Study

This seminar examines the architecture, logic, and limits of using American domestic regulations to establish and enforce transnational legal regimes, approaching that order from a theoretical, historical, and policy-oriented perspective. The United States does not regulate extraterritorially in a single mode. In some domains, it acts in close coordination with allied states, constructing interlocking legal regimes designed to achieve shared goals. In others, it acts unilaterally, leveraging the structural power of the dollar and the American market to coerce compliance from foreign firms and governments. In still others, it finds itself in direct legal conflict with trading partners and rivals, whose own regulatory frameworks reflect competing visions of economic order. We will examine why the United States adopts different approaches in different strategic contexts and how effective these approaches are.  Topics covered include the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, economic sanctions and the role of the dollar in financial statecraft, export controls and techno-military competition, CFIUS (inbound foreign investment review), antitrust law in global markets, international finance and capital regulation, and global supply chain governance.