LAWS 101: New course for fall 2008

Professor: James M. Cooper, California Western School of Law

Title: Law and Development in the Americas: From Uncle Sam to Uncle Hugo?

Over the last several years, the neo-liberal prescriptions for development that have come from the International Monetary Fund, U.S. Treasury Department and World Bank - the so-called Washington Consensus - have not produced economic benefits for the working peoples, indigenous nations, and marginalized groups around Latin America. Privatization, market liberalization and free trade have benefited corporations but not brought any noticeable trickle down economic effects. In opposition to the U.S.-sponsored reform efforts, Venezuelan Hugo Chavez, awash in petrodollars, has proposed a new "21st Century Socialism", based on state intervention, economic protectionism, and nationalization of strategic industries. A new Caracas Consensus is emerging, bringing Bolivia, Cuba, and perhaps Ecuador and Nicaragua in a new trade pact. MERCOSUR, a competing customs union, led by Brazil, which Venezuela has also joined, may provide a third way toward future development and economic integration in the Western Hemisphere. This course explores this shifting playing field and looks at how legal harmonization, economic integration, and power politics mix it up in the Americas.

LAWS 101 will count as a Sociology requirement.