Abstract There is a widespread sense among international economic lawyers that the most-favored-nation obligation, as the expression of a nondiscrimination norm is fundamental for international trade law. But ought they adorn MFN with its normative halo? This article studies the historical emergence of the MFN-as-fundamental mythology. It shows that this mythology is the outcome of three controversial projects over the course of the twentieth century. Embedded historically, they reveal that much less than nondiscrimination, MFN has historically been the vector for drawing the boundaries across which discrimination operates, whether between imperial powers and colonies, or between the West and the East. It is only out of a relatively recent, and intellectually radical turn that MFN became synonymous with the very idea of a universalist, nondiscrimination-centric, international trade law. But that intellectual universe—ordoliberalism—now being past us, this Article asks what account can we offer of alternative norms that have structured international trade law.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping science, society, and power. Yet many debates over its likely impact remain fixated on extremes: utopian visions of universal benefit and dystopian fears of existential doom, or an arms race between the U.S. and China, or the Global North and Global South. What's missing is a serious conversation about distribution - who gains, who loses, and who decides. The global AI landscape is increasingly defined not just by geopolitical divides, but by the deepening imbalance between public governance and private control. As governments struggle to keep up, power is consolidating in the hands of a few tech firms whose influence now rivals that of states. If the twentieth century saw the rise of international institutions, the twenty-first may be witnessing their eclipse - replaced not by a new world order, but by a digital oligarchy. This essay explores what that shift means for international law, global equity, and the future of democratic oversight in an age of silicon sovereignty.

The International Law Commission’s Seventy-Sixth (2025) Session: The Negative Impact of the United Nations’ Fiscal Crisis on The Codification and Progressive Development of International Law - Volume 120 Issue 1

In 2025, we international lawyers – and the legal system in which we operate – are standing at the precipice. That things are beyond bad should not be in doubt. This is not some run-of-the-mill crisis of the kind that international lawyers revel in, as Hilary Charlesworth warned us not to do. This is collapse, or something collapse-adjacent. And we are not alone, here at the precipice. Everyone else is here too. Some don’t think things are as catastrophic as they first seem. Some are delighted with how things are going (though there are few international lawyers among them). Some are despairing (and here the international lawyers are legion). Everyone’s anxious. I, too, am anxious, standing here at the precipice. I see the looming catastrophe, for our world and for our field. The catastrophe is already here. It is in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine. It is in the global decline of democracy and rising authoritarianism, including in the United States, the linchpin of the current international order. The question is how big this catastrophe is going to get, and what will come after it. And that we just don’t know. We can’t know, standing, as we are, here at the precipice. In this essay, I would like to imagine, as an international lawyer, where the international legal system could go as we leave this precipice behind. The world we will live in in ten or twenty years’ time will in many ways be worse than when I write this. The international legal system will be worse with it. But dystopias are not inevitable. Where we go from this precipice, and just how bad things really end up being, is contingent. It depends on what we choose to do, or not do. Anyone who has lived through a dictatorship – and I have lived through three (kind of) – will know that the good guys don’t always win, but the bad guys don’t either. There are forks in the road, decisions and choices that people make. The decisions and choices of international lawyers are far from the most consequential, but they are ours. I have chosen to engage with two books – both written by non-lawyers, for a general, mass market audience – as a starting point for discussing the precipice on which we stand. The first is a classic: Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, the first edition of which was published in 1951. The second is of more recent vintage: Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy, Inc., published in 2024. Arendt’s work has provoked decades of scholarly commentary. She has also, for good reasons, experienced a surge in popularity in recent years, in response to the unravelling of democracy in a substantial number of states. Applebaum’s work is, of course, not canonical in the same way. But, despite their differences, and the seven decades’ gap between them, there are some important commonalities between these two books. Both resulted from an effort by scholars, who are not traditional academics but essayists writing books with a popular appeal, to make sense of the radical transformation of the world around them. Both books were written on a precipice. Both are intensely personal. And both have lessons to impart – for international lawyers and for all citizens – lessons that need to be absorbed.

decision, which we feel goes against the host country treaty." 37Subsequently, at a meeting of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country, the UN legal counsel stated that she had raised the issue of "entry visas for representatives of the State of Palestine" in a meeting with the legal adviser to the secretary of state and "that this was a serious matter which directly concerned the obligations accepted by the host country in the Headquarters Agreement." 38She further explained that "she had raised [with the legal adviser] the legal obligations of the host country and that the legal position of the

I]n the constitution of that Other of Europe, great care was taken to obliterate the textual ingredients with which such a subject could cathect, could occupy (invest?) its itinerary-not only by ideological and scientific production, but

In Modern Slavery, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador (Constitutional Court) examined whether Furukawa Plantations S.A. (Furukawa) exploited the vulnerability of hundreds of Afro-Ecuadorian abacaleros 1 by imposing a system of serfdom that violated the international and constitutional prohibitions of slavery. 2 The Constitutional Court also examined whether the ministries of labor, health, social inclusion, and government breached their duty to prevent slavery in Furukawa's camps and to ensure the protection of the abacaleros.In its 2024 judgment, the Constitutional Court found that: (1) Furukawa's practices of making the abacaleros work the land without pay and without any real possibility of changing their status constituted a form of modern slavery known as serfdom; and (2) the Labor, Health, and Government Ministries failed in their obligations to prevent and remedy those conditions.Modern Slavery stands as a landmark judgment in contexts where mutual blame between states and corporations obscures accountability for systemic corporate abuses and state negligence.The judgment is also notable for its well-designed reparation measures for the victims and its recognition of the urgent need to prevent future violations.* * * * Furukawa, a company established in Ecuador in 1963 and primarily owned by Japanese shareholders, is engaged in the harvesting, processing, and export of abac, a banana-like plant. 3 Its fiber, traded globally, serves as a key raw material for textiles, paper, and furniture.Grown mainly in developing countries with tropical climates, abac harvesting and processing are laborintensive and require constant exposure to harsh environmental conditions.Today, Furukawa stands among the leading exporters of abac in the world (paras.H1-H6).1 Abacaleros refers to individuals who participated in Furukawa's production of abac without a formal employment relationship.