Introduction: Survey of Transnational Law, Issue 18:3

• Pages: 01

Page 525

For the last several years, Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems (TLCP) has dedicated a single issue to articles submitted by academic and professional authors working in the fields of international and comparative law. Building on the past success of these pieces, TLCP is publishing the second submissions issue of Volume 18. These two issues provide depth and breadth to our discussion of transnational law and complement the Journal's traditional symposium-based content. Moving toward the incorporation of more submissions-based content will allow TLCP to continue its growth as a publication. TLCP consistently enjoys high-quality submissions on a wide array of topics. In this second submissions issue of Volume 18, the Editorial Board of TLCP is pleased to present pieces that provide critical insight into some of the most cutting-edge subjects in transnational law.

Our issue leads off with Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker's Article, Balancing Competing Priorities: Affirmative Action in the United States and Canadá, which analyzes equality rights within the United States and Canada and their relationship to raced-based affirmative action programs in those countries. The Article begins by examining the United States and Canadian equality rights systems. An analysis of those systems leads to the conclusion that Canadian and U.S. equality rights systems represent radically opposite legal frameworks. The American system emphasizes a formalistic approach to equality rights and prioritizes equal treatment under the law for groups of citizens over efforts to remedy past discrimination. On the other hand, the Canadian system begins with the idea of ameliorating past discrimination and takes a less formalistic approach. This results in a more favorable judicial analysis of ameliorative affirmative action programs. The Article concludes that both the American and Canadian approaches, by representing the extremes, are an imperfect solution to balancing equality rights and race-based affirmative action programs.

Karen E. Bravo's Article, Free Labor! A Labor Liberalization Solution to Modern Trafficking in Humans, suggests that states should extend the same liberalizing policies to labor that they have recently extended to other aspects of trade. In order to combat the growing global problem of human trafficking, and the less widely vilified problem of voluntary illegal cross-border movement of labor, she encourages "labor poor" countries, like...