Ari Afilalo

is a Professor of Law at Rutgers-Camden School of Law.  His teaching and research focus on international trade, international business transactions and E.U. Law. He holds a J.D. magna cum laude from Boston University School of Law and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School.  He was a law clerk to Chief Justice Paul J. Liacos of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and practiced law for several years in New York City, focusing on international commercial and financial transactions and intellectual property. A native of Paris and of Moroccan origin, he has lived and studied in Israel. He is married to Brigitte Dayan and the father of Maya and Liora.

Research Project

The New Global Trading Order: The Evolving State and the Future of Trade

Ari Afilalo’s research focuses on international trade and investment law.  His current projects explore the relationship between international trade orders and the nature of the State.  Drawing on theories of Statecraft through various historical periods, such as the pre-modern State of the Industrial Revolution or the modern nation-State of the 20th century, he argues that the foundational principles of the State in each era define the theoretical architecture of the international trade order of the time. For example, the nation-state of the 20th century was well suited for a trade architecture based on comparative advantage and respect for national sovereignty. The ethos of the nation-state was the delivery to the nation of welfare, defined broadly to include entitlements as well as the regulatory norms of the administrative State. The GATT, in the words of John Ruggie, embedded modern liberal democratic Statecraft because it allowed individual states to have access to a greater global pie, all the while respecting its national method of delivering welfare. Thus Japan could implement indicative planning programs, England or France could freely follow cradle-to-grave welfare schemes, and the United States could tax and spend, free of interference from the international system but able to increase its resources through trade. Since the early 21st century, we have entered a new period of Statecraft, which has been labeled market-State or post-modern State, which necessitates a rethinking of some of the basic hallmarks of the GATT/WTO.   Ari’s current research, which draws on a book he recently co-authored on these issues entitled “The New Global Trading Order: The Evolving State and the Future of Trade,” explores the contours of the trade order of the post-modern era, and the extent to which current institutions and international regulatory frameworks must be changed or supplemented. On a parallel track, he analyzes the relationship between domestic constitutional law and international law, and argues that the same set of norms that define the international trade order shape constitutional norms.