International Trade Law

This is a course about the legal, economic, and political integration of the world. The World Trade Organization is at the legal center of globalization. The NAFTA is the prototype for an eventual Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and novel mega-regional agreements like the Transatlantic Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Pacific Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) are likely to dramatically advance economic integration in the Pacific and Atlantic regions. Year after year, the piecemeal processes of globalization deepen and accelerate - and not always for the better. More than ever, the promise and perils of international trade law are problems of our time. This course has professional and intellectual objectives. Professionally it aims to equip you to handle the principal WTO and NAFTA legal disciplines with proficiency and confidence. It also aims to give you the tools to teach yourselves the international economic law of the future ? to put you in a position, for example, to understand and grapple with imminent legal arrangements like the TPP and T-TIP. Intellectually, the course aims to foster an understanding of globalization and its discontents in a critical and rigorous manner, free from the vitriol and obfuscation characteristic of the heated public debates on these issues.

Grading and Method of Evaluation:
Letter grade only. Final exam.