Gray Hall II: Chapter Four

Like a dry sponge in an ocean you swell courageously with information that seems always relevant and fascinating until every pore of your being is engorged and a wave crashed your tiny remains into the drowning darkness. Oh, sure, there is a lot of information that you need to be proficient at your job; well suck it up, others have done it. Yes, but we all have scars.
--J.A. Knight, Doctor-to-be: Coping with the Trials and Triumphs of Medical School
Too many facts are being taught too thoughtlessly, in too short a time.
--M. Konner, Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School

"What time is it?"
"It's 9:05." Jake checked his watch again. "Professor Bahari is late. I think he's late. Shouldn't he have been here like at 9:00? That's what I got from his lecture last week."
"Yeah, you're right. What do you think he's doing right now?"
"I don't know. Maybe he's writing another book or another chapter."
Eric Guzman laughed. "That's a good one. He probably is."
"Yeah, another massive book about GATT. Where does he find the time to write?"
"Seriously, I just don't know. Maybe that's why he doesn't answer e-mails and only has office hours on Mondays and Tuesdays."
"Maybe. Oh, I think he's coming in right now."

Professor Bahari came rushing into the classroom. He was carrying a massive textbook (written by him in less than a year, in addition to several well-received law journal articles), a massive statute supplement (edited by him as well), a binder filled stuffed with papers, and the ever-present container of liquid containing caffeine. Jake had never seen Professor Bahari without a large cup of coffee, a bottle containing iced tea, or a can of soda (Diet Coke as Davis University was getting funds from Coca Cola).
Since he had a proper British education, Professor Bahari picked up some British customs. He cultivated a precise sense of order and precise logic, but he also picked up the mannerisms of a stereotypical Cambridge professor. Things like absent mindedness and cultured casualness. Some might add in the insufferable attitude common to certain members of British society. Things like smugness, intellectual pompousity, and being an all-around arrogant pain in the ass, although highly intelligent. Jake wasn't sure about this as Jake didn't know him well enough. He would come up with his own conclusions.
"I was supposed to be here at 9:00 AM, right?"
The entire class nodded.
"And we decided on this last week, correct?"
The entire class nodded again.
"Ah, I thought that something was wrong. I had this feeling that I was missing something."
Everyone nodded sympathetically. Of course, people forgot things. Then again, some were just feigning sympathy. This was coming from the same professor who emphatically told everyone that punctuality was an important quality in lawyers and that he wouldn't tolerate habitual tardiness. Then again, he didn't do anything about that one guy in class who consistently showed up late, made funny bird noises during class, and basically interrupted class by asking questions that would put Shaffer to shame. So much for setting an example.
"Let me explain why I was late. As you may know, I regularly converse with trade lawyers around the world and I spend a lot of time writing books and articles on trade law. Well, I am currently writing a book about the impact of free trade and globalization with respect to the International Monetary Fund. Well, to make a long story short, I was doing research and writing a chapter for the new book.
But enough about that. Let's begin with today's lecture. But first, I have to put a little information on the chalkboard first."
This was not going to be fun. Anytime a law school professor, especially one who has a reputation for being an academic show-off among students and professors alike, says "a little," one should expect more than "some." One should expect a lot, a whole lot. Jake thought that he was getting very little in law school sometimes given the amount of actual information learned in typical lectures. Professor Bahari, however, was a professor who tried to cram as much information as possible into his classes. His classes were like the old circus gag involving clowns and tiny VW Beetles. Just when you thought the car was empty, another clown popped out. This kept on going for an inhumanly long amount of time. Seeing clowns were amusing. Trying to comprehend a dense lecture filled with acronyms and technical arcana was a much different story.
Maybe the apt simile was more akin to siege warfare. Imagine a castle surrounded by a mass of angry warriors intent on storming the gates and climbing over the walls. One wave attacks and is repulsed. Another wave. And another wave. Over and over again. Sooner or later, one side will ultimately win and in general, it's the human wave. An overwhelming swarm that overpowers the other side. Jake prepared himself for the onslaught.

This is the information written on the board that Professor Bahari considered "a little" information. All of it was considered fair game for the final:
Two Important Dates
1. October 30, 1947
2. January 1, 1948HISTORICAL BACKGROUND, PRE-GATT
I. Trading Blocs
II. WWI and the importance of trading blocs
III. Post WWI
A. Treaty of Versailles
B. John Maynard Keynes, Economic Consequences of the Peace
C. October 1929, Stock Market Crash, Dust Bowl
D. Herbert Hoover
1. Tariff Act of 1930 (a.k.a Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act)
2. Still on record, "Column Two" Non-MFN
3. "beggar thy neighbor" policy, economic problems around world
4. Smoot-Hawley + world market + monetary policy = financial disaster made worse
E. Cordell Hull
1. Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934
2. Problem with Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of Constitution
IV. World War II
A. Atlantic Charter involving Churchill and FDR
B. Protectionism is bad
C. Bilateral vs. Multilateral
GATT PREPARATORY CONFERENCESMore Important Dates
1946--London
1947--Geneva
1948--Havana Charter leads to ITO (fails) but GATT takes over as provisional document
GATT/PRE WTO
Contracting Parties v. CONTRACTING PARTIES
Foreign Treaties and Congress
Early Problems involving Third World Countries and tariff problems.
-Related to European Union CAP program
-Socialism as a powerful economic idea in Third World
-Colonial masters, slow negotiation process
TOKYO ROUND
Non-tariff Barriers lead to anti-dumping and legal remedies
1. bound rate
2. applied rate
3. % cut
URAGUAY ROUND15 April 1994--Marrakesh Protocols
1 Jan 1995--Start of WTO

To the normal person, this might be considered a complex, fully detailed, and complete lecture and not just a rough outline. To Professor Bahari, however, not being a normal person by any means, this was a rough outline and a basis for a complete lecture that should take about 90 minutes. This is what he planned to do, but it never happened. A lecture that should have taken one class period (in Professor Bahari's estimates) took two, maybe three days.
Even then, it was amazing how much Professor Bahari still managed to cram into a 90 minute lecture. Well, it should have been a 90 minute lecture, but he consistently ran over 90 minutes. And this was coming from a professor who was a supposed stickler for punctuality.
To transcribe the entire lecture given by Professor Bahari this day would have been too much. For the students, the lecture was a form of torture, mainly information overload of the highest degree. To subject the people reading this to an entire lecture would have been torture as well, if not worse. A short sampling for a Professor Bahari lecture, only five or ten minutes worth would suffice. After reading this short excerpt, one will appreciate the serious omission of a large portion of text. In addition, this short excerpt will give the reader an excellent education in the history of international trade law.
If one is prone to insomnia, reading this excerpt may prove to be helpful in bringing a more relaxing sleep. One should ask their doctor if any adverse reactions may occur if this is taken in conjunction with any prescribed sleeping medicines:

The hsitory of GATT and multilateral trade begins with colonialism and the trading blocs that Adam Smith and David Ricardo talked about in their seminal works on economics. Namely, The Wealth of Nations by Smith and On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. We have talked about their ideas in earlier lectures.
Because of mercantilism and the associated empire building, the great empires of the world were protecting their empires by creating trade blocs. Namely, they gave preferential treatment to their colonies and excluded everyone else. For example, the country of Great Britain had their imperial preference. If they wanted sugar, they would go to Bermuda or Barbados and get their sugar cane from there. In return, if one of their colonies wanted British products like textiles, the colony would get their product from Britain. What kind of duty would be charged in this case? Nothing.
On the other hand, if a company from France needed a bolt of cotton cloth and they bought it from an English firm, the French firm would be charged the price of the cloth plus additional fees.
These blocs soon evolved into defense alliances and instead of trade, the blocs soon became militaristic in nature. Bullets replaced bread. Guns and steel replaced grapes and shoes. Colonies and empires were fortresses. And then came World War I.
In 1919, after World War I, soon came the Treaty of Versailles. One should read Guns of August by Tuchman and The First World War by Keegan for some insight into this time period that changed the world in more than one way. The winners did not break their trade blocs as they were the winners. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire lost their trade blocs. Germany bore the brunt of the impact.
The Allies made Germany pay high costs of reparations, though Galbraith says that it wasn't so bad after all. His view is controversial, though Galbraith enjoys the attention as he is an iconoclast. John Maynard Keynes wrote Economic Consequences of the Peace. The main point of this work states that the Treaty of Versailles was bad news and would lead to dangerous consequences. It was a Carthagenian Peace, one that refers to the Punic Wars and Carthage being razed into the ground with salt plowed into the earth so not a trace remained. Basically, to use Latin (a rough version of it), Germany, just like Carthage, was raptus regaliter and totus anctus. Or roughly translated, Germany, like Carthage, was royally screwed and in a world of hurt.
Now, let's fast forward to October 1929. The stock market crash and before this, the disastrous Dust Bowl. Absolute economic havoc in the United States economy. Now, there is no definition for "depression" in economic, but there is one for recession: two consecutive quarters of negative gross national product or GNP.
Herbert Hoover decides to raise the tariff barriers to solve the depression problem. The result in the Tariff Act of 1930, commonly called the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. These are the highest tariffs in United States history and they are still on record. In trade law parlance, they are "column two" or non-MFN tariff rates.
And the results? Everybody else raises their tariffs. It's the classic reaction. Just like a chain reaction or toppling over dominoes. Everyone begins to raise tariffs and instead of helping the situation, it becomes worse, much worse. The major export at the time is unemployment and not trade. They call it the "beggar thy neighbor" policy. I'm poor and miserable. I'm going to screw the other person and make them poor as well. See The World in Depression by Kindleberger for more information as well.
The result of this bad economic policy? Smoot-Hawley plus world markets plus monetary policy equals a bad situation made worse. Economic disaster compounded to a higher degree.

Had fun reading that? Anyone who happened to enjoy that might be interested in the fast and furious world of international trade law. The rest, well, there are other fields of law that might be of interest. Jake was barely maintaining a functional level of consciousness by the third or fourth paragraph. It was less interesting in the verbal form. All that information getting rammed into his head and the heads of fifteen other students at 9:00 AM in the morning. Jake was a morning person and he functioned quite well early in the morning, but even he had limits.
The previous was just a representative sample of an average five to ten minutes in Bahari's class. Imagine an entire 90 minute lecture, just as information dense as this sample. But this is just the beginning of the information overload.
To be perfectly honest, the lectures were the Reader's Digest version of the textbook assignments. The textbook for the class was written by Professor Bahari and it was much more dense with information. This, amazingly, was considered the simple version, the easy to understand version. The average textbook chapter was written in hard to read 10 point font with 8 point font footers, in single spaced paragraph. It was painful to read and painful to understand. Printing an excerpt from the textbook might make this chapter the equivalent of an instrument of torture. But back to the present and to the class from Hell, the classic case of information overload.

"The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 gave President Roosevelt, FDR, the power to negotiate reductions of trade barriers in bilateral agreements. Now, can anyone explain why this power is so extraordinary?" This was Professor Bahari.
Oh great. A question asked by a professor that requires knowledge of some point not covered in a previous class. It probably had something to do with the United States Constitution.
"Who should I ask? Now let's look at the seating chart list. Hmm...I think I shall ask Ms. Carpenter. You have the option of asking for advice from an associate in this class."
Sara Carpenter. One of the girls in his small section. The girl who persuaded him to volunteer for the Davis Law Talent Show. Sarah Carpenter was currently working at the county's District Attorney office and living out her dreams of a Law and Order episode, though she mentioned her job was like a massive episode of Boston Legal, but without William Shatner. Jake liked her as she was a true character, an eccentric, quirky person who was a fan of pirates and good English beers, but without the overtones of "the bizarre old lady with a hundred cats."
"Uh, I honestly don't have a clue. I was working at the county DA's office last night and well...you know. I would like to defer the question to someone else."
"Who would you like to defer to as co-counsel?"
"Let me see..." Everyone in the class was silently praying that she would pass over them. "Um, Jake, sorry to do this, but the question is all yours."
"No appologies needed in this class. Mr. Lau, can you answer the question about the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934?"
To Jake's mind, the answer was obvious. He actually remembered something from Constitutional Law about the Constitution. Then again, he might have learned this earlier and just remembered it. Constitutional Law was a class that seriously inhibited learning of any type except that inflicting boredom could be considered a form of torture. The answer invovled Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. Article I was about Congress and Section 8 talked about the powers of Congress.
"It's because Article I, Section 8 says that only Congress has the power to regulate trade with foreign nations. The President doesn't have that power. That's what makes that act so unusual. But I'm sure this power is temporary and it expires. To get the power back, Congress has to approve this granting of trade negotiation powers."
"That is correct. And would you know when this power expires?"
"I'm not sure. It probably must be very soon. It explains why people say that the Doha Rounds might fail and why everyone is pushing so hard to get an agreement hammered out."
"Yes. It ends on June 30, 2007. And now, let's talk about World War II and the Atlantic Charter." Professor Bahari looked at his watch. "Ah, it seems as if I have gone over and this lecture will have to continue tomorrow. Good bye."

Jake noted that he had typed out five pages of notes. He would try to look over them tonight to see if they made any sense. Maybe not. Given the current state of his head at this moment, looking over them might cause some serious problems in comprehension. He would probably wait until the weekend to look over them. To use the Latin that Professor Bahari used, his head was raptus regaliter and totus anctus. Definitely royally screwed and in a world of hurt. Jake felt that his head was like Carthage after the Romans burned it down and plowed salt into it. It was time to decompress in Trial Advocacy. The lecture for that class required little thinking. He needed it right now.