Bilateral Investment Treaties,Credible Commitment,and the Rule of (International) Law: Do BITs Promote Foreign Direct Investment?

A long line of research, beginning with Macaulay's (1963) well‐known study of “Non‐Contractual Relations in Business,” suggests that the formal trappings of domestic law often have effects on private behavior that are, at best, “indirect, subtle, and ambiguous” ( Macaulay 1984 :155). Law and society scholars have spent somewhat less time exploring whether international law's effects on behavior are similarly attenuated. In this article I examine whether foreign investors take the presence of strong formal international legal protections into account when deciding where to invest. I focus on whether the presence of bilateral investment treaties, or BITs, meaningfully influences investment decisions. I present results from a statistical analysis that examines whether the formally strongest BITs—those that guarantee investors access to international arbitration to enforce investors' international legal rights—are associated with greater investment flows. I find no clear link between treaty protections and investment, a finding consistent with past law and society research but in tension with claims common in the BIT literature that the treaties should have dramatic effects on investor behavior.     

International Arbitration and Judicial Politics in Authoritarian States

This article uses the case of Sudan to show how authoritarian regimes benefit from embracing international arbitration, allowing them to maintain domestic control and attract foreign investment. International arbitration ensures that foreign‐investment disputes are resolved outside of domestic purview, obviating the need for nondemocratic states to create independent courts. Research on judicial politics in authoritarian regimes has largely overlooked those private and extra‐judicial pathways—international arbitration tribunals—that illiberal regimes have been taking. Similarly, research in international commercial law has neglected domestic politics, overlooking arbitration's consequences for domestic stakeholders. Promoting international arbitration without paying heed to its side effects can unwittingly help illiberal regimes, particularly in weak states, to continue to repress their judiciaries and curtail the development of domestic legal institutions and the rule of law.     

Arbitration Effect

Arbitration is changing the United States justice system. Critics argue that arbitration leads to claim suppression. Proponents argue that, compared with courts, arbitration is cheaper and less formal. These claims have not been empirically tested. In particular, whether and how arbitration impacts individuals’ decision to sue remains an open inquiry. This article for the first time shows, in a series of experiments, the impact of arbitration agreements on individuals' decisions to sue. This article calls it the “arbitration effect.” First, we test whether the arbitration effect exists; that is, if arbitration agreements negatively impact individuals' decision to sue. Second, we experimentally test individuals' decisions to opt out of arbitration agreements. Lastly, we assess whether any type of information can “cure” the arbitration effect. The results establish that individuals are less likely to sue in arbitration as opposed to court, hence the arbitration effect. Such an effect, however, does not exist at the contracting stage, meaning that individuals do not shun arbitration when given the option. Further, none of the fundamental attributes of arbitration, as touted by the U.S. Supreme Court, nor win-rates and class actions mitigate the arbitration effect. Equally, informational nudges do not reduce the effect, and individuals do not ascribe negative attributes to firms forcing mandatory arbitration. For decades, courts and lawmakers grappled with issues related to arbitration. The article provides much-needed data on arbitration. Findings cast serious doubts on the ongoing efforts—market-based, judicial, or regulatory—aiming to change the arbitration course.     

Latest evolution in the judicial intendance mechanism over arbitration in China

Based on past court practices, the Supreme Court of China promulgated the Interpretation of the Supreme Court concerning Some Issues on Application of the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China, which is in line with the international trend of justice-arbitration relationship and reflects the pro-arbitration idea, as well as making a new step forward in the evolution of China’s judicial intendance over arbitration. However, confined by current legislation and due to inadequate judicial experiences, some problems still remain in the judicial intendance mechanism for further solution. Yu Xifu, Ph.D, is a judge dealing with most maritime and foreign-related commercial cases. His research is focused on international private law, especially international commercial arbitration. His works include a monograph, i.e. Judicial Intendance and Assistance in International Commercial Arbitration; And some articles, i.e. The relation between adjudication and arbitration, The definition and legal meaning of the place of arbitration, The choice-of-law of negotiable instrument, Finding foreign law-difficulties and way-out.     

Parenting without Protection: How Legal Status Ambiguity Affects Lesbian and Gay Parenthood

Through the lens of lesbian and gay parenthood we ask how individuals who experience “legal status ambiguity”—that which emerges when legal fluctuations combine with divided attitudes, ignorance of the law, and autonomous institutional gatekeepers—exercise their legal rights and responsibilities. The results from thirty‐one interviews with lesbian and gay parents in Oregon and their six adult children suggest that the state's fluctuating legal and social climates for lesbian and gay parenting between 1985 and 2013 presented significant challenges for two generations of same‐sex parents. Although both cohorts created and utilized a range of legal and social mechanisms to assert their legal rights, they found these rights to be controlled as much by gatekeeper perspectives as by legal force. After the 2015 Obergefell ruling on marriage equality, lesbian and gay parenting status remains a site of ongoing legal and social contestation, providing insight into the risks and challenges of legal status ambiguity.     

The Force of International Law: Lawyers' Diplomacy on the International Scene in the 1920s

Where does international law (IL) draw its authority from a still weakly institutionalized international scene deprived of the warrants of a state? To address this classical debate, the article draws from a case study on the social and professional structure of the “international legal community” as it emerged during the 1920s as part of the rise of multilateralism and international organizations. It focuses on the “situation of the international lawyers” of the time, starting with the multiple and often antagonistic roles they play (as legal advisers, scholars, judges, diplomats, politicians, etc.) and the variety of interests and causes they defend (states, international organizations, professional interests, etc.) in international politics. It argues this heteronomy of international lawyers helps understand the autonomization of international law. Far from being opposed to one another it has often been assumed—realism and idealism, national loyalty and international loyalty, political logic and learned logic—actually gain when analyzed as various modes of affirming a single cause—that of an international rule of law. This attention given to the “situation of international lawyers” and to the way they manage their various allegiances also accounts for the particular vision of the “International” and of “Law and Politics” relationships that are encapsulated in this emerging international corpus juris.     

我国“或裁或审”条款的反思与突破——兼评《仲裁法司法解释》第7条

由于没有明确的立法规定,“或裁或审”条款的性质与类型在认定上十分模糊,因此各级人民法院经常在该问题上产生混乱。例如,“或裁或审”条款与“一裁终局”条款相混淆,多份协议与单一协议中的“或裁或审”条款相模糊,以及对《最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国仲裁法〉若干问题的解释》(以下简称《仲裁法司法解释》)第7条的理解不一致等。虽然最高人民法院发布的司法解释或指导性案例能为各级人民法院在“或裁或审”条款的性质与类型的定性中提供指引,但并不能从根本上解决《仲裁法司法解释》第7条中对于仲裁协议无效的规定。纵观各国对于既约定仲裁又约定诉讼的条款的态度,我国对于仲裁无效的判定过于严厉,这与我国正在推进建立亚太国际仲裁中心的政策考量不入。只有对法律制度的突破与变更才能在实质上修正立法的滞后性。先管辖先受理原则的借鉴,不仅可以为维护当事人意思自治提供出路,而且可以为我国鼓励与支持仲裁的发展消弭弊端。     

浅析《鹿特丹规则》中的仲裁问题

2008年12月11日,历时数年的《联合国全程或部分海上国际货物运输合同公约》（又称《鹿特丹规则》）尘埃落定。其兼顾先进性与实用性的制度设计,旨在统一现行国际货物运输法律体系,重新调整《海牙-维斯比规则》所确立的船货双方利益分配法律制度,顺应了国际贸易和航运实践发展的新趋势。第15章＂仲裁＂的规定,以平衡国际运输关系各方的仲裁选择权与世界各国的司法管辖权为立法精神,起到衔接现有国际仲裁公约和便利航运贸易纠纷解决的积极作用,将有力推动国际商事海事仲裁制度的发展。中国应充分借鉴吸收新公约的优秀制度,立足于完善《仲裁法》和《海商法》中的仲裁规定,不断在立法和司法上健全仲裁法律体系。     

Legal Aid,Social Workers,and the Redefinition of the Legal Profession in Chile, 1925–1960

This article examines the history of the Chilean Legal Aid Service (Servicio de Asistencia Judicial) from the 1920s until the 1960s. It argues that with the emergence of the “social question”—the concern for improving the lower classes' working and living conditions to promote the nation's modernization and prevent political radicalization—the Chilean legal profession committed to legal aid reform to escape a professional identity crisis. Legal aid allowed lawyers to claim they had a new “social function” advocating on behalf of the poor. However, within legal aid offices, lawyers interacted with female social workers who acted as gatekeepers, mediators, and translators between the lawyers and the poor. This gendered professional complementarity in legal aid offices helped lawyers to put limits on their new “social function”: it allowed them to maintain legal aid as a part‐time activity that did not challenge the structure of the legal system as a whole.     

Instituting Authority. Some Kelsenian Notes

A rule of recognition for a legal order L seems utterly circular if it refers to behaviour of “officials.” For it takes a rule of recognition to identify who, for L, counts as an official and who does not. I will argue that a Kelsenian account of legal authority can solve the aporia, provided that we accept a, perhaps unorthodox, re‐interpretation of Kelsen's norm theory and his idea of the Grundnorm. I submit that we should learn to see it as the vanishing point rather than the final basis of validity in a legal order. To prepare the ground for this proposal, I will briefly explore the claim to authority that is characteristic of politics. Then I sketch a multi‐layered canonical form of the legal norm, including their “empowering” character (Paulson) in terms of performative operators. I show how it leads to a “perspectival” account of the basic norm. In conclusion, I briefly point to the example of sovereignty and acquis communautair in international law to illustrate this view     

国际商事仲裁中的临时保护措施制度——兼议我国相关制度的不足

临时保护措施制度作为对财产或人身产生强制力的措施,其执行必然涉及到强制性权力的介入,如一国之司法权力。在仲裁独立于法院的原则之下,法院可否以及怎样介入到国际仲裁临时措施制度中?作者认为,尽管仲裁当事人均持仲裁独立、排斥法庭介入之主张,但临时措施制度的本质决定了必须寻求法庭权威力量的介入。不过,有鉴于仲裁独立原则,法庭的介入可表现为支持、帮助,而非干涉仲裁,这种观点也在大多数国家的立法、仲裁规则或有关文件中予以认可。     

新加坡法下仲裁协议的效力研究

仲裁协议的效力由其所适用的法律决定,不同国家或地区的法律在认定仲裁协议的法律效力时所采取的标准亦有所区别.从新加坡有关仲裁协议的成文法规范出发,结合新加坡法院就仲裁协议法律效力争议所作的判例,在研究新加坡法院对“病理性仲裁协议”效力认定时所采取的基本原则后,认为新加坡法律具有“亲仲裁”特性.这是新加坡在国际商事仲裁和国际海事仲裁领域取得令人瞩目发展成果的重要原因之一.     

How Parties Create Electoral Democracy,Chapter 2

Parties neither cease to exist nor cease to compete for office when the general election is over. Instead, a new round of competition begins, with legislators as voters and party leaders as candidates. The offices at stake are what we call “mega‐seats.” We consider the selection of three different types of mega‐seats—cabinet portfolios, seats on directing boards, and permanent committee chairs—in 57 democratic assemblies. If winning parties select the rules by which mega‐seats are chosen and those rules affect which parties can attain mega‐seats (one important payoff of “winning”), then parties and rules should coevolve in the long run. We find two main patterns relating to legislative party systems and a country's length of experience with democratic governance.     

Good Climate Governance: Only a Fragmented System of International Law Away?

Fragmentation is the hallmark of international environmental law—it is both the key to its success and the pathway to its unraveling. Recognizing that law is an essential component of systems of supranational climate governance, addressing gaps between international legal systems is fundamentally important to the legitimacy of international law and to on‐going attempts to use international law as a central component in efforts to address climate change. This article analyzes developments in international environmental law with a view towards suggesting how efforts to develop an international climate change legal regime—and a broader system of global climate governance—highlight the pressing need to look more closely at the linkages between climate change and other areas of international law and to begin thinking about ways to minimize gaps and maximize cooperation among international environmental institutions and between international environmental law and other spheres of international law.     

国际商事仲裁之法文化基础试析

社会文化,尤其是法律文化的发展演变是使国际商事仲裁地位独具的内部驱动。文章试图寻找国际商事仲裁的法律文化传统,并以现代法律文化的几个新思路如现代法治思潮、契约理论新发展、共同体主义等为切入点,论述法律文化的流变带给国际商事仲裁制度理论及实践走向的影响。同时,纳入法律全球化的相关思考,以期从多一个视角描绘国际商事仲裁的法律文化基础的轮廓。     

Under the Law: Legal Consciousness and Radical Environmental Activism

A growing body of sociolegal scholarship focuses the study of law away from formal texts and legal institutions and toward the experiences and perceptions of “everyday” citizens. This study introduces seventeen “radical” environmentalists who engage a repertoire of tactics that includes some actions that involve relatively severe forms of illegality. This research seeks to investigate the role of civil disobedience and lawbreaking within the radical environmental movement and the corresponding legal consciousness of movement actors. Utilizing ethnographic fieldwork and content analysis, this analysis suggests that Ewick and Silbey's (1998 ) three‐tiered model of legal consciousness is an operative starting point, but could be enhanced through theoretical expansion. This study proposes a new category of legal consciousness—Under the Law—that views the law as the protector and defender of a social order that is fundamentally illegitimate. Under the Law is qualitatively different from existing conceptualizations of legal consciousness and reaffirms the mutually constitutive nature of law and society.     

海南自由贸易港临时仲裁制度的建设研究

海南自贸港的仲裁机制应置于国际竞争中去考量。在海南自贸港中构建临时仲裁制度符合市场经济发展的规律和该制度自身发展的规律。尽管目前临时仲裁制度已在自贸区内有限开放,但临时仲裁制度在海南自贸港落地的障碍主要来自于我国仲裁机构的定位不合理,“三特定”的界限模糊,临时仲裁裁决的执行和认可缺乏规制,现有临时仲裁规则普适性的缺失。我国香港地区的临时仲裁的发展数据表明,成熟和强大的法律体系、临时仲裁的高度保密性、仲裁机构的有限介入和当事人的意思自治是该项制度迅速发展的重要原因,值得参考。海南自贸港在立法路径上可根据《立法法》对《仲裁法》第16条和第18条作出变通处理或者根据《立法法》对临时仲裁制度作出系统性的规定,并报全国人大常委会批准,应重新认识仲裁机构的促进性和服务性并高度尊重当事人的意思自治,还原临时仲裁的本质属性。     

Everyone Knows the Game: Legal Consciousness in the Hawaiian Cockfight

Past legal consciousness research has revealed a great deal about what individuals think and do with regard to law, but less attention has been paid to the social processes that underpin these attitudes, beliefs, and actions. This article focuses particularly on a “second‐order” layer of legal consciousness: people's perceptions about how others understand the law. Ethnographic observations and in‐depth interviews with cockfighters in rural Hawaii reveal how law enforcement practices not only affect cockfighting rituals, but are embedded within them. Police practices and informal rules work in concert to shape fighters' second‐order beliefs. These beliefs have implications for participants' understanding of central concepts, including order, disorder, and illegality. Examining legal consciousness from a second‐order perspective also underscores that notions of legitimacy are constantly created and recreated. Recognizing legitimacy's inherently relational nature helps us understand how experiences of law are synthesized into beliefs—for example, when an unusual police action directed toward a subgroup of fighters compromised the law's legitimacy for them. Foregrounding the relational nature of legal consciousness offers scholars a means to better understand and operationalize the dynamic nature of human relationships to law.     

“法律人”建构论纲

立足于法学学科基点的设定,必须提炼“法律人”的人学模式。所谓法律人,即参与法律生活的普通民众,他们依存于法律、参与法律及受制于法律。法学体系、法律基础、法律分析及法律发展方面的需要,为法律人模式的构建奠定了坚实基础,而人类行为的常态、法律制度中人的观念的引入及法学流派有关人的模式的竞争,使法律人模式的构建得以可能。至于法律人的具体特性,论文以“拟制人”、“一般人”、“正常人”、“复合人”进行了概括。     

法学教育视野下的Willem C．Vis模拟国际商事仲裁辩论赛

随着全球经济一体化的深入发展,国际民商事纠纷也迅速增多,国际商事仲裁作为一种争议解决方式越来越受重视,这就需要既精通国际法律知识,又具备较强英语能力的专业人才。而作为全球知名的国际法专业赛事。WillemC．Vis模拟国际商事仲裁辩论赛目的在于通过模拟国际商事仲裁的程序,推广国际商事仲裁和《联合国国际货物销售合同公约》的适用。该赛事有利于学生们通过模拟实践来加深对国际商事仲裁、国际商法等知识的理解,以及对于庭辩技巧、英文法律文书写作等综合技能的掌握,有利于培养具有国际竞争力的法律人才,具有良好的法学教育功能。