Syllabus

PARTICIPATING UNIVERSITIES

University of South Carolina Law School (USC)

TEACHING FACULTY

Prof. David Linnan

COVERAGE

This course focuses on the law and economics of international trade (chiefly the WTO framework in the Uruguay Round's wake, but also bi-national arrangements and national law in the area of anti-dumping and countervailing duties law), regional trading arrangements (chiefly NAFTA and AFTA, with some APEC coverage) and foreign direct investment (including traditional principles of state responsibility, treaty protections and emerging multilateral guaranty structures). It treats transnational economic relationships from the institutional viewpoint of public international law. We shall look especially at textile problems and the on-going Doha round in this course as areas of current concern.

MEETING TIMES & PLACES

The course is scheduled to meet regularly 08:00-10:00 Columbia time Tuesdays in South Carolina in Room 235 or at the USC Law Library videoconferencing room on the Law School's second floor. We plan on bringing in a few outside speakers via videoconferencing and shall also be using prepared video streaming materials in advance of class as well as recording classes to put up in streaming form on the course website as we go along. Please view the streaming materials on a timely basis, since if they are part of the assigned materials instructors will assume you have viewed them in advance of class. The USC class is scheduled normally for only two live class hours per week for a three credit course, so your time spent viewing streaming video is taken into account there.

TEXT, CONTACTS AND APPROACH

Our basic text is Raj Bahala, International Trade Law: Theory and Practice (Second Edition)(Lexis 2001). You can get the text of the relevant GATT/WTO or similar provisions normally on the World Trade Organization (WTO) website (http://www.wto.org). Reading assignments from the Bahala book will normally be posted on the course page (http://www.lfip.org/laws665s05) under the course materials link. They may also be distributed via the course LISTSERV. Where possible I shall try to include references via link on the course materials page to where you would find the relevant GATT/WTO, North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or similar provisions. Based on past experience, we shall normally distribute class powerpoints via the LISTSERV in advance of class as well as posting them on the website (since students seem to prefer commenting the presentations in taking their class notes). Class preparation will include watching in advance certain streaming video lectures to cover doctrinal law, so that we have more time in class for discussion and to do problems so that you see how the law works in practice. We shall also be making a digital recording of presentations to put on the website in streaming form. We hope to get them up within 10-14 days following class meetings.

This course is mostly a specialized international economic law course, but is offered without prerequisites knowing that some students will have prior knowledge and training in public international law, while others may not. There will be a few introductory sessions in this course with some general public international law content. However, students who have not already taken an introductory public international law course will be referred to streaming video of a few lectures from another such introductory course early in the semester. Following a few of these introductory lectures should provide you with enough doctrine on technical issues like treaty interpretation, sources of law, etc. for our course. Similarly, we shall speak about relevant economic doctrine in a few introductory sessions, but you will be referred to an economist's streaming video lectures on the basics of international economics doctrine so that you understand enough about international trade theory to make sense of the law.

We have a course LISTSERV (laws665@listserv.sc.edu) to keep in touch generally, and for discussions plus asking questions outside of class. You must join the course LISTSERV to fully participate in this class, since we will use it like a bulletin board for announcements about reading assignments, etc. while students and faculty should use it to ask questions and carry on discussions outside our videoconferenced classes. For those of you unfamiliar with the LISTSERV concept, a LISTSERV is simply a system in which e-mail communications are sent to a single address and then distributed to all LISTSERV subscribers (e.g., all class members). Please consult the LISTSERV information page at http://www.sc.edu/ars/listserv.html for general directions, and click on the course webpage class administration link (http://www.lfip.org/laws665s05/admin.htm) for directions about how to subscribe to the class LISTSERV.

ASSESSMENT

Grading will be based primarily on either (i) a research paper, or (ii) a final exam. USC students may choose either assessment option. With the instructor's permission such research paper may also be structured to satisfy the USC Law School's graduation writing requirement. Students wishing to write such a research paper should talk early and often with the instructor, since you will be required to choose a topic in consultation with the instructor, produce an outline, followed by a first draft and then a final version of the paper. Note that you must confer with the instructor at least three times in the process: to chose a topic cooperatively, to review your writing outline together, and then for comments between your first draft and the final paper version.

We shall also have in-class presentations of problems and projects from students, so that your grade will also reflect those on the margin (basically, up or down a half letter graced in +/- terms). We invite you to do your own videoconferenced powerpoint presentations followed by discussion further to work problems, etc. in the name of perfecting your presentation skills just like you would interviewing and negotiating in a clinics course. Your presentations will all be done in groups, and the group work will include an element of self-assessment within the groups. We shall try to divide up the formal problems early in the semester to allow students so desiring either to write their longer graduation writing requirement research papers as a deeper exploration of certain aspects of their presentation problem, or a shorter (non-graduation writing requirement) research paper on aspects of their chosen problem.