Ever since international economic relations have been established law has been developed to shape them in a satisfactory manner. Conversely, changes in the law have sometimes preceded, and thus fostered, international economic intercourse. The spectacular growth of the international economy over the past decades has called for a more intensive role for the law. This has led to panoply of new legal instruments as well as a resuscitation of the traditional forms. Although there is a substantial amount of legal writings documenting the legal instruments created in different sectors of the economy, efforts to systematize such instruments seem to be largely absent. At the same time the question arises whether the traditional concepts of public and private law jurisdiction are still adequate. The objective of the seminar is twofold. First, we hope to achieve an overview of the legal developments in some selected sectors or areas which display particularly interesting features: international securities and banking, internet, tax, antitrust, maritime and air transport and address the question how the law has coped with globalization. A systematic overview of these developments may enable us to provide input for the second objective, a discussion of the general doctrines of public and private law jurisdiction. To what extent have they been able to accommodate the requirements of a global economy? To what extent have they been adapted and developed for this purpose?

Panelists

• John Barton, Stanford University Law School
  "Antitrust and Intellectual Property Rights"
• Boris Kozolchyk, University of Arizona Law School
  "International Contracts"
• Kees van Raad, University of Leiden
  "International Tax Law"
• Andrew Guzman, University of California, Berkeley
  "Securities"
• Piet Jan Slot, University of Leiden/Stanford Law School and European Forum
  "Air and Maritime Transport, Standards, Mutual Acceptance"
• Patrick Wautelet, University of Leuven/Harvard Law School
  "Law on International Private Law/Conflict of Laws"
• Tom Heller, Stanford Law School
  "International Organizations/General Principles"
• Andrew Guzman, University of California, Berkeley
  "General Principles for Choice of Law/Jurisdisction"

Professor Joshua Lederberg, a research geneticist, is Sackler Foundation Scholar, President-emeritus at The Rockefeller University in New York, and a consulting professor of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Dr. Lederberg was educated at Columbia and Yale University, where he pioneered in the field of bacterial genetics with the discovery of genetic recombination in bacteria. In 1958, at the age of 33, Dr. Lederberg received the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine for this work. Dr. Lederberg has been a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin and then at Stanford University School of Medicine, until he came to The Rockefeller University in 1978. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1957, and a charter member of its Institute of Medicine, Dr. Lederberg has been active in many government advisory roles, including the Defense Science Board and the Chair of the President's Cancer Panel. He has long had a keen interest in international health, and has served two terms on WHO's Advisory Health Research Council and on the boards of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington) and the Council on Foreign Relations (New York). He co-chaired the IOM's study on Emerging Infections, and recently edited "Biological Weapons: Containing the Threat", published by the MIT Press.

For more than twenty years, labor-intensive industrialization in developing countries has generated controversy about "sweatshop" conditions in the factories of multinational companies and their regional subcontractors. In recent years, U.S. university students have vigorously opposed such factories as sites of abuse and exploitation. Others reply that such places offer their mainly young and female workers much-needed income and independence. Much of this controversy has focused on Southeast Asia as a prime location of facilities for the manufacturing of apparel, footwear, toys, and other labor-intensive exports. Why do sweatshops exist in these countries? Why are they tolerated? Why are they assailed? Are the objections justified? What should be done? University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Business School Professor Linda Lim has helped pioneer empirical research on young women factory workers in Southeast Asia. She has published extensively on this and other labor-related subjects. She has also served as a frequent consultant to the International Labor Organization, most recently on the globalization debate. She was a member of the University of Michigan's Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights in 1999-2000.

Hailed by the New York Times as one of China's most influential intellectuals, Liu Junning is the founder and editor of the Journal Res Publica. Formerly a Fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Liu is responsible for the Chinese translation of numerous works on democracy and classic liberal thought. In 1999 his collected essays were published as Republic, Democracy, Constitutionalism. He holds a doctorate in political theory from Beijing University.

Southeast Asia has been buffeted by several shocks and momentous events over the last two years, in particular the economic recession which started in July 1997; the return of Hong Kong to China; and political instability, particularly in Indonesia.

Increasingly, large, extended urban regions compete with each other in the Region and in the global economy. Furthermore, as a result of strong driving forces, including free trade, convergence in tax structures, and the "death of distance", Southeast Asian urban regions are less protected and influenced by nation states, and are thus highly vulnerable to unpredictable consequences of strong forces associated with globalization and co-evolving domestic change.

Dr. Webster will assess events of the last few years in terms of the dramatic re-positioning that has occurred among major urban regions in Southeast Asia - identifying winners and losers. His assessment will be based on consideration of both competitiveness and resilience - the two primary objectives, perhaps non-reconcilable, of most Southeast Asian urban regions.

Dr. Webster is currently a visiting scholar at the Asia/Pacific Research Center. He has been Senior Urban Advisor to the National Planning Board, Prime Minister's Office, Thailand for the last five years. He is involved in formulation of strategies and policies related to urbanization in the context of rapid socio-economic change in Thailand. He is also full time advisor to the World Bank's Asia and Pacific Urban Unit. At the global level, he is involved in formulation of the World Bank's Global Urban Strategy, and the World Development Report 2000 which will focus on urbanization and decentralization.

Dr. Webster was formerly Director of the Urban Planning Program at the University of Calgary and Professor of Planning at the Asian Institute of Technology. He has advised a wide variety of governments, cities, corporations, and development agencies on urban policies and programming, particularly in Southeast Asia, over the last 25 years. He is the author of many academic and professional publications on urbanization and urban issues in Southeast Asia.

Like a double-edged sword, the recent conflict in East Timor challenged Indonesia and the international community alike. For Indonesia, the crisis and its resolution offered a chance for military reform, yet threatened national unity. For international donors, the chance to defend human rights and implement self-determination carried a risk of provoking nationalist resentment against foreign intervention for democratic change.This talk will focus on the international community and its donor countries and agencies. How did they react to the conflict in East Timor? What were their strategies? How did their actions affect Indonesia -- not only its East Timor policies but also the course of its own democratic transition? Looking back on them now, do the crisis and its outcome lessons for the feasibility of foreign intervention to achieve domestic political reform? If so, what are they? If not, why not? And what do the answers to these questions imply for the democratic prospect in developing countries more generally?

Nike products, soccer balls, carpets, orange juice, garments, coffee beans--Consumer activists, labor unions and students have launched boycotts and protests against imports that have allegedly been produced by some of the world's 250 million child workers. But exporting countries complain that the vast majority of child workers do not work in export industries, and throwing children out of work in the export sector will not solve the problem. What will really help child laborers? Will globalization help or hurt? Sarah L. Bachman is a visiting scholar at the Asia/Pacific Research Center. She was an editorial writer and reporter for the San Jose Mercury News from 1991-1997. Her work has won or shared awards from the World Hunger Media Awards, the World Affairs Council of Silicon Valley, the Overseas Press Club of America, and InterAction, the consortium of U.S. agencies providing emergency relief. Bachman's series of articles on international child labor (on the web at www.merccenter.com/archives/childlabor) were among the nation's first to point out that well intentioned efforts to end child labor sometimes helped--but also, sometimes harmed thousands of child workers. Her multi-media project - including writing, photography, a school curriculum and two Web sites- explores the benefits and drawbacks of efforts to end child labor.

In March 2000, Taiwan's voters ended 55 years of Nationalist Party rule by electing Chen Shui-bian to the Presidency, granting power to the Democratic Progressive Party. Now six months into his term, President Chen faces threat of recall, as well as immediate demands to surrender control over foreign policyÑincluding especially negotiations with mainland China. The numerous foreign policy and strategic implications will be discussed in a roundtable format with three panelists.

Few will dispute that the essence of our times can be conveyed by two simple words: " Global" and "Change". Economies, technologies, information, media, culture, and indeed security issues have been vastly internationalized and transformed in the incredibly short period of the half century following World War II . The world is being consumed by the forces of change driven by the engines of technology and geoeconomics. Economic change and technological development, like wars or sports, are usually not beneficial to all. Progress only benefits those groups of nations that are able to take advantage of newer methods of science, just as they damage those that are less prepared technologically, culturally, and politically to respond to change. Only societies free of rigid doctrinal orthodoxy and possessing attributes such as the freedoms to inquire, dispute, and experiment; a belief in the possibilities of improvement; a concern for the practical rather than the abstract; and rationalism that defies mandarin codes, religious dogmas, and traditional folklore, are likely to prosper in the new millennium. In any case, we must look with caution into the future. History teaches us that the only thing we can be certain of is that we will be surprised; our vision may well turn out to be distorted and myopic, our best guesses will often be wrong and we are likely to be disappointed in our expectations. We can only be certain of continuing conflict on a technology-driven planet with concurrent dwindling resources and increasing population.