Desiree LeClercq

Schulich School of Law professor Olabisi D. Akinkugbe presents working paper at Georgia Law’s International Law Colloquium

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University Professor Olabisi D. Akinkugbe, who presented his working paper, “Trade and Development in an Era of Geopolitics: A Third  World  View.” Tim Samples, Associate Professor of Legal Studies in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, served as Akinkugbe’s faculty discussant.

Akinkugbe is the Purdy Crawford Chair in Business Law and Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. His research covers several topics on issues in and at the intersection of public international law, international economic law, human rights, law and development, international courts, and regional economic integration in Africa. He explores these issues from the national, regional, and international contexts. Akinkugbe’s research draws on critical traditions such as Socio-legal approaches to law, Post-colonialism, and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) among others.

Below is an abstract of the working paper Akinkugbe presented:

This chapter examines the relationship between trade and development. Centering the heterogeneity of developing states within the World Trade Organization (WTO), the chapter briefly analyses some of the trade law interests that are most important to these different types of developing countries. It then turns to the question: how has international trade law accommodated the needs of different types of developing countries through special and differential treatment? The Chapter contends that the structure of the rules of the global economic order and the WTO in relation to trade were developed and are being implemented in the shadow of a fiercely contested geopolitical and power struggle. Despite the flexibilities in the WTO, developing and small island developing states’ trade interests are significantly marginalized in their implementation. Given the rise of conflicts in geopolitics and trade interests within the power WTO Member States, the Chapter contends that without fundamentally centering and reimagining the inequities in our international trade regime, mere “window dressing” or adoption of new rules of trade would only further marginalize the trade interests of the developing countries and SIDS in a non-inclusive way.

This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the international law colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Georgia Law hosts annual Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law conference, “Defending Democracy: A Comparative Perspective”

The annual conference of the University of Georgia School of Law’s Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, entitled “Defending Democracy: A Comparative Perspective,” took place last week.

As posted previously, this event brought together comparative law scholars from across the country to discuss a range of issues involving democracy, democratic backsliding, and comparative constitutional protections of democratic norms and institutions. Discussions included comparative lessons in “militant democracy,” the role of judges in defining or protecting democracy and democratic participation, democratic protections in the American constitutional system and how they differ from other nations, democracy and free speech, and lessons from recent elections around the world. University of Georgia School of Law Professor Lori A. Ringhand, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law & Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, worked with GJICL students to conceptualize the conference theme and panels.

The panels from the conference are outlined below:

Panel 1: Democracy and Institutional Legitimacy: Panelists included Richard Albert, Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law; Zachary Elkins, Professor, University of Texas at Austin; and moderator Taher S. Benany, Associate Director, Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law

Panel 2: Democratic Governance and Constitutional Design: Panelists included David E. Landau, Mason Ladd Professor and Associate Dean for International Programs, Florida State University College of Law; David S. Law, E. James Kelly, Jr., Class of 1965 Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia; Miguel Schor, Class of 1977 Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Law, Drake University Law School; and moderator Joseph S. Miller, Ernest P. Rogers Chair of Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition Law, University of Georgia School of Law

Panel 3: Individual Rights and Democratic Participation: Panelists included Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, Professor of Law, Stetson Law; Eugene D. Mazo, Associate Professor of Law, Duquesne University; Atiba Ellis, Laura B. Chisholm Distinguished Research Scholar and Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve School of Law; and moderator Lori A. Ringhand, J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law & Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Georgia School of Law

Georgia Law Dean Usha R. Rodrigues, University Professor & M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law, provided introductory remarks for the conference. Jasmine Furin, Editor in Chief, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, gave a closing address. Professor Desirée LeClercq serves as the journal’s Faculty Adviser.

This event was cosponsored by the Dean Rusk International Law Center.

Georgetown Law professor Katrin Kuhlmann presents working paper at International Law Colloquium

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Professor Katrin Kuhlmann, who presented her working paper, “Micro International Law.” Greg Day, Associate Professor in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia, served as Kuhlmann’s faculty discussant.

Kuhlmann is the Faculty Director and Co-founder of the Center on Inclusive Trade and Development at Georgetown Law. Her scholarly focus lies in international law, development, inclusive and sustainable international trade law, regional trade agreements, agricultural law and food security, comparative economic law, African trade and development law and corridors, and the interdisciplinary connections between law and development.

Below is an abstract of Kuhlmann’s working paper:

International law has long been viewed as the domain of countries and capitals, not fields or factories, but this overly top-down perspective misses a critical and under-studied part of the picture. Underneath the macro level of standardized legal norms, international law is much more nuanced, with multiple sites of influence, production, design, adoption, and decision-making that scholars have largely neglected but which need to be better understood. Models stemming from legal systems in less powerful states, smaller-scale stakeholder interests, and local solutions are often treated as one-off anecdotes or isolated case studies without broader implications.

Capturing these lessons, cataloging them, and building a methodology around them could be transformational at a time when international law needs a refresh to make it more responsive to a new set of global challenges ranging from inequality to food insecurity to climate change.

This paper presents a conceptual and methodological framework for “micro international law” as a sub-field of international law. Adding a micro dimension to international law would bring it in line with other disciplines that recognize the importance of studying smaller-scale, more granular interventions. It would also make a significant contribution to the international legal field by integrating theoretical and empirical approaches to focus on the impact innovations within domestic legal systems and the interests of individuals have on international law (and the impact of international law on these systems and stakeholders), ultimately providing a framework for designing international law differently to equitably address more specialized needs and positively impact the lives of those international law aims to serve and benefit.

This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Georgia Law Professor Desirée LeClercq featured in ACF Report by Johns Hopkins University

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq contributed to the annual report published by Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs (ACF) entitled “Getting China Right at Home.” LeClercq authored the article “A Pragmatic Approach to U.S.-China Labor Tensions,” which centers on the importance of the International Labor Organization in improving worker’s rights in China.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

“Tensions with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) concerning its treatment of workers have featured prominently in U.S. trade and diplomatic policies. The new administration must draw lessons from the failure of policies employed to date to entice the PRC to align its labor policies with international legal standards, not least because residual noncompliance in China has impacted domestic interests in the United States. Instead, the International Labor Organization (ILO), as a neutral intermediary, could better engender incremental changes in the treatment of workers.”

LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law and U.S. Labor Law. She also serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and as the faculty adviser for the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.

Georgia Law professor Christopher Bruner presents working paper at International Law Colloquium

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Professor Christopher Bruner, who presented his working paper, “Sustainable Corporate Governance and Prospects for a US Value Chain Due Diligence Law.” Joshua Barkan, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, served as Bruner’s faculty discussant.

Bruner is the Stembler Family Distinguished Professor in Business Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. Bruner’s scholarship centers around corporate law, corporate governance, comparative law and sustainability.

Below is an abstract of Bruner’s working paper:

Laws requiring multinational companies to undertake due diligence to detect, prevent, and mitigate human rights and environmental abuses in their value chains have proliferated across Europe, and the European Union has adopted a directive to harmonise such national laws. This chapter assesses the prospects for enactment of such a value chain due diligence law in the United States.

Although such laws are often conceptualised as an extension of corporate law, they can just as readily be conceptualised as an extension of trade law – and the latter approach offers real potential to sidestep anti-ESG and anti-sustainability sentiment among the US political right. Packaged as a trade initiative, the prospects for bipartisanship improve because the political left and right can each embrace the effort by reference to policy preferences resonating with their respective bases. To the progressive left, such laws raise labour and environmental standards globally, while to the conservative right, such laws protect domestic industry from unfair foreign competition.

The chapter first examines corporate politics in the United States, discussing how fundamental corporate governance debates revolve around thorny ideological issues that strongly polarise the political left and right, diminishing the prospects for a value chain due diligence law conceptualised as an extension of corporate law. It then examines trade politics in the United States, discussing how framing by reference to trade improves the prospects for a US value chain due diligence law by sidestepping such ideological issues and giving both the political left and right plausible ways to view such a law as a victory for their respective bases. The chapter concludes with discussion of trade-offs raised by these differing modes of legal strategy and institutionalisation, observing that the corporate law approach offers broader reach with weaker enforcement while the trade law approach offers narrower reach with stronger enforcement.

This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Luwam Dirar of Western New England University speaks at Georgia Law’s International Law Colloquium

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium welcomed Professor Luwam Dirar of Western New England University School of Law as its second speaker last week.

Dirar presented her working paper titled, “Emancipation, Decolonization, and Gender in the Context of African Integration.” Dirar’s research and scholarly focus centers on international human rights law and the intersection of international economics and international relations. Dirar has also served as a consultant to several African governments and international organizations regarding migration and law.

Associate Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, Taher Benany, served as Dirar’s faculty discussant. Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field.

Below is an abstract of Dirar’s working paper:

The 1960s institutionalization and formalization of Africa’s continental integration was a manifestation of the ontological fragility of the concept of emancipation in the African context. As a concept, continental emancipation excluded concerns of women and formalized the divorce between decolonization and racial domination on the one hand and social emancipatory movements on the other. This divorce was contrary to the expectation of women who sought the end of colonial subjugation as a turning point for women’s emancipation from not only colonial and racial domination but also from social oppression. This article argues that the continental emancipation project betrayed the hopes of women who sought decolonization or the end of white racial domination as central to the end of gendered and gendering social subjugation. This article will have four parts. The first part will be a general introduction and will explore women’s emancipation in the context of regional integration studies. The second part will explore the internal contradictions of the concept of emancipation. The third part will explore the marketization of regional integration in Africa and the debates surrounding gender in trade agreements. The fourth part will be the conclusion and way forward.

To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website. A summary of the previous week’s talk with Professor Harlan Cohen can be found here.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Georgia Law’s International Law Colloquium hosts Harlan Cohen, Fordham Law, as first speaker

The University of Georgia School of Law’s spring 2025 International Law Colloquium began last week with Professor Harlan Cohen of Fordham University School of Law. For more than a decade, the International Law Colloquium Series has brought leading scholars to Georgia Law, where they have presented works in progress and invited discussion and comments from students as well as faculty discussants.

This year, Professor Desirée LeClercq is overseeing the colloquium, which is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law through engagement with scholars in the international legal field. The course broadly defines “international economic law,” to include traditional approaches (trade and investment agreements) as well as non-traditional, emerging approaches (examining the effects of international economic law on marginalized communities and considering re-distributional policies).

Cohen presented his working paper titled, “The International Order, International Law, and the Definition of Security.” Cohen, who previously served as the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law at the University of Georgia School of Law and Faculty co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center, specializes in international trade, international law, international legal theory, global governance, and U.S. foreign relations law.

Dean Usha Rodrigues opened the colloquium (recording of opening remarks available here). Professor Diane Marie Amann served as Cohen’s faculty discussant. 

Below is an abstract of Cohen’s working paper:

As economic security has seemingly moved to the center of American and European foreign policy, both the United States and the European Union have broadened their interpretation of international law rules governing security, coercion, and intervention.  These broadened interpretations have supported a bevy of new sanctions, trade restrictions, investment controls, and industrial policies that have turned the global economy into an increasingly weaponized space.  But these interpretations are not exactly new, echoing developing state interpretations of international law that developed states had long ago seemingly rejected.  How are these once moribund interpretations of security, force, and coercion being brought back to life?

This essay argues that these interpretative shifts highlight the role of the international order as an interpretative mechanism within international law.  Borrowing from the work of Robert Cover, it explains the ways that the international order acts as a jurispathic agent within the system, judging which interpretations live on and which are cast aside.  As global power shifts, the international order shifts with it, potentially reopening interpretative fights over international law.  Today’s fights over the meaning of security, force, and coercion thus reflect both the realities of a changing order and the battle to shape the one to come.

To view the full list of International Law Colloquium speakers, visit our website.

This program is made possible through the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

International Law Colloquium returns to Georgia Law in Spring 2025 semester

The International Law Colloquium, a time-honored tradition here at the University of Georgia School of Law, returns this spring semester with another great lineup of global legal experts.

In Spring 2025, this for-credit course is designed to introduce students to features of international economic law, broadly defined, through engagement with scholars in the international legal field.  The course broadly defines “international economic law” to include traditional approaches (trade and investment agreements) as well as non-traditional, emerging approaches (examining the effects of IEL on marginalized communities and considering re-distributional policies). This course consists of presentations of substantial works-in-progress on a variety of international law topics by prominent scholars from other law schools. In keeping with a tradition established when the series began in 2006, students will write reaction papers on the scholars’ manuscripts, and then discuss the papers with the authors in class. Leading the class will be Desirée LeClercq, Assistant Professor of Law & Faculty Co-Director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center. Other Georgia Law faculty, including Diane Marie Amann and Christopher Bruner, will join in the dialogues.

Further supporting the colloquium are staff at our Center; in particular, the Center’s Global Practice Preparation team, which includes Catrina Martin and student workers Casey Smith (J.D. ’26) and Aubry Tedford (J.D. ’25). The colloquium further benefits from generous support from the Kirbo Trust Endowed Faculty Enhancement Fund and the Talmadge Law Faculty Fund.

Presenting at the Spring 2025 Colloquium (pictured above, clockwise from top left):

January 17: Harlan Cohen, Fordham University School of Law
“The International Order, International Law, and the Definition of Security”     

January 24: Luwam Dirar, Western New England University School of Law
“Emancipation, Decolonization, and Gender in the Context of African Integration”

January 31: Diane Marie Amann, University of Georgia School of Law 
“Economies of Injustice and the Forced Residential-Schooling of Indigenous Americans”

February 7: Christopher Bruner, University of Georgia School of Law
“Sustainable Corporate Governance and Prospects for a US Value Chain Due Diligence Law”

February 14: Katrin Kuhlman, Georgetown University School of Law
“Micro International Law”

February 21: Olabisi D. Akinkugbe, Schulich School of Law
“Trade and Development in an Era of Geopolitics: A Third  World  View”

February 28: Ben Heath, Temple University School of Law
“Sanctions and Sanctuary: Refuge, Violence, and the Legal Ordering of (Economic) Warfare”

March 14: Weijia Rao, Boston University School of Law 
“Signaling through National Security Lawmaking”

March 21: Julian Arato, Michigan University School of Law
“The Institutions of Exceptions”

April 4: Trang (Mae) Nguyen, Temple University School of Law
“Goods’ Citizenship”

April 11: Rachel Brewster, Duke University School of Law
“Global settlements in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act”

April 18: Sarah Dadush, Rutgers Law School
“Shared Responsibility in American Contract Law”

Georgia Law Professor Desirée LeClercq featured in Inside US Trade article 

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq was recently featured in Inside US Trade regarding the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) and how it may be used by the upcoming Trump administration.

The December 5 article entitled “Under Trump, hope — and recommendations — for the stronger use of RRM” was written by Margaret Spiegelman. It references a report LeClercq co-authored with Mexican researchers on the views of workers in the Mexican auto sector on their labor rights under the USMCA’s RRM, as well as her November 10 post for the International Economic Law and Policy Blog entitled “Whither the Worker-Centered Trade Policy?”

From the article:

University of Georgia School of Law Assistant Professor Desirée LeClercq…says a recent study she conducted with El Colegio de Sonora professor Alex Covarrubias-V and Cirila Quintero Ramirez, a research professor at El Colegio de Frontera Norte, Unidad Matamoros, suggests that the mechanism has disproportionately served a relatively narrow group of workers with ties to major U.S. unions and non-governmental organizations, without raising labor standards overall.

LeClercq, who was USTR’s director of labor affairs during President Trump’s first term, said she believes a second Trump administration, less beholden to such groups, might be incentivized to use the tool more broadly to try to improve labor standards that give Mexico an unfair competitive edge.

LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law and U.S. Labor Law, as well as the International Law Colloquium. She also serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and as the faculty adviser for the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.

Georgia Law Professor Desirée LeClercq cited in Financial Times 

University of Georgia School of Law Professor Desirée LeClercq‘s report “Enforcement of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”) Rapid Response Mechanism: Views from Mexican Auto Sector Workers” was cited in the article “How the Democrats Worker-Centred Trade Policy Failed” in the Financial Times.

Below is the article’s abstract:

This study examines whether the RRM empowers workers’ voices in the Mexican auto sector. To this end, between January and March 2024, we interviewed 130 workers across seven supplier facilities (auto plants facilities and logistics facilities) and five assembly plants, for a total of 12 facilities. Three of the facilities were not unionized; nine facilities were unionized. Three of the twelve plants had used the RRM (“RRM facilities”), addressing various violations of labor rights, voting processes to approve or reject collective contracts, voting processes to elect independent unions, and dismissals and intimidation of workers in union activism. All three RRM cases were remediated through plans requiring the facility to hold a new legitimization vote and union election and offer worker-level trainings. Our preliminary results problematize some assumptions that drove RRM implementation. The Biden administration and members of the United States Congress have promoted the RRM as a way to strengthen the Mexican government’s efforts to implement Mexican labor law reform, empower workers in productive export sectors, and give them a voice over their labor conditions. Our results suggest that, four years after the implementation of the USMCA and the reforms of Mexico’s labor legislation, a little more than half of the workers are aware of the labor law reform, and opinions are divided on whether it is strengthening labor rights. Some workers thought the reforms were going well, while many thought the reform process was going poorly or did not know how it was going. The majority of workers we interviewed revealed that they did not understand the new democratic procedures to legitimize their collective bargaining agreements, nor that they could access the RRM platform to express their complaints. Nevertheless, the workers we interviewed at RRM facilities tended to be more knowledgeable of the labor law reforms and its attendant rights and processes than those at facilities that have not undergone RRM investigation and remediation, and they tended to view their bargaining representative and conditions of work more favorably. Our study suggests that when workers are given the opportunity to participate in democratic elections under international supervision, after receiving training on the shop floor about their rights and election procedures, they gain knowledge and ownership over their working conditions.

LeClercq joined the University of Georgia School of Law in 2024 as an assistant professor. She teaches International Trade and Workers Rights, International Labor Law, International Law and U.S. Labor Law, as well as the International Law Colloquium. She also serves as a faculty co-director of the Dean Rusk International Law Center and as the faculty adviser for the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law.