The Garden

An essay about the importance of human rights in American foreign policy, framed through the work of Thomas Jefferson. Inspired by the author’s visit to the Jefferson Memorial and the American garden in Washington D.C

The Garden

An essay about the importance of human rights in American foreign policy, framed through the work of Thomas Jefferson. Inspired by the author’s visit to the Jefferson Memorial and the American garden in Washington D.C

Clough Center Lecture: A Common Gauge: Harmonization and International Law

The international community should adopt more common standards, or common gauges, to help maximize global trade. Nations can capitalize on the international division of labor inherent in global trade by making many more of the individual parts of the global value chain interchangeable. The resulting global common gauge would lower costs and increase efficiency, productivity, quality, reliability, and diversity of products. To make common commercial standards, however, nations must refrain from promulgating trade barriers, such as domestic standards, that unnecessarily insulate and advantage national producers while discriminating against foreign firms. To combat this “regulatory protectionism,” the World Trade Organization should expand upon existing agreements, such as the TBT and SPS Agreements, that encourage WTO Members to adopt regulations that are no more restrictive on trade than necessary to achieve stated goals. This action, combined with the pressure of economic necessity, will develop a common gauge that will harmonize common standards and maximize global trade

Turning to Tacitus

What do we learn when, finally, we turn to Tacitus? Here, in our middle age, it is true that the few of us that survive are no longer what we once were. Even so, we may be tempted, like some who opposed the oppressive rule in Rome, to see ourselves as the last of the free.\u27 If so, what, then, are we willing to do to preserve our freedom? What are we willing to sacrifice to save Rome? Will we simply salute and shed a tear? Will it be said of us, as Tacitus said of the Romans during the time of the first treason trials: Everyone refused. Their excuses were different, but they were all afraid. ? And will it be said of us, as Tacitus said of the Gauls who were defeated by the Romans: Their valour perished with their freedom ? There is a price for valor, even as there is a price for freedom. The price for standing up for freedom is often high. Sometimes it is the ultimate price, and, yes, sometimes those who are willing to stand up and pay the ultimate price of freedom are forgotten. But sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are remembered ever afterwards. Tacitus tells us that, in a parade in Rome, in the days of the empire, The effigies of twenty highly distinguished families ... headed the procession. But Cassius and Brutus were the most gloriously conspicuous--precisely because their statues were not to be seen.\u2

Table Talk: Around the Table of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization

In this Article, James Bacchus describes his experiences as a faceless foreign judge of the World Trade Organization. In this capacity, Bacchus and his six colleagues on the WTO Appellate Body hear appeals in international trade disputes among the 144 member countries and other customs territories that are Members of the WTO. Bound by the WTO Rules of Conduct, he cannot comment on cases or the specific deliberation process, but rather comments on the processes and role of the Appellate Body relative to the WTO

Symposium Address: The Role of Lawyers in the WTO

A final point I would make to students who are here today and about to go out into the legal world would be this: I have noticed that what I do is a bit controversial in some places. Why is that so? It is because the world is changing and because, understandably, people have apprehensions about change. It is also because there is very little understanding of what it is that we are doing in Geneva. Consciously, and intentionally, I have spent my first years on the Appellate Body in silence. Vanderbilt is one of the few places where I have spoken. It has been important for all of us who are Members of the Appellate Body to focus on establishing our institution, to speak with one voice, and to submerge our own identities into the system itself. I have tried very hard to do that. But, meanwhile, the world has continued to turn, and with its turning we have watched the growing apprehension around the world about what has come to be called globalization. Not only in the United States, but in every country of the world, there is apprehension about the challenges globalization poses, and about what it will mean for individual human beings in our daily lives, and in our future together. This is understandable. In considering this, I would simply ask those who are apprehensive about globalization to remember our old friend Thucydides. The WTO is the result, not the cause, of globalization. The choice we face is not between globalization and no globalization. Rather, the choice we face is between an increasingly globalized world in which we will be ruled by the arbitrary exercise of economic and political power, or one in which we will have the rule of law. My own view is that we need more international law, not less. We need the rule of law. And we need the WTO