The ever-present tension between the United States and China has heightened in recent years due to a rise in the theft of American intellectual property from Chinese semiconductors. Pharmaceutical intellectual property is at the crux of this issue, as a hit to this valuable market comes with severe penalties for the United States. Neither legislation from the World Trade Organization nor the more recent Phase One Trade Deal can present a viable solution for this issue, resulting in the need for a structural rebirth in international trade legislation. Previous discussions on this issue have touched on the need to rebalance the TRIPS Agreement and reassess the United States’ trade relationship with China. These arguments do not clarify the need to reformat the WTO as a whole and recognize the institution for what it is—a system that was not created to support the levels of innovation and technology that exist today; a system that certainly did not account for China’s contrasting market structure. This paper examines a new dynamic goal that would require 1) the WTO to hold China fiscally and criminally responsible for its unfair market practices; 2) the United Nations to create a new, encompassing multilateral trade agreement in the future; and 3) the United States to develop a concrete plan to decouple from China.

Relationships and immigration status have always been closely intertwined in our nation’s history. The relationship one is in can determine the types of immigration visas one can access and what protections they might be afforded. A foreign spouse of an American citizen gets priority for a visa and is extended protections should their American spouse abuse them. However, for immigrants with insecure status and no formal relationship with an abuser, these protections are much harder to obtain. By limiting protections based on one’s relationship status to their abuser rather than by focusing on the nature of the abuse itself, America is hindering domestic violence victims from accessing the help they need. This note looks at the domestic violence protections in America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Sweden for immigrants with insecure status who are not married to their abusers and argues that when countries take a narrow approach in defining domestic violence and limit its protections to spouses, they are not protecting victims of abuse as they claim they want to. It also argues that by broadening the definition of domestic violence and removing relationship status requirements, more people will seek protection against their abusers.

Many scholars have commented on free trade, foreign investment, and sustainable development. The three concepts are intertwined and underlie global trade and economic and legal discussions on countries' development. The multilateral trade system gave leeway to countries for regional integration under Regional Trade Agreements (“RTAs”), shaped as customs unions or Free Trade Areas. These agreements aim to maximize free trade within specific regions. Facilitating free trade brings more benefits in different ways and is a strong incentive for foreign investments. Foreign investments generate jobs and wealth and are fuel for development. However, free trade has downsides. Corporations are in the “race to the bottom” to take advantage of lax environmental, human, and worker rights regulations to increase their benefits and profit. Here comes sustainability to mitigate free trade's adverse effects on vulnerable countries and, more broadly, humanity. This study will comprehensively analyze the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) and the United States, Mexico, and Canada (USMCA), two major Regional Trade Agreements. The WAEMU treaty was signed in 1997 and amended once in 2003, while the USMCA, building upon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), entered into effect in 2020. The purpose of this study is to make a comparative analysis to, in fine, show the WAEMU treaty's shortcomings regarding free trade, foreign investment policies, and sustainability, and how the USMCA, a more recent and innovative free trade agreement, can fill its gaps. Thus, this comprehensive and comparative analysis will have three parts. As a background and to set the scene, we will explain (I) the global logic of free trade agreements, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) representing the multilateral trade system and Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) in global trade. Then, (II) the USMCA and the WAEMU treaties will be sketched out individually before (III) our final comparative analysis and assessment of both treaties regarding free trade, foreign investments, and sustainability, followed by critiques, recommendations, and suggestions for improvements.