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The Unintended Consequences of International Trade Law Adjudicatory Exceptionalism


By: Aram A. Gavoor


This article is a distillation of plenary session remarks that I delivered at the 21st Judicial Conference of the U.S. Court of International Trade at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC on November 11, 2022.


The regulation of international trade has a long and storied history in the United States since the Founding Era. The framers of the Constitution thought it sufficiently important to enumerate the regulation of “commerce with foreign nations” among the numerous Article I Foreign Affairs powers juxtaposed against the executive Vesting Clause, Take Care Clause, and Foreign Affairs and Commander in Chief powers of Article II. Further, international trade policy issues have a significant place in contemporary domestic American politics, especially in the Trump and Biden administrations. The contemporary regulation of international trade is principally governed by numerous statutes that are administered across several executive branch agencies.

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