Past GEORGETOWN lAW Courses sponsored by the IIEL

The IIEL aims to instigate and encourage seminars and courses offered at Georgetown Law that concern IEL. The following seminars and courses offered during the past academic years serve as an example:

Fall 1999: Environment and Trade Law

This 1999 seminar was jointly taught by Professors John H. Jackson, Edith Brown Weiss, and C. Christopher Parlin (Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law, and Partner at Kaye Scholer LL.P.) and fo-cused on the intersection of international environmental law and trade law. This seminar used five key trade cases (one GATT case, three WTO cases, and the impending case on Genetically Modified Organisms - GMOs) as a focus for extensive discussions, which included government officials and practi-tioners. A book based on the student seminar papers, entitled Reconciling Environment and Trade (Transnational Publishers, Inc.), was published in April 2001.

Spring 2000: FTAA Seminar

In Spring 2000, Roberto Echandi, IIEL Fellow and Adjunct Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law, taught a Seminar on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The seminar examined the FTAA process from three different perspectives: the historical background and the relevant factors that lead to the launching of the FTAA negotiations; the political economy at the base of the negotiation process, iden-tifying the interests of the diverse actors participating in the FTAA; and the progress achieved so far in each of the negotiation and consultative groups of the FTAA. While teaching this seminar, Mr. Echandi was on leave from his position as Director-General for International Trade at the Ministry of Foreign Trade of Costa Rica to work on his S.J.D. thesis focusing on the investment negotiations in the context of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Fall 2000: The WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding

In the Fall of 2000, a seminar on the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding was jointly taught by Professors John H. Jackson, William Davey (Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law at the University of Illinois and the first Director of the WTO Legal Division, 1995-1999), and C. Christopher Parlin. This seminar explored the "constitutional" structure of the WTO in the context of the post-Seattle Min-isterial fiasco. It focused especially on how the procedures of the Dispute Settlement Understanding interact with diplomacy and policy-making concerning international economic relations. The seminar had several distinguished visitors to enhance discussion.

During a special session of the Seminar, in November 2000, the Professors invited all Georgetown Law students with an interest in international trade to attend a panel of five guest speakers, each representing diverg-ing viewpoints on the operation of the WTO Dispute Settlement System. Professor Parlin chaired the panel of five guest speakers: Grant Aldonas (Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade); Bruce Hirsh (USTR, Geneva Office); Bert van Barlingen (Head of the Trade Section of the Euro-pean Commission Delegation in Washington, D.C.); David Palmeter (Partner, Powell Goldstein Fra-zer & Murphy LL.P.); and Young Ahn (Counselor, Permanent Mission of Korea to the WTO). During a two and half hour session the guest speakers shared their interesting and varied perspectiveson the WTO Dispute Settlement System with the students. Afterwards, a small reception was hosted by the IIEL

Fall 2000: Environmental Research Workshop

Also in the Fall of 2000, Professor Edith Brown Weiss taught an Environmental Research Workshop with Professor Richard Lazarus. The focus of this workshop was on the increasing integration of in-ternational and domestic environmental law. The centerpiece of the course was a series of workshop meetings, during which a leading academic presented a paper, followed by a commentary by a non-academic with major responsibilities related to environmental law or policy making.

Fall 2000 – Spring 2001: International Human Rights Workshop

In the academic year 2000-2001 Professors M. Gregg Bloche and Carlos Manuel Vázquez offered a workshop on International Human Rights. Participants conducted independent research on emerging problems in international human rights law. Students worked in association with leading international human rights organizations while supervised by full-time members of the Law Center faculty.

Fall 2001: Compliance with Rulings of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body

In Fall 2001 another seminar on the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding was held. It gave special attention to the multi-faceted problem of “compliance,” or enforcement, and effectiveness of the re-ports of the WTO dispute settlement bodies (e.g. reports from the cases concerning bananas, beef hor-mones, and foreign sales corporations). This seminar was jointly taught by Professors John H. Jackson, C. Christopher Parlin, and Chi Charmody (Professor of law at the University of Western Ontario, Canada). Guest lecturers and visitors included: Richard Cunningham (Steptoe & Johnson LL.P.); James Lockett (US Department of Commerce); John Magnus (Dewey Ballantine LL.P.); Hal Shapiro (Miller & Chevalier, Chartered); Gary Hufbauer (Institute for International Economics); and Professor Edith Brown Weiss. A selection of five papers that were prepared during the seminar have been pub-lished in the Georgetown Law journal, Law and Policy in International Business, in a symposium edition on compliance with DSB rulings (33 LAW & POL’Y INT’L BUS. 4 (Summer 2002)).

During a special session of the fall 2001 seminar, the Professors, in cooperation with the Trade Law Section of the American Bar Association, again invited all Georgetown Law students with an interest in interna-tional trade to attend a panel of five guest speakers. Andrew Shoyer (Powell Goldstein Frazer & Mur-phy LL.P.) and Professor Christopher Parlin chaired the panel with Gary Horlick (O’Melveney & Myers LL.P.), Petros Sourmelis (European Commission Delegation to the US) and Rufus Yerxa (In-ternational Counsel, Monsanto, and former Deputy US Trade Representative) as panelists. The presen-tations and discussions focused on compliance with the rulings approved by the WTO Dispute Settle-ment Body and the need for reforms in the coming trade negotiations.

Fall 2002: Constitutional Structure and Jurisprudence of the WTO

A seminar in Fall 2002, jointly taught by Professors John H. Jacksonn and C. Christopher Parlin, explored the "constitutional" structure of the World Trade Organization (WTO) established by the Uruguay Round negotiations completed in 1994. It placed considerable emphasis on the WTO dispute set-tlement procedures and how these procedures interact with diplomacy and policy-making concerning international economic relations. These subjects were explored in the context of problems relating to the "globalization" of economic affairs.

Spring 2003: International Trade and Human Rights

In the spring semester 2003, Professors Steve Charnovitz and Carlos Manuel Vázquez taught a seminar on the connections between world trade and human rights. In recent years, a variety of human rights-related concerns have moved to the fore of debate about the legal governance of international trade. International trade has important and contested implications for asserted rights to development, education and employment, health, food, intellectual property, and enjoyment of scientific progress. The seminar surveyed current legal controversies at the interface between trade and human rights, and it explored, in multi-disciplinary fashion, the underlying causal connections.

Spring 2003: The E.U. and the WTO: Trade Relations

In the spring semester 2003, Daniel Wüger taught a seminar on EU trade issues as they relate to WTO law. The students explored the EU institutions’ roles in the WTO and domestic trade policy making as well as how WTO law provides a framework for the European Union’s international trade relations. This included "constitutional" aspects such as the respective competencies of the EU organs and Mem-ber States in commercial policy and other policy areas of relevance to WTO law, as well as their re-spective status in the WTO. The seminar applied these basic concepts to specific subject areas like preferential trade relations, health and consumer protection and Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).