Robert Howse

'This is my EUtopia ...': Narrative as Power

The original comparative mission of JCMS testifies to the propensity of the EU, since its inception, to project its model on to the rest of the world. This article argues that narratives of projection are indeed key to the EU’s global influence and that, in this particular sense, the idea of Europe as a civilian power is more relevant than ever. But such narratives require our engagement with their reflexive nature: what is usually projected is not the EU as is, but an EUtopia. At a time when both the EU and the international trade system are undergoing crises of legitimacy, EU actors can learn a lot from the remedies suggested for the global level by such an EUtopia.

The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the United States and the European Union

The Federal Vision is about the complex and changing relationship between levels of governance within the United States and the European Union. Based on a transatlantic dialogue between scholars concerned about modes of governance on both sides, it is a collective attempt at analysing the ramifications of the legitimacy crisis in our multi-layered democracies, and possible remedies. Starting from a focus on the current policy debatea over devolution and subsidiarity, the book engages the reader in to the broader tension of comparartive federalism. Its authors believe that in spite of the fundamental differences between them, both the EU and the US are in the process of re-defining a federal vision for the 21st century. This book represents an important new contribution to the study of Federalism and European integration, which seeks to bridge the divide between the two. It also bridges the traditional divide between technical, legal or regulatory discussions of federal governance and philosophical debates over questions of belonging and multiple identities. It is a multi-disciplinary project, bringing together historians, political scientists and theorists, legal scholars, sociologists and political economists. It includes both innovative analysis and prescriptions on how to reshape the federal contract in the US and the EU. It includes introductions to the history of federalism in the US and the EU, the current debates over devolution and subsidarity, the legal framework of federalism and theories of regulatory federalism, as well as innovative approaches to the application of network analysis, principal-agent models, institutionalist analysis, and political theories of citizenship to the federal context. The introduction and conclusion by the editors draws out cross-cutting themes and lessons from the thinking together of the EU and US experiences, and suggest how a federal vision could be freed from the hierarchical paradigm of the federal state and articulated around concepts of mutal tolerence and empowerment. Contributors to this volume - Jacques Delors Joseph Nye Robert Howse and Kalypso Nicolaidis Daniel Elazar Joseph Weiler Mark Pollack David Lazer and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger John Kincaid Andrew Moravcsik George Bermann Daniel Halberstam Giandomenico Majone Cary Coglianese John Peterson Vivien Schmidt Fritz Scharpf Sujit Choudhry Elizabeth Meehan Marc Landy Denis Lacorne Robert Howse and Kalypso Nicolaidis

From Politics to Technocracy - and Back Again: The Fate of the Multilateral Trading Regime

As is known to every student of trade law and policy, the modern idea of free trade originates from the theories of absolute and comparative advantage developed by the classical political economists, Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Smith and Ricardo both addressed themselves to a sovereign unilaterally deciding its trade policy. They concluded that, with some qualifications or exceptions, a policy of liberalizing restrictions on imports would maximize the wealth of that sovereign.

Information-Based Principles for Rethinking Consumer Protection Policy

In this paper we review the changes in economic theory that have taken place since current consumer protection regimes were first developed in the 1960s and 70s. We draw from this evolution in economic theory the basic principle that information, and the complex ways in which information works both in the marketplace and in regulatory regimes, should form the core of a set of principles for rethinking consumer protection policy. We go on to propose a number of such information-based principles as a guide for the redesign of consumer protection policy to deal with an increasingly global and complex consumer marketplace.

Enhancing WTO Legitimacy: Constitutionalization or Global Subsidiarity?

Increasingly, scholars have articulated the challenge of global economic governance in constitutional terms. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is often painted as an incipient global economic constitution. Its legitimacy would be enhanced, some contend, by transforming the WTO treaty system into a federal construct. But the application of the language of constitutionalism to the WTO is likely to exacerbate the fears of the “discontents” of globalization that the international institutions of economic governance are not democratically accountable to anyone. We argue that the legitimacy of the multilateral trading order requires greater democratic contestability. The notion of global subsidiarity would be a more appropriate model for the WTO than that of a “federal” constitution. This notion incorporates three basic principles: institutional sensitivity, political inclusiveness, and top-down empowerment.

European Communities – Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products

The EC-Biotech dispute exposed the WTO dispute settlement system to a more challenging test than any previous dispute. Not only did the Panel have to take a stand on the limits of science, or technocratic regulatory controls, to protect against objective risk, but in this regard faced more complex issues than ever addressed before by an adjudicating body. The dispute also concerned an extremely charged political issue, partly because of inherent ethical sensitivities with regard to foodstuffs, partly due to public skepticism about the role of science, and partly due to a common public perception of the complaint as being driven by the interests of an untrustworthy industry. Because of these and other challenges, the Panel faced an almost impossible task. This paper discusses how the Panel addressed some of these issues. The recently (after our report was drafted) decided appeal in EC–Hormones Suspension is likely to reduce the significance for WTO jurisprudence of some of the Panels findings in EC–Biotech, given the apparently different approach of the AB to fundamental interpretative issues under SPS concerning the meaning of risk assessment and precaution.

The WTO on Trial

GLOBAL LAW, GLOBAL POLITICS LAST FALL, ajudicial panel ofthe World Trade Organization (WTO) iS sued a controversial ruling in a high-stakes corporate tax dispute between the United States and the European Union. Paying scant attention to the complexities of the case, the panel authorized Brussels to implement retaliatory sanctions of

Constitutional Theory and The Quebec Secession Reference

4 billion-an unprecedented sum-against Washington. Notably, around the same time the United States and its European allies were also making headlines with another fierce legal battle: that over the authority of the International Criminal Court to prosecute American soldiers for alleged misdeeds committed abroad. In the nineteenth century, Clausewitz famously wrote that war is politics conducted by other means; today, as these examples illustrate, the same could be said for the law. Many disputes that used to be settled by negotiation or even by force of arms now end up before a prolifer ating range of international courts, tribunals, and arbitral panels. Legal briefs are replacing diplomatic notes, and judicial decrees are displacing political compromises. Less often considered is whether this ascendant legalism is good or bad for global prosperity and stability. In most cases, it turns out, it is still too early to say. There is one exception, however: the WTO. Nowhere else has international conflict resolution by judges emerged

Protecting Human Rights in a Global Economy: Challenges for the World Trade Organization

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession Reference has produced a torrent of public commentary. Given the fundamental issues about the relationship between law and politics raised by the judgment, what is remarkable is that that commentary has remained almost entirely in a pragmatic perspective, which asks how positive politics entered into the motivations and justifications of the Court, and looks at the results in terms of their political consequences, without deep or sustained reflection on the ultimate grounds for the role the Court took upon itself, or on the normative sources of its reasoning. In this article, we explore the Quebec Secession Reference through the lens of constitutional theory. In particular, we highlight three unconventional aspects of the Courts reasoning: (a) the supplementation of the written constitution through an explicit process of amendment-like interpretation to craft a new legal framework governing the secession of a province from Canada, (b) the vesting by the Court of substantial, if not exclusive, responsibility for interpreting the constitutional rules on secession in particular situations or contexts with political organs, not the courts, and (c) the ascent by the court to abstract normativity, in articulating a normative vision of the Canadian constitutional order, whence it derived the legal framework governing secession. In addition to drawing attention to these unusual aspects of the judgment, we articulate the theoretical justifications that both explain and justify those features of the judgment, and identify issues for future discussion.

Trade and Transitions : A Comparative Analysis of Adjustment Policies

Since the late 1980s, the ascendancy of market economics coupled with a revolution in information technology has accelerated the process of globalization while institutions of international governance have been unable or unwilling to catch up. Privatization and the related phenomena of deregulation, structural adjustment, and a myriad of new bilateral, regional and multilateral trade and investment agreements have proceeded without credible efforts to conceptually and practically address their impacts on legally protected human rights. This paper addresses the tensions and potential synergies between the two legal regimes governing trade and investment and human rights. Trade and investment agreements, as well as the practices of international business, must be held accountable to existing human rights law. The spirit of human rights law must frame the development of trade law if either is to achieve its goals. While human rights violations existed long before this period of rapid economic integration, the growing number of sectors covered by multilateral trade and investment agreements has set the stage for a new variety of human rights abuses which have not yet been suitably addressed. There is a need to evolve new laws and policies in a manner that overcomes the post-war legacy of isolation between human rights institutions and economic institutions. This is something that the World Trade Organization, other multinational organizations, and all of mankind should address.