Consent and Trade Trading Freely in a Global Market

In a time of changing trade norms, when free trade seems to be giving way to new kinds of nationalism, some fundamental questions about trade are still not being asked. Is trade consensual or coercive? Is 'free trade' as currently practiced really free? If not, what difference can trade law make in addressing economically oppressive practices that nationalistic trade policies cannot? In this book Garcia offers an examination of trade law's roots in consensual exchange, highlighting the central role of consent in differentiating trade from legally facilitated coercion, exploitation or predation. The book revisits the premise of consensual exchange which underlies the rhetoric of 'free trade', and then examines the social and political conditions that are a necessary part of a more genuine trade law system, in service of the idea that recovering consent in trade law can promote human flourishing on a global scale.

Introduction; 1. Consent and trade; 2. Consent, oppression, and contemporary trade agreements; 3. (Re)building trade agreements; 4. Consensual trade and the twenty-first-century global economy; Conclusion; Index.

Scholars studying trade from a range of disciplines, such as law, philosophy, business, economics, history, or politics, as well as their students, will benefit from this groundbreaking analysis. They will be invited to consider trade law from a perspective now unrepresented, yet intuitively familiar: trade's relationship to consensual exchange.

Frank J. Garcia is Professor of Law and Dean's Global Fund Scholar at the Boston College Law School, Massachusetts. A Fulbright Scholar, he has lectured widely on globalization and international economic law in Europe, South America and the Asia/Pacific region. Professor Garcia has held various leadership positions within the American Society of International Law, and currently sits on the editorial board of the Journal of International Economic Law, where he is Chief Book Review Editor. He is the author, most recently, of Global Justice and International Economic Law: Three Takes (Cambridge, 2013).