Transnational Law Blog

Don't Count on the Chinese, You Better Do It Yourself

The newest wave of shoddy products from China reminds me of the old Jack in the Box debacle.  Back in 1993, the fast food restaurant chain Jack in the Box suffered a huge financial loss after hundreds of people got sick and several children died from eating undercooked hamburger meat that was contaminated with E. Coli (see here).  Recently, a brand of Chinese-made dumplings that are popular with children have sickened at least a dozen people in Japan.  It was later discovered that the dumplings were contaminated with pesticides (see here).  And, on a related issue, there is growing concern now about the safety of the abortion pill, RU-486, which is manufactured by the same Chinese company that produced anti-leukemia drugs that paralyzed approximately 200 cancer patients in China (see here).  How long can China continue to produce products that harm the foreign and domestic public before people start taking their business elsewhere? 

Jack in the Box eventually recovered from the E.Coli debacle after instituting industry standard-setting food handling and cooking techniques.  We keep hearing about investigations being launched in China after each of these shoddy product scandals but what really comes as a result of these investigations?  The investigations are meant to rehabilitate the image of China's products but does rooting out corruption even at the highest levels of their government accomplish this goal?  Executing the person in charge of China's version of the FDA for taking bribes worth 6.4 million RMB from companies he was supposed to be regulating is dramatic and it might pacify some of the naysayers for awhile but it's not a solution.  This kind of spectacle reminds me of the old westerns where the corrupt town mayor decides to hang a couple of nobodies in a desperate attempt to calm the angry public when the injustices become too many.  It's all smoke and mirrors, and in the wake of more shoddy products we should be asking if anything is really being done to regulate the China-made products?

Besides making public spectacles, China is also attempting to legislate some regulations to combat shoddy products. There is a difference though between drafting regulations and actually legislating them, and then there is an even bigger difference between legislating them and enforcing them. We're always hearing of China's problems with enforcing the laws, and I believe China is getting better at enforcing its laws, but can China institute legislation to stop shoddy products and begin enforcing those regulations before the bottom drops out of their export-led growth?   Maybe, and maybe not.   

Some people have been making the argument that a Chinese manufacturer has little choice but to make a shoddy product when the foreign buyer insists on paying as little as possible.  In other words, you get what you pay for!  A post over at the Time's China Blog points out that the Chinese company that was manufacturing the anti-leukemia drugs was making less than you make on a bottle of water-- I guess that means they were making very little profit-- but I fail to see how this justifies harming the public? So what if they aren't making enough money? Tough shit! That's business!  And a business that isn't make any money is a failure and should close shop.  But that is not what's happening here.  The company that manufactured the drugs that paralyzed hundreds of people is a state owned company and it's hard for me to imagine that it's actually running at a lose when it is by definition being subsidized.  But why shouldn't this company cut corners when there are no repercussions?      

Dan Harris over at the China Law Blog also posted a "you get what you pay for" argument.  His argument was not necessarily about paying more to state owned manufacturers to get a better product but it made a similar point that paying a little more might get the buyer some more protection.  He made the very solid point that paying more for such things as due diligence, good contracts, and quality control monitoring will greatly increase the likelihood of good product from China.  I particularly like this portion of his post:

If you are underpaying your Chinese supplier, you will get bad product. It is that simple. By underpaying, I mean that if you are paying your supplier 1000 Yuan to make copper piping that requires 1000 Yuan in copper, you will get bad piping. Guaranteed. Your pipes will not have 1000 Yuan worth of copper in them. They just won't. Paying 2000 Yuan for the piping will not guarantee you get 1000 Yuan of copper in them, but it certainly does improve your odds. Does anyone disagree with me on this?

I don't disagree, but what happens if the Chinese manufacturer simply decides to rip you off because he has no reason not to?  When Jack in the Box poisoned hundreds of kids and killed a few, they were hit with just as many lawsuits and they lost hundreds of millions of dollars.  If the Chinese rewrote their tort laws to mirror the US tort system, then I think the Chinese manufacturers would be less likely to put a shoddy product into the stream of commerce.  A manufacturer in China would think twice about paralyzing a few hundred people if he could be held liable for punitive damages in the hundreds of millions of yuan.  And while they're at it, they should make it possible for foreigners that have been harmed by Chinese product to sue the manufacturer in a Chinese court for the same kind of damages.

But there is a problem, how many of these manufacturers are state owned?  How many of them are run by members of the Communist Party?  The Chinese government has very little incentive to create a tort system that could potentially hold them liable for sums of money that would actually mean anything to anyone.  Because there is no way to hold anyone truly liable for their actions, it seems like there is no way to stop the officials from taking bribes and the manufacturers from cutting corners.  Outside of standing over the manufacturer's shoulder and monitoring their every action, a foreign investor has no guarantees that their China-made product won't harm the public.  Eventually, the cost of labor and the price of babysitting the manufacturer will become too much in comparison to other exploitable countries like Mexico, Vietnam, and India, and the foreign investors will abandon China.

Invisible College: New Blog Focusing on Transnational Law and Issues

A new blog was launched today, Invisible College. Much like TLB, Invisible College notes that it is dedicated to discussing transnational legal issues as well as anything else that affects the international arena. Its authors are students and recent grads in law, economics and journalism, and seem to hail primarily from Canada and Europe.

This new forum looks to be very interesting. Welcome to the Blogosphere!

Third Party Dispute Resolution in Treaties: Medellin v. Texas

I blogged earlier about how appointing a third party dispute resolution mechanism in transnational commercial contracts was a relatively straight-forward proposition, accepted by US courts and in keeping with general contract theory. In this post I will discuss an ongoing international dispute over a treaty that has wound up at the International Court of Justice and a number of times in the Supreme Court, most recently in this term.

The dispute is a matter of treaty interpretation. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations entered into force in 1963 and governs consular practice between states. Currently, there are 171 signatories to the Convention. At issue is a provision in the treaty that requires states to notify foreign nationals that they have a right to consult with the consular representatives of their nation of citizenship when they are arrested abroad.

The US, as you might surmise, does not do a very good job of fulfilling its obligations under this provision, even though we often demand that other nations provide consular notification protections to our own citizens arrested abroad. Thus, Mexico sought review at the ICJ of the US convictions of 51 of its nationals who had not been provided with consular notification options. Mexico was able to seek this review because both Mexico and the US (at the time), as well as 44 other nations, are parties to the "Optional Protocol" of the Vienna Convention, which provides that the ICJ shall have jurisdiction over disputes that arise under the Convention (and, for the purposes of this discussion, the third-party dispute resolution mechanism).

In 2004, the ICJ decided that the US had an obligation arising under the treaty to "review and reconsider" the convictions of the 51 Mexican nationals. One of these, Jose Ernesto Medellin, filed a suit asking the federal courts to enforce this review of his capital conviction for murder in Texas. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to the case. In "Medellin I", the question was whether Medellin had a private right of action to request review, under the argument that the ICJ decision was binding treaty law in the US.

The Bush Administration filed an amicus brief positing that under its interpretation of the ICJ judgment, there was not a private cause of action created for individuals, as the ICJ can only resolve disputes between states. Simultaneously, the President declared that the US would meet its obligations under the ICJ judgment, and ordered the Texas courts to "review and reconsider" the convictions of the 51 Mexican nationals (it should also be noted that the US then proceeded to withdraw from the Optional Protocol). The Court, in a 5-4 decision, ordered the federal case dismissed and allowed a state habeas petition to go forward.

Medellin then filed in Texas, arguing that the Presidential order for review should be upheld. The Texas courts refused to reconsider the convictions, stating that the President does not have the authority to order Texas to apply a decision of the ICJ. Medellin filed for certiorari again, and oral arguments in "Medellin II" were heard this past October. There are two questions for review: The first is whether the President has the constitutional authority to order states to obey the ICJ ruling in order to satisfy the treaty obligations. The second is whether a state has to obey the ICJ ruling as it arises under a treaty and is thus the "supreme law of the land", as the Constitution defines treaties (and would therefore be binding irregardless of the President's order).

Another question is whether the court has already decided this issue in Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 126 S.Ct. 2669 (2006). In that case, foreign nationals who were not among the 51 Mexican nationals in the ICJ case brought a suit seeking to have their convictions reviewed given the ICJ decision. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the five-Justice majority that the ICJ's interpretation of the treaty was not binding on US courts, and therefore petitioners could not have their convictions reviewed.

The petitioner in Medellin argues that while the ICJ's general interpretation of the treaty may not be binding on US courts (a contention that four Justices in Sanchez-Llamas disagreed with), that the specific decision of the ICJ as it relates to the 51 Mexicans is binding as a matter of treaty obligations (and, as stated, the US agrees with that point of view).

This is obviously a complex case, and one for which there are no easy precedents. But it is clear that there is a majority of the Court that is extremely reluctant to allow the decision of the ICJ to count for much of anything. My question is this: given that the Supreme Court has allowed significant latitude to third-party dispute resolution mechanisms in commercial contracts, why this reluctance to allow third parties to resolve conflicts between States when the parties have agreed to their jurisdiction? Is there some difference between holding a commercial party to their commitment to abide by an arbitral ruling and holding the US to its commitment to abide by a ruling of the ICJ on this narrow matter?

In my next post on this topic, I will draw on international law, commercial law and contract theory contract to make an argument for why the Supreme Court should find the ICJ's decision to be binding on US courts.

A Look At The Coming Outer Space War With China

The Wired Blogs recently published a series of posts entitled, How China Loses The Coming Space War, which are written by MIT researcher Geoffrey Forden, Ph.D., examining the possibility of an all-out Chinese assault on American satellites (h/t Wendy Jackson). A year ago China performed a successful anti-satellite test, shooting down one of its own obsolete weather satellites, putting into overdrive widespread speculation about a possible outer space war with China. In a previous post we joined in this speculation, discussing the new space race and China's use of anti-technology technology as a means to defeat the USA in an armed conflict. Forden obviously believes that the USA would ultimately win an outer space contest with China. His arguments are quite compelling and worth reading in their entirety.

In Part One of the series, Forden opens up with a fictional account of how China's space war against the US could begin:

High above Asia, as the bars and clubs of Beijing begin to fill up at the end of another work day, a US early warning satellite spots the tell-tale plume of a missile streaking out of the wastes of Western China.  Warning bells sound all through the Pentagon. Tensions have been running high between China and the United States, as the two countries struggle to resolve the latest installment of the Taiwanese crisis.  And China has had a run of unprecedented activity in space: the past two days have seen China launch four large missions into deep space, three within the last six hours.. Fortunately, a high-resolution American spy satellite will be over that second launch site within minutes, giving the US a unique ability to determine what is going on.  But even though tasking orders are given to photograph the suspected launch site, none are returned.  The satellite, code-named Crystal 3, no longer responds to commands.  Within minutes, US Space Command reports that four NAVSTAR/GPS satellites—used to guide American drones and precision bombs—have stopped broadcasting.  China’s space war against the United States has started.

Forden then gives a brief summary of his research and overall conclusion, which is that the fear of a single strike that could cripple America's satellite network--an outer space Pearl Harbor-- is unrealistic. The rest of Part One is devoted to analyzing China's successful anti-satellite test. Through a process of backtracking, scientists have reconstructed the collision of the missile and the satellite.

"By backtracking the debris to the point where they all converge, we can determine the two most important aspects of the Chinese ASAT: how China destroyed that satellite, and just how capable its satellite-killer really is." Based on the information gathered from backtracking, Forden concludes that the Chinese have accomplished a phenomenal feat. According to him, China "accomplished the most sophisticated of space maneuvers: a hit-to-kill interception, the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet."

In Part Two, Forden argues that China does not have the ability to launch enough anti-satellite missiles to cripple the US armed forces. "The United States may be the country most dependent on space for its military activities.  But it is also the least vulnerable, because of the tremendous redundancy of its space assets." He analyzes whether China could destroy deep-space navigation satellites, early warning satellites, communications satellites, and low altitude satellites, and he concludes that China just couldn't do enough damage to render the USA forces impotent. The sheer number of American military and civilian satellites is simply far more than the number of anti-satellite missiles China has at its disposal.

The most interesting aspect of Part Three is Forden's plea for countries to avoid space warfare. He points out that the destruction of any satellite in outer space will create debris fields that will continue to orbit the Earth, eventually damaging or destroying other satellites.

These debris fields could easily cause a run-away chain of collisions that renders space unusable -- for thousands of years, and for everyone.  Not only is this a quickly growing and important sector of the world’s economy (sales of GPS receivers alone reportedly exceeds $20 billion annually), but space is also used for humanitarian missions such as forecasting floods in Bangladesh or droughts in Africa.  We cannot allow space to be forever barred to our use for what turns out to be a very minor military advantage.  If the military utility of attacks in space are so minor; if the active defense of space assets is impractical, counterproductive, and unnecessary; and if the danger resulting from the consequent debris affects all space-faring nations for thousands of years to come, it is clear that diplomacy is in every country's interest.

The first step the United States should take is a simple declaration that we guarantee the continued flow of information to any country whose satellite is destroyed by an ASAT.  We could do this using either our military or civilian-owned satellites. After all, if the space assets of the United States are not vulnerable to attacks because of the inherent redundancy, the same cannot be said of China’s other potential regional competitors such as Australia, India, or Japan. Each of these countries has only a handful of satellites that could be quickly destroyed if China chooses to attack them.  This declaration would effectively eliminate any military advantage that a country might get from attacking its neighbors limited fleet of satellites.  After that, we should adopt the code of conduct that is being developed by the Stimson Center that establishes “rules of the road” for responsible space-faring nations.  Finally, we should work toward a treaty banning the future testing of these most dangerous of anti-satellite weapons: the so-called "kinetic kill interceptors" that create such large amounts of debris.  It'd be a first step towards containing the worst effects on war in space.

Forden's series of posts consider the worst possible scenarios and conclude that the American armed forces would still be effective. "And much like Japan’s failure to destroy the US carrier fleet, a Chinese attack on US satellites would fail to cripple our military, China’s strategic goal in launching a space war." However, Forden does not discuss the possible consequences of China synchronously launching a cyber attack on the US. It seems like that would make a significant difference in his analysis. Either way, his analysis of the space war situation is fascinating and certainly worth reading.

Transnational Commercial Disputes In The USA Ain't Easy

A post on China Law Blog entitled, Who Needs International/Foreign Law? Not Us, We're Americans, raises a number of transnational law issues and is well worth a read. Dan Harris, the author of the post, questions whether or not US courts have an obligation to abide by international treaties and whether they abide by that obligation, and he uses the Hague Convention Rules on International Service of Process as an example. I encourage you to read the entire article but here is a portion of it:

For at least the third time (two times is coincidence, three times is a trend), a US court has allowed a case to go forward against a defendant despite plaintiff's having clearly failed to abide by the Hague Convention Rules on international service of process. The most recent instance is in a still pending case so I cannot go into the specifics on that one.

Virtually every time we have sought to get the US courts to enforce the Hague Convention or even, in one instance, when we sought to get a US court to pretty much ignore the Hague Convention, the US court has seemed perfectly willing to rule as though the United States has no obligation to abide by a treaty it signed. I have a strong sense US Courts (both state courts and federal courts) will not enforce the Hague Convention's technical service requirements (including that the summons and complaint must usually be translated into the language of the country in which it is being served). Oh, and getting a US court to throw out or stay (delay) a case so that an already pending case in another country can be decided first -- forget it. My conclusion is that US courts are happy to ignore foreign/international law in favor of handling things under US law, whether US law should apply or not.

US court judgments usually are not enforceable outside the United States and one of the reasons given for this is the failure of American courts to recognize foreign law. My foreign clients (these are international businesspeople, not in any way anti-American) are complaining to me more and more about US courts and how "they think they can ignore the rest of the world." One particularly piqued client (from a country very friendly to the United States) pointedly told me this is one of the reasons why America is becoming more and more hated and why we are losing our power. He insisted that the courts in his country would have ruled differently on the same issue and I think he is correct.

If the United States is serious about globalization, it is time our courts start recognizing that ours is not the only law in the world and that it actually behooves US business to make our courts more international in the context of business disputes.

The comments that follow the post also address some interesting transnational law issues. One in particular, a comment posted by a person named Twofish, addresses the constitutional issue of whether the Hague Convention is a self-executing treaty or a non-self-executing treaty. A self-executing treaty becomes federal law (and therefore preempts state law) as soon as it is signed. A non-self-executing treaty requires Congress to pass additional laws implementing the terms of the treaty once it has been signed, which means the terms of the treaty are not federal law until Congress has made them federal law.

Whether or not a treaty is self-executing is a very important question when determining whether state law preempts the terms of a treaty. A good example of a self-executing treaty is the CISG. As we mentioned in a previous post, it is considered a self-executing treaty because of the specificity of its language; because of its apparent purpose to create rules that would bind individuals; and because of the apparent views of the political branches that no further action is necessary. As a self-executing treaty, the CISG preempts inconsistent state law under the Supremacy Clause.

Dan Harris of China Law Blog also touches upon the enforceability of foreign judgments in the USA. The enforceability of foreign judgments is determined by state law because the USA is not a party to any treaty. Although the USA has not adopted it, many states have adopted the Uniform Money Judgment Enforcement Act. This Act requires the enforcement of foreign money judgments but allows for a number of exceptions, including lack of notice; lack of subject matter or personal jurisdiction; the foreign court procedures are not compatible with due process; enforcement would violate public policy; or there is a conflict with another final judgment. Many other countries, particularly civil law countries, also require reciprocity.

I am curious as to why Dan Harris does not talk about international arbitration? He has had some very interesting posts about arbitration in the past (see here for example), but he does not discuss it as an alternative in this context. Arbitral awards are enforceable under the New York Convention while the enforceability of court judgments (at least when the US is involved) turns only on local law. His post is discussing these matters in the context of China, which is a party to the New York Convention. China also has its own arbitration body, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), which was established to settle international commercial disputes. I would be very interested to know what Dan Harris thinks of CIETAC and arbitration in general as an alternative to a judicial forum.

And the matter is also open to other bloggers and blog readers: Arbitrate or litigate in a traditional judicial forum? Do you tell your clients to put in an arbitration clause? Is it truly easier to enforce an award from arbitration than a court judgment? This inquiring mind wants to know!

Third-Party Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Transnational Commercial Contracts

We live in a globalized world, where people, money and ideas flow easily across borders. Yet, our legal systems continue to be based on national territorial sovereignty. Thus, when it comes to a dispute between parties that are resident or present in more than one country, there is no international or transnational law that can be called on to resolve the dispute. Rather, the domestic system of one or more of the countries that have some territorial connection to the parties or the dispute steps in to govern the dispute.

This is obviously problematic. Which state's law should govern? States have developed numerous ways of attempting to resolve this quandary, including doctrines limiting jurisdiction. In the area of commercial contracts, many states allow parties themselves to agree in a contract as to which law shall govern. In the US, this approach was enshrined in M/S Bremen v Zapata Offshore Co., 407 U.S. 1 (1972). There, the Supreme Court adopted a hands-off approach to allowing commercial parties to contract the place and law that will govern their contract. Chief Justice Burger wrote in his opinion: "The expansion of American business and industry will hardly be encouraged if, notwithstanding solemn contracts, we insist on a parochial concept that all disputes must be resolved under our laws and in our courts.”

States have also turned to treaties as a method of filling the gaps between municipal legal systems. Once again in the commercial context, 142 states have signed the "New York" Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. This convention obliges the signatories to enforce arbitration awards rendered by third-party (non-state) arbitrators. Again in the US, under Mitsubishi Motors v. Soler Chrysler-Plymouth, 473 U.S. 614 (1985), the Court established that where parties in a commercial contract specify a third-party dispute resolution mechanism (an arbitrator), the judiciary will defer to that arbitrator's judgment in practically all areas, including areas involving important public policy concerns such as antitrust. Justice Blackmun wrote: "Concerns of international comity, respect for the capacities of foreign and transnational tribunals, and sensitivity to the need of the international commercial system for predictability in the resolution of disputes, all require enforcement of the arbitration clause in question, even assuming that a contrary result would be forthcoming in a domestic context."

Thus, in the context of commercial agreements, US law is clear: parties to an international agreement may appoint a third party to resolve any disputes arising under the agreement. We can reconcile this with Contract Theory generally: so long as it is the intent of the parties to be bound to the decision of the arbitrator, the courts should enforce that intention. The dispute resolution mechanism is nothing more than another contracted term.

That being clear, here is an interesting quandary. Let's say that the NY Convention included a clause (which in reality it does not) referring any disputes under the treaty to a third-party arbitrator. And let's say that the US did not enforce arbitral awards as required by the treaty. Another state brings an action before the arbitral body noted in the treaty, and the arbitral body says that in order to be in compliance with the treaty it signed, the US must begin enforcing arbitral awards. In other words, we have taken the third-party dispute resolution mechanism out of the commercial context and put it into the public international law context.

What status should this determination have under US law? Leaving aside the fact that commercial arbitrators only have authority to award damages and not to compel performance, is there a reason why a third-party dispute resolution mechanism should be binding in the case of commercial arbitration, but should not be binding on the U.S. when we have signed a treaty that establishes our intention to be bound by the decisions of the third party?

My next post will be on Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 126 S.Ct. 2669 (2006), and a case currently under review by the Supreme Court, Medellin v. Texas. These cases deal with the issue of whether a decision of the International Court of Justice in binding on the US when the US has signed a treaty in which the ICJ is noted as a third-party dispute resolution mechanism for any disputes arising under the treaty.

But for the moment, I am curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Is there a reason there should be enforceable third-party dispute resolution mechanisms in commercial contracts, but not in treaties? Should a party's obligations arising under a treaty be left solely to the interpretation of that party? I'm curious to hear your views.

Legal Justifications for Securing Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons

Over at Opinio Juris, Prof. Julian Ku links an article in the UK’s Herald that noted that US Special Forces were on standby to enter Pakistan and secure the nuclear warheads should civil unrest threaten the Musharraf regime. Ku calls this plan a “sensible precaution” but opines that it would be “almost certainly illegal under international law.”

My final exam in Public International Law a few weeks ago posited exactly this scenario: a takeover in Pakistan by fundamentalist elements including Al Qaeda and Taliban. My task, as Deputy Legal Advisor at the Department of State, was to write a memo outlining the legal basis for entering to secure the weapons as well as a possible full-blown invasion if necessary.

The rationale I gave was that such an action was justified under our right to self-defense from an imminent armed attack, as established under customary international law (e.g., the Caroline Doctrine) and under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Under the Caroline Doctrine as articulated by Secretary Webster in 1842, US policy has been that anticipatory self defense may take place in cases where the necessity of defense is instant, overwhelming, leaves no choice of means or time for deliberation. I think there is a strong argument that this scenario presents such a case.

There are two characteristics of this hypothetical scenario that lead to its legality that are not present in other cases (such as, say, Iran, North Korea or Syria). One is the confirmed presence of nuclear weapons and advanced rocketry. The second is that we are currently in a state of unprovoked belligerency with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and we can reasonably expect that any fundamentalist takeover in Pakistan would involve significant elements of these groups. I think there is a reasonable argument that if this takeover occurred, there would be a high likelihood of an imminent nuclear attack (if the US didn’t immediately secure the weapons, I doubt Al Qaeda would wait around until there was a Security Council resolution or we established our resolve... they would launch as soon as it was technically feasible).

This is different from the Bush preemption doctrine, which is aimed at preventing states which may one day both secure WMD’s and become belligerent with us. Like many, I find that approach to be of dubious legality. However, here we would be dealing with a regime that has already attacked, and with certain nuclear capabilities.

Of course, international law is by no means an exact science. Determining whether something is legal or not is really just a process of making arguments and letting political processes and public opinion be the judge. However, my feeling is that when reasonable people such as Prof. Ku see an armed action as a “sensible precaution” there is a good argument to be made that it is also a legal precaution.

Salutations

My name is Dave Raynor, and I am a new guest-blogger here at TLB. I want to thank Travis and the rest of the gang for inviting me to participate. I am a 2L at USF School of Law, and have various interests related to international and transnational law. In particular, my interests focus on a couple of areas: the effects of law and trade on development, transnational approaches to dispute resolution, and the intersection of domestic law with global economic concerns, such as those that arise in connection with antitrust and  trade.

I have a considerable amount of  international experience, having been raised primarily in Latin America (Venezuela and Bolivia), and as an adult I have lived and worked in Germany, Columbia and Vietnam. Prior to law school, I was in the business world for eight years. I began my career at a European HR consultancy that advised companies expanding in emerging markets, and later was in corporate trading. This past summer I interned for an international law firm in Vietnam, which was a tremendous experience. I will certainly blog more about Vietnam and the effect that expanded trade is having there. I will be returning to the international firm as a summer associate this year, working in their international and corporate groups.

As I noted, one of my areas of interest is transnational dispute resolution. I am currently doing research on the status of international third-party dispute resolution mechanisms under U.S. law by comparing the hands-off approach taken to third-party dispute resolution mechanisms in commercial contracts with the apparent hostility to third-party interpretation of treaties often exhibited by the courts. I'll be blogging a bit about this topic initially, and would like to invite your comments as I hope to turn this research into a law review comment.

Thanks again for having me aboard!