Replace The Corporate Income Tax With A Territorial Expenditure, William B. Barker

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The present U.S. system of international taxation is riddled with problems because it does not satisfy critical principles of economics, justice, or common sense. It fails to accomplish the most important goals that an international system should achieve - that is, protecting the domestic tax base in a way that fosters domestic economic development and the creation of jobs. This paper explores alternatives to the present system to see if they do a better job. Some of the alternatives fail for the same reasons as the present system because they are predicated on the same outmoded theories. Some are clearly …


President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Suggested Considerations In Fundamental Reform Of The United States Tax Treatment Of Income From Cross Border Trade And Investment, Robert H. Dilworth Jan 2010

President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Suggested Considerations In Fundamental Reform Of The United States Tax Treatment Of Income From Cross Border Trade And Investment, Robert H. Dilworth

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board ("PERAB") has as part of its mandated inquiry the reform of the U.S. tax treatment of income from cross border trade and investment. This paper sets forth a short set of recommendations as to tax reform methodology and some substantive proposals. Tax reform should not "start over," or undertake significant changes, without a fairly detailed understanding of what the present regime actually does, or does not do, and identifying the relationship (if any) between the various existing provisions and whatever "the problem" is perceived to be. The present architecture results from the striking of …


The "Define And Punish" Clause And The Limit Of Universal Jurisdiction, Eugene Kontorovich Jan 2009

The "Define And Punish" Clause And The Limit Of Universal Jurisdiction, Eugene Kontorovich

Faculty Working Papers

This Article examines whether the "Define and Punish" clause of the Constitution empowers Congress to criminalize foreign conduct unconnected to the United States. Answering this question requires exploring the Constitution's "Piracies and Felonies" provision. While it is hard to believe this can still be said of any constitutional provision, no previous work has examined the scope of the "Piracies and Felonies" powers. Yet the importance of this inquiry is more than academic. Despite its obscurity, the Piracies and Felonies power is the purported Art. I basis for a statute currently in force, which represents Congress's most aggressive use of universal …


Valuing Foreign Lives And Civilizations In Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Case Of The United States And Climate Change Policy, David A. Dana Jan 2009

Valuing Foreign Lives And Civilizations In Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Case Of The United States And Climate Change Policy, David A. Dana

Faculty Working Papers

This Article explores the case for including losses of foreign (non-U.S.) lives and settlements in the estimated cost to the United States of unmitigated climate change in the future. The inclusion of losses of such foreign lives and settlements in cost benefit analysis (CBA) could have large implications not only for U.S. climate change policy but also for policies adopted by other nations and the practice of CBA generally. One difficult problem is how to assess U.S. residents' willingness to pay to prevent the losses of foreign lives and settlements. This Article discusses internet-based surveys that are a first step …


The New Poor At Our Gates: Global Justice Implications For International Trade And Tax Law, Ilan Benshalom Jan 2009

The New Poor At Our Gates: Global Justice Implications For International Trade And Tax Law, Ilan Benshalom

Faculty Working Papers

The Article explains why international trade and tax arrangements should advance global wealth redistribution in a world of enhanced economic integration. Despite the indisputable importance of global poverty and inequality, contemporary political philosophy stagnates over the controversy of whether distributive justice obligations should extend beyond the political framework of the nation state. This stagnation results from the difficulty of reconciling liberal impartiality with notions of state sovereignty and accountability. The Article offers an alternative approach that bypasses the controversy of the current debate. It argues that international trade results in relational distributive duties when domestic parties engage in transactions with …


The European Court’S Political Power Across Time And Space, Karen Alter Jan 2009

The European Court’S Political Power Across Time And Space, Karen Alter

Faculty Working Papers

This article extracts from Alter's larger body of work insights on how the political and social context shapes the ECJ's political power and influence. Part I considers how the political context facilitated the constitutionalization of the European legal system. Part II considers how the political context helps determine where and when the current ECJ influences European politics. Part III draws lessons from the ECJ's experience, speculating on how the European context in specific allowed the ECJ to become such an exceptional international court. Part IV lays out a research agenda to investigate the larger question of how social support shapes …