Remaking Globalization for the Local: The Real Search for Equality and...
From Western liberal democracies in the United States and the European Union, to historically democratic developing countries such as the Philippines, ignored, disenfranchised, and disempowered local...
View ArticleNamur Declaration of 5 December 2016: An EU-Values Driven Path to Negotiating...
Distinguished scholars in political economy, international economic governance, economics and law, have weighed in on how international economic agreements must be negotiated (or renegotiated). Paris...
View ArticleEconomic Nationalism in a New Age for International Economic Law: Recalling...
International economic law developments barely one month into 2017 have been nothing short of tectonic this side of the Atlantic. From US President Trump’s first executive action to withdraw the United...
View ArticleHegemonic Cooperation or Succession? The United States’ Emerging...
Many international lawyers all over the world will doubtless have experienced a surge of surrealism over the past weeks, witnessing dramatic contrasts emerging between American and Chinese foreign...
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Trade Adjustment IS A Matter of Domestic Policy and International Law:...
While many international lawyers around the world scrambled to debate the US use of force in Syria, quiet and unprecedented shifts took place the same week in international economic law. On 10 April...
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China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ Initiative: Can A Bilaterally-Negotiated...
Over the weekend, while the world’s largest economy was focused on internal fallout from the presidential sacking (and subsequent threatening) of the United States’ FBI Director (and amid calls for...
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First Global Treaty Against Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU)...
While the world reacted to the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on June 2, the first meeting of the parties to a landmark global marine environmental agreement was held three days later with the...
View ArticleRising Legal Costs Claimed by States in Investor-State Arbitrations: The Test...
The Final Award Regarding Costs in Philip Morris v. Australia recently became public this July 2017 (although dated as of 8 March 2017), in (somewhat surprisingly) redacted form, signed by arbitrators...
View ArticleReopening Proceedings for Reparations and Abuse of Process at the...
On 28 July 2017, Nicaragua made the rather surprising announcement that it would revive its claim for US$17 billion in compensation against the United States. To recall, in its 1986 Merits Judgment in...
View ArticleThe ICESCR as a Legal Constraint on State Regulation of Business, Trade, and...
Note from the author: This post is based on a Keynote delivered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 28 August 2017 at the Expert Workshop “Transformative Constitutionalism in Latin America and...
View ArticleThe Human Costs of Exiting Trade Agreements: The Right to Development in an...
October 2017 has been a cliffhanger month for global policy uncertainty, especially highlighted by the mirroring acts of brinksmanship during intense trade negotiations on both sides of the Atlantic....
View ArticleRemaking the World towards ‘Fair and Reciprocal Trade’? The Case for (More)...
Geopolitical changes were on full display last week at multiple economic summits in Asia, where red carpet pageantry converged with the dramatic publicity of States brokering new deals at the regional...
View ArticleThe Revived Debate over Development and Human Rights: Economic...
2017 closed, and 2018 began, with triumphant pronouncements of economic recovery in the United States (e.g. the US economy growing again at its fastest pace at 3.2% GDP growth rate, lowest unemployment...
View ArticleEnvironmental Damages, Environmental Reparations, and the Right to a Healthy...
On 2 February 2018, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark judgment on compensation for environmental damages in Certain Activities Carried Out By Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica...
View ArticleProtean ‘National Security’ in Global Trade Wars, Investment Walls, and...
National security seems to be the protean norm du jour in international economic law these days. On 23 March 2018, the United States’ Trump Administration imposed a 25% tariff against around US$60...
View ArticleVisions of the ‘Right to Democratic Governance’ under International Law: The...
Is international law any closer to defining the content of a “right to democratic governance”? International human rights law instruments do not prescribe a form of governance, but they do explicitly...
View ArticleThe Quandaries of Data Analysis and Methodologies in Rule of Law,...
If Professor Hans Rosling’s famous last opus, Factfulness (April 2018), is to be believed (as well as Bill Gates’ effusive review here), we all tend to have grimmer views of the state of economic...
View ArticleYoung Philippine Lawyers Arrested Today for “Obstruction of Justice” in the...
I’ve been up since 3 am here in Notre Dame making urgent calls and preparing petitions. I was contacted by my law partner in Manila early this morning, alerting me that three of our 16 year-family law...
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From the Indigenous Peoples’ Environmental Catastrophe in the Amazon to the...
The recent 30 August 2018 Chevron v. Ecuador arbitral award is yet another example of the ongoing asymmetries of protection in the much-beleaguered investor-State dispute settlement system, in which...
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Beyond “Good Neighborliness” in the ICJ 1 October 2018 Judgment in Bolivia v....
On 1 October 2018, the International Court of Justice issued its Judgment on the Merits in Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v. Chile), finding, by 12 votes to 3, that Chile...
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