Ileana Porras | University of Miami (original) (raw)

Papers by Ileana Porras

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 1995

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is often claimed to be a "promising beginning" fo... more The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is often claimed to be a "promising beginning" for the reconciliation of trade and environment. Professor Porras, however, suggests that the form that "reconciliation" takes in NAFTA is extremely problematic. Harmonization of standards to facilitate the free flow of trade is a familiar trade goal. NAFTA's provisions regarding environmental standards, however, are not a straightforward requirement to harmonize standards. Rather, NAFTA recognizes state autonomy in standard setting, on the one hand, while requiring a form of upward harmonization, on the other. According to Professor Porras, the result of such an arrangement is the perpetuation of economic and political inequality among states. States with low environmental standards are not given the opportunity to set their environmental standards in accordance with their own values, capacities, and priorities, but must instead divert resources to achieve the standards that are deemed appropriate by states with higher environmental standards.

Brooklyn journal of international law, 2006

understood as international relations pursued by private actors under the register of consent-tra... more understood as international relations pursued by private actors under the register of consent-trade is friendly and produces amity. Recent scholarship has raised serious challenges to each of these categories, terms and associations, yet our modern legal and international relations regimes still reflect a fundamental division between war (public and coercive) and trade (private and consensual). Because war has come to be considered an evil that interferes with human flourishing, the official project of public international law has been to limit and constrain war, if not to prohibit it altogether. The project of international trade law, on the other hand, has been to encourage and facilitate international commercial transactions on the assumption that international trade is consensual and welfare enhancing. One striking outcome of the contrast so readily drawn between war and trade is that today it is proclaimed that an end to the scourge of war and global insecurity will arrive in the wake of a commitment to worldwide trade liberalization. This article sets out to challenge some of the tradition's conventional assumptions about the distinct roles of war and trade in the history of international law. Through a reading of an early seventeenth century text, De Iure Praedae (The Law of Prize and Booty) 2 written by a young Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) sometime between 1604 and 1608, 3 I explore the surprisingly crucial role played by concepts and views of commerce and commercial competition at the origins of international law, including the law of war. It is in this early work, a text whose professed intent was to justify the seizure and prize-taking of a Portuguese merchant vessel by a corporate-owned Dutch merchant vessel in the East Indies, that Grotius, still revered by many as the father of international law, 4 first 2. 1 HUGO GROTIUS, DE IURE PRAEDAE COMMENTARIUS [COMMENTARY ON THE LAW OF PRIZE AND BOOTY] (Gwladys L. Williams & Walter H. Zeydel trans., Clarendon Press 1950) (1604), in THE CLASSICS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Review of European Community and International Environmental Law, Sep 1, 1992

Using the 'Environment' to Achieve a New Globalism When the dust settles, the Rio Declaration on ... more Using the 'Environment' to Achieve a New Globalism When the dust settles, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (the 'Rio Declaration'), a statement of general principles and obligations, is likely to prove the most influential of the numerous international instruments adopted during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development ('UNCED' or 'the conference'), held at Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992. This unprecedented and ambitious international event, better known to the English speaking public by the catchier name 'Earth Summit '92' (and to its Brazilian hosts as 'ECO '92')' required two years of intense preparation, and proved to be an extraordinary mix of international negotiation and international media event. The 'Environment' as Dominant Motif Although the Conference had been slated as an 'environment and development' conference, 'the environment' was the dominant organising motif and provided much of the imaginative force, driving not only the media event but the negotiations. As organising motif, the 'environment' seemed to perform two distinct but complementary functions at the Conference: An internationalising function and a romantic-utopianising function.' A common atmosphere, oceans without frontiers, delicately balanced ecosystems, human interdependence with the natural world, a shared planet, seemed to require a new way of constructing international relations. The doomsday rhetoric of limited resources, environmental crisis and irreparable harm, provided the urgency. 'Saving the planet' became the goal of the conference in the public imagination and the recurrent theme running through official government and UNCED secretariat pronouncements.* Hopes ran high that the 'environment' would prove the necessary catalyst for radical change. The Earth Summit was to provide the utopian moment when all nations and all people would recognise their mutual responsibility for preserving our planet for present and future generat i o n~.~ Invoking the 'environment' thus inspired a general call for a 'new globalism' based on an ideology of sharing, common interests and long-term perspectives. Unfortunately for those with utopian ambitions, the Conference did not, in the end, produce the hopedfor 'new globalism'. The negotiations and the resulting agreements reflected the self-interest and short-term perspectives of the participating governments. 'Failure' in the face of so much ambition and raised expectations was predictable. International conferences, regardless of the subject matter, seem predetermined to be characterised as 'good beginnings' and to end with an inevitable call for more law or more institution^.^ UNCED was no exception. Even the Rio Declaration, envisaged as an inspiring and poetic 'Earth Charter' by the UNCED secretariat and the majority of Northern industrialised countries, failed to provide the 'new globalism' vision, demanded by the 'environment'. The Rio Declaration The text of the Rio Declaration and the process which produced it provide a unique insight into the Volume I Number 3 Rio Declaration

Fordham Urban Law Journal, Apr 1, 2009

THE CITY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 539 ways to become active players on the international stage. One ... more THE CITY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 539 ways to become active players on the international stage. One strategy they have pursued is to band together to form international "non-governmental" organizations such as United Cities and Local Governments ("UCLG"), 4 in order to gain visibility and voice in a variety of international fora. Basing their arguments on the democratic potential of cities and on the claim that city government is the level of government closest to the people and therefore most responsive to their needs, such groups have advocated for greater decentralization and autonomy for cities. 5 The cities' assertion of the desirability of greater autonomy has been well received by the international community, 6 which has embraced the city as an alternative interlocutor to the state. Together, cities and international organizations have promoted adoption of the principle of subsidiarity, borrowed from its European context, while, in parallel they have sought to encourage the funneling of international resources, including foreign direct investment, directly to cities, both of which tend to empower the city vis-à-vis the state. 7 Because cities, unlike traditional non-governmental organizations ("NGOs"), are able to lay claim to representative legitimacy, they have emerged as a favored actor within the umbrella of international civil society representatives. 8 Paradoxically, however, in the new world order, cities-despite their democratic credentials-are increasingly losing their strong public government function as traditional public services are privatized and cities begin to resemble private corporations. 9 As cities seek greater autonomy from the 4. The World Organization of Cities and Local Governments was founded in 2004 and adopted a Constitution in that same year. WORLD ORGANISATION OF UNITED CITIES & LOCAL GOV'TS [UCLG], THE CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLD ORGANISATION OF UNITED CITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS (2004) [hereinafter UCLG CONSTITUTION], available at http://www.cities-localgovernments.org/uclg/upload/template/templatedocs/Constitution .pdf. In their Constitution, UCLG describes its mission: "To be the united voice and world advocate of democratic local self-government, promoting its values, objectives and interests, through cooperation between local governments, and within the wider international community." Id. art. 2. On its website, UCLG makes the impressive claim that its members "represent over half of the world's population." United Cities and Local Governments, About Us, http://www.cities-localgovernments.org (last visited Feb. 10, 2009) [hereinafter UCLG Website] (follow "About Us" hyperlink). I assume this claim must refer to the half of the world's population that is today urban, rather than to the actual population of their city members. 5. UCLG Website, supra note 4 (follow "About Us" hyperlink). 6. The "international community" referred to consists of the United Nations, World Bank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and European Union. 7. On the other hand, as Blank, Frug, and Barron demonstrate, the city has been disempowered vis-à-vis the international community which increasingly claims a regulatory role over the city under the new governance ideology. See generally Blank, supra note 2; Frug & Barron, supra note 3. 8.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Sep 30, 2022

$Research paper thumbnail of \u3cem\u3e Laudato Si, \u3c/em\u3e Pope Francis\u27 Call to Ecological Conversion: Responding to the Cry of the Earth and the Poor -- Towards an Integral Ecology$

This study aims to develop a valid learning strategy based inquiry to build argumentation skills ... more This study aims to develop a valid learning strategy based inquiry to build argumentation skills and to know their effectiveness in building argumentation skills. The method used is the Research and Development (R & D) model of Dick and Carey, by identifying needs and determining goals, analyzing strategies, identifying student characteristics, formulating specific learning goals, developing benchmark reference tests, developing learning strategies, selecting learning materials, formative evaluation, and revision of learning. The object of this research is 75 students who come from 3 high schools in Bandar Lampung. The conclusions of this research are derived from argument inquiry strategy which has the components of learning objectives, learning scenarios, learning approaches, and tools and learning resources. These components are combined with right steps and methods, so the learning strategy effectively for building students argumentation skills.

This panel was convened at 2:15 pm, Friday, April 5, by its moderator, Steve Chamovitz of George ... more This panel was convened at 2:15 pm, Friday, April 5, by its moderator, Steve Chamovitz of George Washington University Law School, who introduced the panelists: Kinji Akashi of Keio University; Umut Ozsu of the University of Manitoba; Ileana Porras of the University of Miami; and Iain Scobbie of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. THE POLITICS OF "MULTIPOLARITY" By Umut Ozsu * It has become fashionable in recent years to argue that non-Western states have exerted considerable influence over the creation and application of international law's most fundamental rules and principles. Equally fashionable are arguments to the effect that sustained growth in "emerging markets" is on the verge of destabilizing Euro-American dominance in the international legal and economic order. These claims tend to resonate with critics of Eurocentrism and American exceptionalism, who rely upon notions of "multipolarity" to develop "incl...

Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting, 2006

I would like to begin by proposing that IEL suffers from a foundational problem having been struc... more I would like to begin by proposing that IEL suffers from a foundational problem having been structurally hampered by its birth in the heyday of "globalization" hype. Conventionally, we trace the history of the discipline back to the early 1970s and the Stockholm Declaration. Yet, its flowering really began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Thus, the discipline came into its own as the cold war ended, and a new cosmopolitan, borderless world beyond the sovereign state could be envisaged. This early, optimistic version of globalization predicted that the global community would rise above its narrow national or local interests. IEL seemed particularly designed to capture the spirit of this new cosmopolitan age, for our environment was a "shared environment" and our world was "one world." Our shared world--captured in iconic form by photographs of planet earth resplendent in all her beauty taken from outer space by Americans--somehow would produce a shared interest and a common ethic as we worked towards shaping "our common future." Environmentalists emphasized that the environment as a natural phenomenon was beyond national borders, that environmental harm escaped beyond national borders, and that many natural resources were shared. Many critical problems could only be addressed by a common commitment, and environmentalists urgently advocated addressing them today before they created irreparable harms. Protecting the environment and safeguarding our children's future was our common responsibility. It was an appealing image. It is sometimes hard to remember those heady days with ubiquitous images of networked nongovernmental organizations, coalitions of women, indigenous groups, children, and so on, joining hands in pursuit of goals beyond national interest. It was a world beyond politics in which we could imagine a global citizenry adopting environmental protection as a universal goal. That heady moment is long past. First, a less optimistic view of globalization emerged, one in which the borders were down but the embracing networks were those of corporations and what flowed across was capital and trade. Now, even that image of globalization has begun to recede as we begin to recognize that the sovereign state, its borders, and national interest are still very much a part of our world. Today, we no longer talk so glibly of "our common future" as we observe the world sinking ever further into deep divisions between the haves and the have-nots and watch new forms of imperialism emerge. The other trend that colored the early development of IEL and has come to characterize it today is the turn to policy science and economics that typified the late 1980s and early 1990s. Perhaps in reaction to what was experienced as the excessive romanticism of environmentalism, or perhaps as a response to its apocalyptic bent, international environmental lawyers increasingly embraced the technical. International environmental problems were approached as complex yet quantifiable. Elegant models would be built to reflect the state of scientific knowledge and economic assumptions, multiple variables and speculative scenarios could be incorporated, and as the science improved and the economic assumptions shifted, the models would be perfected. …

AJIL Unbound, 2015

The recent Encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, is a remarkable ... more The recent Encyclical by Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, is a remarkable document, both original and continuous within the tradition of Catholic social doctrine. Emerging from and grounded in a very specific religious tradition and constrained by the peculiar encyclical literary form, the document nonetheless seeks to open a dialogue with “every person living on this planet,” about care for our common home. Using the urgency of addressing global climate change as its point of departure, the Encyclical does a superb job summarizing the scope of the present environmental crisis and the disproportionate harms suffered by vulnerable populations of the poor and excluded. It also provides a careful analysis of the root causes of environmental degradation, mapping out the complex linkages and tensions between globalization, economic growth, liberalized trade, unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, environmental degradation, involuntary migration, immi...

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting (American Society of International Law), 2013

Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017

This chapter explores the doctrine of the providential function of commerce in the work of Franci... more This chapter explores the doctrine of the providential function of commerce in the work of Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1492–1546), Alberico Gentili (1552–1608), and Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). In this chapter, I argue that the doctrine’s persuasive power lies in the interplay between two factors. First is the fact that while the doctrine is not in origin a religious doctrine, its elements and its narrative logic carried an unmistakable religious sensibility that became indissolubly associated with international trade. But the doctrine’s true efficacy lies in a more subtle internal effect. In essence, the doctrine, which holds at its core an act of exchange among distant peoples, allowed its adherents to idealize international trade by blurring the distinction between the act of commercial exchange and that of gift-exchange. In this manner, international exchange came to be portrayed as an act of friendship and community recognition, rather than a commercial act between strangers.

Tenn. JL & Pol'y, 2008

University. I would like to thank all those involved in the planning of our week-long Study Space... more University. I would like to thank all those involved in the planning of our week-long Study Space Workshop in Panama City. In particular, I would like to thank Colin Crawford and Daniel Suman who made it all come together. I would also like to join in thanking all our hosts in Panama City who generously gave of their time and shared their passion and expertise to help us understand their city.

Leiden Journal of International Law, 2014

This article explores the relationship between international law and the natural environment. We ... more This article explores the relationship between international law and the natural environment. We contend that international environmental law and general international law are structured in ways that systemically reinforce ecological harm. Through exploring the cultural milieu from which international environmental law emerged, we argue it produced an impoverished understanding of nature that is incapable of responding adequately to ecological crises. We maintain that environmental issues should not be confined to a disciplinary specialization because humanity's relationship with nature has been central to making international law. Foundational concepts such as sovereignty, development, property, economy, human rights, and so on, have evolved through understanding nature in ways that are unsuited to perceiving or observing ecological limits. International law primarily sees nature as a resource for wealth generation to enable societies to continually develop, and environmental d...

Fordham Urban Law Journal, 2009

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is often claimed to be a "promising beginnin... more The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is often claimed to be a "promising beginning" for the reconciliation of trade and environment. Professor Porras, however, suggests that the form that "reconciliation" takes in NAFTA is extremely problematic. Harmonization of standards to facilitate the free flow of trade is a familiar trade goal NAFTA 's provisions regarding environmental standards, however, are not a straightforward requirement to harmonize standards. Rather, NAFTA recognizes state autonomy in standard setting, on the one hand, while requiring a form of upward harmonization, on the other. According to Professor Porras, the result of such an arrangement is the perpetuation of economic and political inequality among states. States with low environmental standards are not given the opportunity to set their environmental standards in accordance with their own values, capacities, and priorities, but must instead divert resources to achieve the stan...

Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting