Transnational Law Commons^™

Exploring The Link Between Food Security And Climate Change, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Our growing global population is demanding a more resource-intensive and so-called “Western” diet. And that change in demand has drastic impact on how we must change our supply.

The Real Challenge To The Polish Revolution: Cleaning The Polish Environment Through Privatization And Preventive Market-Based Incentives, G. Nelson Smith Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Background Paper For Second Workshop On Contract Negotiation Support For Developing Host Countries, Vale Columbia Center On Sustainable International Investment, Humboldt-Viadrina School Of Governance

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) and the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance (HSVG) have initiated a process to discuss the desirability and feasibility of mechanisms to provide negotiation support for developing host countries in their negotiations with major investors.

At a first workshop held in October 2011, participants agreed on the need for an expansion of support for developing countries in their contract negotiations.

A second workshop was held at Columbia University in July 2012 that undertook a gap analysis between the existing sources of support for developing countries in relation to complex contracts and the countries’ needs for …

Wider Role For Our Miners In Africa, Lisa E. Sachs, Joel Negin, Glenn Denning

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The Australian government is rapidly increasing aid to Africa. But the real story about the country's engagement in Africa is the massive investment by Australian companies in extractive industries.

More than 150 Australian resource companies are active in more than 40 African countries with a total investment greater than $20 billion, including in coal in Mozambique, copper and uranium in Zambia, gold in Eritrea and uranium in Malawi.

Promoting Distributional Equality For Women: Some Thoughts On Gender And Global Corporate Citizenship In Foreign Direct Investment, Rachel J. Anderson

Scholarly Works

This essay applies a legal theory of global corporate citizenship to the question of women’s distributional equality in foreign direct investment. It proposes ways that a legal theory of mandatory global corporate citizenship can expand the ways we think about regulating transnational corporations and promoting gender equality.

Transparency In International Commercial Arbitration, Catherine A. Rogers

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

National Regulation Of Multinational Enterprises: An Essay On Comity, Extraterritoriality, And Harmonization, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Articles

Despite the economic importance of multinational enterprises ("MNEs"), there is a surprising paucity of law governing foreign direct investment ("FDI"), especially in comparison with the abundance of law governing trade. There is no multilateral legal arrangement governing FDI that is similar to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ("GATT"), no organization similar to the World Trade Organization, and almost no courses in law schools on FDI law. The goal of this Article is to begin to remedy this state of affairs by proposing a conceptual model for analyzing the application of the national laws of home and host countries …

Foreign Direct Investment In Latin America Overview And Current Status, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Martin B. Tittle

Other Publications

More firms than ever, and in more industries and countries, are expanding abroad through [foreign] direct investment [FDI]. Although FDI in 1980 was equivalent to only 5% of world GDP, by the end of the 1990's, that percentage had more than tripled to 17%. In 1993, the total US dollar value of world FDI was only US$ 200 billion, but by the year 2000, it had risen to US$ 1.3 thousand billion. Developing countries received around 25% of these inflows, mostly in the form of "greenfield" investments, where a new enterprise is essentially created from scratch.

Laws Governing Bank Securities Activities In The United States, Hanning Zhang

LLM Theses and Essays

This thesis analyzes the previous regulatory approach to bank investment activities in the United States and its effects on the banking industry, discusses regulatory changes that expanded banking powers, reviews the new legislation and potential problems in the current movement of financial reform, and suggests some solutions. Chapter II reviews previous statutory regimes on bank securities activities, including those separating traditional and investment banking under the Glass-Steagall Act and Bank Holding Company Act. The regulatory regime under the E.U. banking system is addressed to give an example of successful deregulation, by which universal banks may fully enjoy the rapid changing …

International Investment And The Prudent Investor Rule: The Trustee's Duty To Consider International Investment Vehicles, Stephen M. Penner

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this note will begin with a background of trust and trustees, focusing on the historical development of the trust and the present role of the trustee. Part II presents the Prudent Investor Rule. The problems in trust management which lead to the necessity of the Rule will be explored, as will the evolution of the Rule up to the recent adoption by the American Law Institute of the Third Restatement of Trusts, which is devoted solely to the Prudent Investor Rule. In Part III, the various investment opportunities available to the modern investor will be presented, first …

Renegotiating Transnational Investment Agreements: Lessons For Develping Countries From The Ghana-Valco Experience, Paul Kuruk

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article describes the use of the renegotiation process to resolve problems that arise in the relations between participants in transnational investment. It draws conclusions from the successful renegotiation of an agreement executed in 1962 under which the Ghanaian government guaranteed bauxite and hydroelectric power supplies to support the smelting operations of the Volta Aluminium Company, Limited (Valco) in return for revenues from taxes and from payments for electricity, water, and use of the country's port facilities. The agreement between Ghana and Valco was entered into as part of the Volta River Project (VRP). This project was an investment scheme …

Supranational Regulation Of Transnational Corporations: The Unctad And Ctc Efforts, James D. Kurek

Michigan Journal of International Law

The focus of this article is the current United Nations’ efforts designed to influence the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs) and other participants in the foreign investment arena, with special attention being given to those provisions which deal with concentration. The efforts to be discussed are primarily centered in the U. N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the U. N. Economic and Social Council's Commission on Transnational Corporations (CTC). Since the approach and methods employed by these two bodies differ in several significant respects, each will be considered separately. The concluding discussion examines a variety of views on …