Academic

Legal Theory Bookworm

By Lawrence Solum

The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends The New Global Trading Order: The Evolving State and the Future of Trade by Dennis Patterson and Ari Afilalo.  Here is a description:

The international institutions that have governed global trade since the end of World War II have lost their effectiveness, and global trade governance is fractured. The need for new institutions is obvious, and yet, few proposals seem to be on offer. The key to understanding the global trading order lies in uncovering the relationship between trade and the State, and how the inner constitution of Statecraft drives the architecture of the global order and requires structural changes as the State traverses successive cycles. The current trade order, focused on the liberalization of trade in goods and services and the management of related issues, is predicated on policies and practices that were the product of a global trading order of the 20th-century modern nation-states. Today, a new form of the State - the post-modern State - is evolving. In this book, the authors propose a new trade norm - the enablement of global economic opportunity - and a new institution - the Trade Council - to overhaul the global trading order.

And from the reviews:

In this important new book, Patterson and Afilalo address the largely neglected question of how the transformation of the constitutional and international order currently underway will affect the global trade regime. Their striking analysis is as formidable and serious as the question itself." --Philip Bobbitt, Author of The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, Director of the Center for National Security at Columbia University

"In this timely book, Patterson and Afilalo remind us that international trade is not just crucial to prosperity, but to world peace as well. Their analysis of the trade regime's current crisis, and their concrete recommendations for fixing it, should be required reading for all those with a stake in maintaining the global economy." --Ethan B. Kapstein, Paul Dubrule Professor of Sustainable Development, INSEAD, Visiting Fellow, Center for Global Development

"The New Global Trading Order makes a significant and highly original contribution to the thinking about the international trade order. Well-written and well-argued, this book will be of great interest to those concerned with international trade law, international economics, history, and the issues of globalization. This book should be widely read." --Jeffrey L. Dunoff, Professor and Director of the Institute for International Law & Policy, Temple University Beasley School of Law

"In this engaging new book, the authors show how the post-war Bretton Woods system for regulating the global economic order was predicated on a conception of the State that no longer holds. They develop a provocative and original thesis for radical institutional redesign of the existing trade regime to promote the enablement of global economic opportunity and growth for citizens of developed and developing countries alike." --Michael Trebilcock, University Professor and Professor of Law, University of Toronto

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on April 19, 2008 (boomark / email).