ABB is cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department regarding suspect payments that it made in at least one middle eastern country.  The question that may come to mind is why the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act would seem to apply to actions by a Swedish/Swiss corporation in

I am extremely pleased to welcome Jeff Dunoff of Temple Law School and Joanne Scott of University College London (visiting this year at Harvard) to the blog.  I look forward very much to their contributions.

The preliminary report has apparently been distributed to the parties, and it indicates, as many expected, that the EU has lost.  As suggested earlier, we will have to wait until the report is available to the public, but as details leak out, we will try to note them here.

Frederick Kempe writes in today's WSJ: The initial responses to Mr. Mittal's bid last week were quasi-racist, questioning his non-European values. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker vowed to use "all necessary means" to block the bid. Yet the rhetoric has now cooled and Arcelor

I would like to welcome Greg Shaffer and Todd Weiler, and soon Steve Charnovitz, to the band of bloggers.  I look forward with great anticipation to their insightful contributions.  I also look forward to announcing further additions to the group soon.

It is remarkable that the media's focus on the WTO is exhausted in the question will it or will it not yield an outcome this time (Doha round)? The WTO is a public institution, and public perceptions matter. Its biggest accomplishment, I would submit, is its very existence:

On behalf of Rob and Petros, who are experiencing technical difficulties, I suggest those interested in international economic law consider attending the upcoming conference at Columbia.  It looks like a terrific line-up.

Traditional realist political science considers traditional international law "epiphenomenal," meaning that the real action is in hard power politics, and the law does not affect behavior.  Recent experience at the WTO suggests that international law can affect behavior. The U.S. Congress has recently taken action to comply

It is a pleasure to welcome Rob Howse, of University of Michigan Law School, to the blog.  Rob is one of the world's leading analysts of international trade law, and I look forward to his enlightening perspective.

See Pascal Lamy's major speech on the "Geneva Consensus."  Obviously, he is distinguishing the more focused market-oriented Washington Consensus.  His Geneva Consensus involves a focus on adjustment: We must create a new “Geneva consensus”: a new basis for the opening up of trade that takes into