When we think about the legal drivers of globalization, why does the free movement of people lag so far behind the free movement of goods and services? While agreements to lower barriers to cross-border trade are enforced by global legal rules and institutions, national governments indisputably control and limit cross-border labor migration. However, the relationship between trade and labor migration in international law is anything but clear-cut and simple. Rather, as this Article shows, it is ad hoc, decentralized, and pluralistic. This Article focuses on the use of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as an illuminating example. SEZs enable countries to selectively open borders to higher-skilled foreign workers while maximizing economic returns and minimizing socio-political costs. While advantageous to individual countries, this Article argues that the pluralistic status quo hinders comprehensive initiatives to harmonize the liberalization of trade and labor and promote freedom of movement in international labor markets. Full article.

Sovereigns are unique market participants in the global financial system, and sovereign debt markets largely operate in a legal and regulatory void. This Article adds an important and timely perspective by examining the concept of equity in sovereign debt finance. Governments, unlike corporations, rely almost exclusively on debt to externally finance their investments and operations. GDP-linked securities, which provide interest payments indexed to the sovereign issuer’s rate of growth, are sovereign debt instruments with certain equity-like characteristics. This Article considers whether innovation towards sovereign equity can help mitigate problems associated with sovereign debt crises. To address this question, we analyze the use of GDP-linked securities in recent sovereign debt restructurings by Argentina, Greece, and Ukraine. Drawing on this analysis, we explore more broadly the legal implications of sovereign equity, and conclude that these applications offer opportunities to help manage sovereign finance in the absence of readily enforceable international financial regulation. Full article.