Monthly Archives: July 2011
Localizing Intellectual Property in the Globalization Epoch: The Integration of Indigenous Knowledge
The search for appropriate modalities for the protection of indigenous or traditional knowledge is a subject of contemporary international law and policy discourse. As a primary mechanism for the allocation of rights over knowledge, Western or conventional intellectual property rights … Continue reading
Toward Global Democracy: Thoughts in Response to the Rising Tide of Nation-to-Nation Interdependencies
Accompanying the growing intensity of globalization, nation-to-nation interdependencies are on the rise, meaning that events and decisions in one nation increasingly have effects in other nations. At times, these interdependencies are negative, such as a recession that travels to North … Continue reading
Building the Northeast Asian Community
Asia is one of the most socio-politically divided regions in the world. Without regional cooperation, it faces difficulty in the world market, sometimes receiving unfair treatment. Asia contains more than half of the world’s population, but Asian countries have a … Continue reading
Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development: The European Union Initiative as a Case Study
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) are prime drivers of the trend of globalization. As such, they can be held responsible for the success or failure of sustainable development as it relates to continued economic growth without detriment to the environment and exploitation … Continue reading
Partition of Failed States: Impediments and Impulses
Failed states, not so long ago, were discussed as a problem of foreign aid or social theory. Only prescient thinkers and policy makers identified them as a priority of national security. The atrocities of September 11, 2001, did not make … Continue reading
Courts and Globalization
There is inevitably a problem of terminology. A professor of government once said that federalism “is what political scientists talk about when they talk about federalism,” and one could add that globalization is what political scientists (and lawyers) talk about … Continue reading
From Empire to Globalization: The New Zealand Experience
What does nationhood mean, what do national courts do and what effect have the pressures of globalization had on the meaning of nationhood and the role of national courts? I want to bring a small commonwealth country perspective to these … Continue reading
The Advantages of the Civil Law Judicial Design as the Model for Emerging Legal Systems
Currently, a number of societies around the world are reforming their legal systems, often upon emerging from years of oppression. Two transatlantic models, the civil law and common law, will have a great influence on these reforms. For one thing, … Continue reading
The Political Origins of the New Constitutionalism
Over the past two decades the world has witnessed an astonishingly rapid transition to what may be called juristocracy. Around the globe, in numerous countries and in several supranational entities, fundamental constitutional reform has transferred an unprecedented amount of power … Continue reading
Transnational Federalism: Problems and Prospects of Allocating Public Authority Beyond the State
Today it is widely accepted that the international system is undergoing rather dramatic changes—changes that have a strong impact on the status and role of the state as the once-sole political entity vested with the power to exercise sovereign public … Continue reading
The Art and Science of Genetic Modification: Re-Engineering Patent Law and Constitutional Orthodoxies
As a lawyer interested in biotechnology, I find it difficult to restrict myself to any one of the many interconnected areas in which law and biotechnology intersect. Administrative law, constitutional law, criminal law, employment law, environmental law, evidence, family law, … Continue reading
From Empire to Globalization…and Back? A Post-Colonial View of Transjudicialism
From Empire to Globalization: The New Zealand Experience presents a picture of a government at a fascinating historical moment—achieving full status as an independent sovereign, ridding itself of the last vestiges of colonialism, just as the forces of globalization are … Continue reading
Federalism Through a Global Lens: A Call for Deferential Judicial Review
This article examines the effects of judicial review in federalism cases on governmental flexibility and creativity at the national level. It argues that the global era in which we now live and the New Deal of the 1930s and beyond … Continue reading
Lessons from Stockholm: Evaluating the Global Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
On May 22, 2001, representatives from over 120 countries signed a new treaty in Stockholm, Sweden, regulating the “dirty dozen” persistent organic pollutants (POPs)—some of the most dangerous chemicals in the world. POPs are hardy, toxic chemicals that persist in … Continue reading
Reconciling Human Rights and Sovereignty: A Framework for Global Property Law
In the wake of the massive destruction and notorious human rights abuses of World War II, the nations of the world made a widely supported commitment to protecting human rights. Fundamental to this agreement was the understanding that nation-states, previously … Continue reading
From Reluctant Champion to Development Ringmaster: Managing the Expanding Mission of the World Bank
In the last decade, the World Bank has catapulted from relative obscurity in its work to alleviate global poverty to centrality in the latest controversies over development, economic interdependence, and the global economy. Since its inception at the Bretton Woods … Continue reading