1 Chi J Intl L 381
John O. McGinnis

Many conservatives (at the least the subset who are classical liberals) approve of global multilateral trade agreements and allied agreements that keep global capital markets open. Conservatives, however, tend to be openly skeptical of other global multilateral agreements, be they environmental accords, human rights conventions, military pacts, or an agreement on an international criminal court. In this paper I offer the beginnings of a framework of sound political economy that justifies these divergent intuitions and shows that they are rooted in more than just a reflexive liking for trade combined with a disdain for the environment, human rights, criminal justice, and world peace.