Transnational Law Commons^™

Next Generation Treaty – India’S New Model Bit Makes It Clear That Its Goal Is To Accomplish More Than Investor Protection, Lisa E. Sachs, Lise Johnson, Sudhanshu Roy

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The April release of India’s draft model bilateral investment treaty 1(BIT), which is expected to be approved by the cabinet soon, has generated a rich public debate on its international investment regime. There are important questions about the purpose and content of investment treaties, both in India and other countries. However, some reactions – like Augusts Law Commission report suggesting that the model BIT was not sufficiently investor-friendly – frame the discussion too narrowly, ignoring key questions and objectives behind India’s transitioning investment policy regime.

Dialogic Labor Regulation In The Global Supply Chain, Kevin Kolben

Michigan Journal of International Law

In May 2006, the government of Jordan was facing a crisis. A small U.S. labor-rights activist group had just released a damning report documenting extensive labor abuses in Jordan’s fledgling garment industry. Adding fuel to the fire, the New York Times published a front-page story about the report with its own field work that corroborated some of the allegations, such as long and abusive working hours, the confiscation of passports of foreign workers, horrendous living conditions, and sexual harassment. Although garment manufacturing was new to Jordan, after just several years of existence it already constituted an important part of Jordan’s …

The Multinational Corporation Regulatory Guidebook, Rhond R. Roth

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Law And Lawyers Under The New Multilateral Trade Agreements, Robert E. Herzstein

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

On Territoriality And International Investment Law: Applying China's Investment Treaties To Hong Kong And Macao, Odysseas G. Repousis

Michigan Journal of International Law

To date, investor-state tribunals have been preoccupied with a range of issues revolving around the territorial application (territoriality) of international investment agreements (IIAs). The importance, as well as the various forms such issues take, has recently been highlighted in the decision of the Singapore High Court (SGHC) in Laos v. Sanum. In this case, the SGHC was asked by Laos to set aside an earlier arbitral award (in Sanum v. Laos), filed by a Macanese legal entity and rendered under the China-Laos bilateral investment treaty (BIT). In approaching the matter, the SGHC set aside the award on the grounds that …

Measuring Land Rights For A Sustainable Future, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Jeffrey D. Sachs

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Land rights, both for individuals and for communities, are critical for achieving sustainable development. Security of land tenure and other rights to the land (sometimes held communally rather than individually) can accelerate poverty reduction, strengthen food security, and empower women. Land rights can reduce resource conflicts, as well as encourage the responsible use of natural resources. As the UN member countries begin to implement the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), they should keep land rights in their focus, and measure and protect land rights in order to achieve the SDGs.

The Guatemala Protocol, Robert P. Boyle

Akron Law Review

"The story of the 1971 revision of the Warsaw Convention which is contained in the Guatemala Protocol, begins with denunciation by the United States of the Warsaw Convention in November of 1965. The United States was motivated in taking that action at that time by a number of circumstances."

The author of this article represented the United States government in talks concerning amending the Warsaw Convention to increase airline liability limits.

Nuclear Powered Satellites: The U.S.S.R. Cosmos 954 And The Canadian Claim, Eilene Galloway

Akron Law Review

“On January 24, 1978 the Soviet satellite, Cosmos 954, fell from outer space and entered Canada's airspace. The component parts of this nuclear powered satellite disintegrated and scattered radioactive debris over northwest Canada in an area the size of Austria. Fear of a nuclear explosion and unknown hazards to the environment evoked worldwide alarm. This incident set in motion a variety of studies analyzing one of the most unique multidisciplinary problems created by the use and exploration of outer space. These continuing studies of nuclear power for satellites will lead to decisions of global significance. There is an opportunity to …

Scuttling Iuu Fishing And Rewarding Sustainable Fishing: Enhancing The Effectiveness Of The Port State Measures Agreement With Trade-Related Measures, Anastasia Telesetsky

Seattle University Law Review

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) is a substantial threat to global food security and a recurring problem for global fishery managers already facing difficult baseline situations exacerbated by climate change, including warming oceans and increasing acidification. There is nothing historically new about IUU fishing; there have always been poachers who take advantage of operating in the shadows of legal commercial fishing. What is new is the extent to which marine poaching has industrialized. It is estimated that 19% of the worldwide value of marine catches are unlawful. The problem is not limited to developing states. For example, even …

Re-Tooling Marine Food Supply Resilience In A Climate Change Era: Some Needed Reforms, Robin Kundis Craig

Seattle University Law Review

Ocean fisheries and marine aquaculture are an important but often overlooked component of world food security. For example, of the seven billion (and counting) people on the planet, over one billion depend on fish as their primary source of protein, and fish is a primary source of protein (30 percent or more of protein consumed) in many countries around the world, including Japan, Greenland, Taiwan, Indonesia, several countries in Africa, and several South Pacific island nations. Marine fisheries and marine aquaculture have been subject to a number of stressors that can undermine world food security, including overfishing, habitat destruction, and …

The Virtues Of Bright Lines: Self-Determination, Secession, And External Intervention, Brad R. Roth

Law Faculty Research Publications

The United Nations Charter-based international order sought to reconcile the selfdetermination of peoples with the inviolability of state boundaries by presuming sovereign states to be manifestations of the self-determination of the entirety of their territorial populations. This presumption, albeit notionally rebuttable, traditionally prevailed even where states could only by a feat of ideological imagination be characterized as "possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction." But the international reaction to fragmentation in the former Yugoslaviaregarding both the initial "dissolution" and the subsequent struggle over Kosovo-called into question the rigid doctrines of the past and …

Austerity, The European Council, And The Institutional Future Of The European Union: A Proposal To Strengthen The Presidency Of The European Council, Federico Fabbrini

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article contextualizes the resilience of austerity in Europe, explaining it in light of the transformations in the EU system of governance. As the article maintains, since the eruption of the Eurocrisis, the European Council-the body congressing the heads of state and government of the EU member states together with its President and the President of the European Commission-has risen to the center of EU governance. In an intergovernmental institution such as the European Council, however, larger and wealthier states have been able to impose their preferences on other states-a development that is at odds with the anti-hegemonic nature of …

Potential Exit From The Eurozone: The Case Of Spain, Antonio Estella

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

According to a recent opinion poll that covered seven members of the Eurozone, Spain would be the Member State of this group that is most in favor of leaving the euro. In this public opinion context, and above all since the summer of 2012, debate has been growing in this country about the prospects of its exiting the European Monetary Union. In this article I argue that there are good reasons for taking this debate seriously. Using Spain as a case study, I analyze what the determinants of this decision could be. In particular, I analyze the economic determinants that …

The Financial Crisis, The European Union Institutional Order, And Constitutional Responsibility, Maastricht Treaty, Democracy Deficit, Lisbon Treaty,, Paul Craig

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The financial crisis sent shock waves throughout the European Union, the effects of which are still being felt. This article focuses on the institutional dimension of the crisis, and examines its impact on the relationship between the member states and the European Union, and between the organs of the European Union itself. The analysis is undertaken from a temporal perspective. It begins with consideration of the treaty provisions that shaped the balance of power within the European Union, and who bears the primary responsibility for this form of institutional ordering. It is argued that while there is a very considerable …

Austerity, Debt Overhang, And The Design Of International Standards On Sovereign, Corporate, And Consumer Debt Restructuring, Susan Block-Lieb

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Following the Asian Financial Crisis, sovereign debt defaults prompted calls by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a statutory Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM). In promoting the SDRM, IMF leaders argued that countries' sovereign debt problems needed something like U.S. Chapter 11, which is to say that IMF leaders supported the SDRM proposal with reference to legal claims rather than relying on purely economic arguments about the welfare benefits of resolving debt overhang. Framing the debate in this way caught on, but by 2005 the IMF board of directors had rejected the SDRM proposal. The current Global Financial Crisis similarly …

Anatomy Of A Design Regime, Kathryn C. Moore

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Since the European Union adopted uniform sui generis design rights, an increasingly complex system of cumulative and overlapping intellectual property rights has emerged. While such harmonization offers several benefits, analyzing the interpretation and application of narrow legal requirements within the EU Community Design Rights may indicate whether such benefits will actually be realized. This paper examines Regulation 6/2002's definitions of "informed user" and "overall impression" as they apply to registered designs. After summarizing relevant case law and considering underlying policy goals of the EU Community design legislation, this paper explores whether these definitions could be more efficient and intellectually honest …

Memo To Prime Minister Cameron On The Revision Of The U.K. National Action Plan On Business And Human Rights, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In July 2015, CCSI sent a memo to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to provide input on the 2015 revision of the U.K. National Action Plan on business and human rights, originally published in 2013. The memo applauded the U.K. Government’s early adoption of a National Action Plan consistent with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, noting that responsible and rights-respecting outward investment can support sustainable development in host countries, and that the U.K. Government has an important role to play in promoting responsible business operations. The memo urged the government to highlight the importance of land …

Channeling Unilateralism, Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When crime reaches across borders to threaten human security or undermine democracy, states often respond by adopting multilateral treaties that obligate each of them to suppress the transnational crime at home. These treaties help, but only to the extent that parties comply with them. Because states generally cannot enforce their laws outside their own territory, transnational criminals can evade prosecution as long as some states are unable or unwilling to meet these treaty commitments. One solution for improving compliance with these treaties may be, counterintuitively, more unilateralism. Using case studies on transnational bribery and drug trafficking, as well as thick …

Law, Fiscal Federalism, And Austerity, R. Daniel Kelemen

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In response to the Eurozone crisis, European Union leaders have undertaken a number of dramatic reforms, including the imposition of a new regime for fiscal governance of Eurozone Member States. The 2012 Fiscal Compact Treaty, one of the lynchpins of this package of reforms, requires states to incorporate judicially enforceable balanced-budget rules into national law. This article explores this effort to judicialize austerity in the European Union, focusing on two interrelated sets of questions. First, why did EU leaders turn to the courts and ask them to become the stewards of fiscal discipline, and second, should we expect the effort …

An Unbalanced Act: A Criticism Of How The Court Of Arbitration For Sport Issues Unjustly Harsh Sanctions By Attempting To Regulate Doping In Sport, Melissa Hewitt

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

To participate in international competitions, countries must submit to the doping rules set forth in the World Anti-Doping Code (the Code), a document brought into being by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Under the Agency's Code, athletes are required to commit to mandatory binding arbitration in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which gives them few chances for review of unjustly harsh sanctions. The CAS needs to re-examine its method of appealing doping cases because WADA's current strict liability scheme, coupled with the CAS's transnational jurisdiction, continually violates the rights of international athletes.