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LPE Originals

International Law and (the Critique of) Political Economy

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International law has a thriving critical scene, arguably bigger and more institutionally established than any other field. Yet political economy has been an unstable point of focus for critical international lawyers, in part because the justifications of the status quo in the international domain never coalesced into anything akin to a ‘21st-century synthesis.’ This picture of fragmentation and instability helps explain why Marxism provides a useful set of intellectual tools for approaching law, in particular, and social formations in general.
LPE Originals

LPE and the Global Food Crisis

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Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, food prices are higher in real terms today than at any point since the early 1970s. Yet it is the underlying political economy of the global food system that has created the conditions where hundreds of millions of people don’t get enough to eat.
LPE Originals

Embedding Societal Values in International Law

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The existing system of international economic law is under great strain. This post offers a reading of the problem and proposes alternative directions for the future. In brief, the system has evolved from what John Ruggie called “embedded liberalism” to what David M. Trubek and I describe as “embedded neoliberalism.” The past couple of decades have witnessed something of a truce between those who designed the system and those who now are actors within it. But today this truce is largely crumbling.
LPE Originals

Advancing Equity in the Data Economy: The Case for International Taxation

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Companies and their investors extract large amounts of wealth from people’s data. Yet because tax law treats users of digital platforms as consumers, rather than producers, neither these users nor their home countries receive any compensation in return. How might international tax law be used to mitigate the harms of this exploitative arrangement?
LPE Originals

Let Them Eat Cake: Inflation Beyond Monetary Policy

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In developing countries, inflation is often driven by the failure of the food supply chain. While economists are well-aware of this, they do not adequately value policies other than monetary policy for responding to inflation. It is time to discard this short-sighted approach.
LPE Originals

REDD+ as the Stranger-King

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In theory, REDD+ is designed to be a win-win: it brings capital to economically struggling communities while ensuring that forests worldwide are protected for the good of the global community. Yet as theory of the Stranger King makes apparent, some colonialist approaches are softer and gentler than others — colonizing as invitees, rather than by force.
LPE Originals

Towards a Law and Political Economy Approach to the Global War on Terror

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To ensure support for its Global War on Terror, the United States has exploited the Pakistani government’s reliance on foreign credit to guarantee cooperation in US counterinsurgency operations. In leveraging its role as a lender to provide Pakistan with short-term financial relief, the United States has deepened Pakistan’s economic dependency, undermined the nation’s chance for a more equal domestic political and economic arrangement, and consolidated the power of its domestic military elite.