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Abstract:
Due to concerns with global climate change, Brazil's long and diversified experience with biofuels has captured the attention of policymakers worldwide. Yet, little is known about the history and scale of the Brazilian biofuels program in the United States. This comment provides an introduction to the history of Brazil's biofuels program and refers to the basic statutes that set it in place. Due to the unavailability of these enactments in English, an appendix provides the relevant portions of these statutes both in Portuguese and in the author's English translation.

Biofuels, legislation, ethanol, biodiesel, energy policy

Abstract:
For over two decades, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") and, more recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions ("OECD Convention") have delineated to U.S. lawyers and their clients which international transactions are proscribed and punished as corrupt. However, like any other statute, the FCPA and the OECD Convention are unable to cover all the permutations of activity that would seemingly constitute transnational corruption. This Article explores what is prohibited and permissible under the FCPA and the OECD Convention, highlighting the tension between operating outside the coverage of these legal precepts while still complying with the rules of professional conduct. It concludes by demonstrating, by means of various scenarios, that there is no substitute for a lawyer's reliance on her professional and ethical judgment.

Corruption, Bribery, Regulation and Business, Multinational Companies, International Business Transactions, FCPA, OECD Convention, UN Convention, International Organizations

Abstract:
The positive theory of litigation predicts that under certain conditions plaintiffs and defendants achieve an unremarkable and roughly equivalent share of litigation success. This article, grounded in an empirical analysis of WTO adjudication from 1995 through 2007, reveals a high disparity between Complainant and Respondent success rates: Complainants win roughly 90 percent of the disputes. This disparity transcends case type, country identity, income level and other litigant-specific characteristics. After analyzing and discarding standard empirical and theoretical alternative explanations for the systematic disparity in success rates, this study demonstrates that biased rule development explains this disparity through an examination of patterns in WTO adjudicators' notorious decisions. This article then discusses the effect of biased rule development on perceptions of the WTO dispute settlement system's democratic legitimacy and legality.

Positive Theory of Litigation, Litigation Success, Empirical Analysis, WTO Adjudication, Rule Development, Disparity, Patterns, WTO Dispute Settlement, GATT

Abstract:
The positive theory of litigation predicts that, under certain conditions, plaintiffs and defendants achieve an unremarkable and roughly equivalent share of litigation success. This Article, grounded in an empirical analysis of WTO adjudication from 1995 through 2007, reveals a high disparity between Complainant and Respondent success rates: Complainants win roughly ninety percent of the disputes. This disparity transcends case type, party identity, income level, and other litigant-specific characteristics. After analyzing and discarding standard empirical and theoretical alternative explanations for the systematic disparity in success rates, this study demonstrates, through an examination of patterns in WTO adjudicators' notorious decisions, that biased rule development explains this disparity. This Article then discusses the effect of biased rule development on perceptions of the WTO dispute settlement system's democratic legitimacy and legality.

WTO, Dispute settlement, international trade, positive theory of litigation, empirical legal studies

Abstract:
When the United States and Canada agreed to replace U.S. judicial review of trade-remedy cases with a new dispute mechanism under Chapter 19 of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (now the North American Free Trade Agreement), the U.S. Congress and trade negotiators expected that the new dispute settlement panels would apply U.S. law and the standard of review in the same manner as U.S. courts. This requirement was embodied in the text of the agreement and has at least nominally been applied by Chapter 19 panels ever since. Empirical analysis of seventeen years of decisions now allows a conclusion with a high degree of confidence that this has not been the case. Chapter 19 panels are far more likely than U.S. courts to overturn U.S. agency decisions. Not only that, but Chapter 19 panels have produced outcomes more favorable to Canadian importers than have U.S. courts. This outcome illustrates that the facial legal terms of an international agreement may give a misleading impression of how it will actually be implemented, and suggests that greater attention must be paid to how it will be interpreted and by whom.

NAFTA, International Trade, Chapter 19 Panels, Trade Remedy Law, AD/CVD Law, Dispute Settlement, Agency Review, Chapter 19, Judicial Review

Abstract:
Chapter 19 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) replaced court review of U.S. antidumping and countervailing duties with binding review by special binational panels of trade experts. It requires these panels to apply the same standard of review that U.S. courts use in trade remedy cases. Despite the centrality of this requirement to the Chapter 19 panel system, these panels have not adhered to this mandate. Chapter 19 panels overturn U.S. agency rulings much more often than the courts. In fact, they apply two different standards of review: exacting scrutiny where foreign producers and governments appeal, and near-absolute deference to agencies when U.S. industries appeal. In contrast, panels have shown great deference to Canadian agency determinations (which almost invariably find dumping exists) and favor Canadian industries seeking duties as often as foreign producers seeking their reduction or elimination. Previously suggested explanations - that Chapter 19 appeals involve different facts, that U.S. courts are inept, or that U.S. industries have captured U.S. agencies - fail to explain these phenomena. Rather, these discrepancies result from conflicting views about trade laws within the U.S. government, the relatively greater incentive of the Canadian government to control the Chapter 19 process through panel appointments and political action, and a procedural structure that makes it easy for panelists to override the U.S. legislative process. Proponents of free trade have, with some reason, warmly received Chapter 19. These discrepancies, however, may reduce the credibility of international dispute settlement and impede negotiations of other agreements.

NAFTA, Dispute Settlement, Agency Review, Trade Remedies, Dumping, Countervailing Duties, International Trade, Empirical Analysis

Abstract:
Empirical analysis of NAFTA panel review has shown that panels reverse US agency trade remedy determinations twice as often as US courts. Recent studies have eliminated case selection and other hypotheses as potential explanations for this divergence. In this article, Probit regressions show that case docket differences, such as type of import or litigant identity, also cannot account for this discrepancy. As NAFTA panels must apply the same law and standards of review as the US courts they replace, this divergence presents serious questions regarding US Congressional acquiescence to the operation of NAFTA panels and encourages discussion of the role or absence of popular preferences in the trade policy process.

empirical, international trade, NAFTA Chapter 19 panels, judicial review, divergence, asymmetric decisions, trade remedies, AD/CVD law, agency determinations, deference, public choice, capture, trade liberalization