In the earlier years, the Court would speak of the purpose as the prevention of the harmful effects of statutes on interstate commerce itself, (336) while "[m]ore recently, the Court has struck down state laws sometimes based on its preference for national unity," (337) and at "other times on the basis of antiprotectionist sentiment." (338) What those disparate justifications have in common, Justice Thomas argues, is "the erroneous assumption that the Court must choose between economic protectionism and the free market." (339) On the contrary, wrote Justice Thomas, that choice is Congress's and, lacking its pronouncement on a subject, "the States are free to set the balance between protectionism and the free market." (340)
Even before he won the election, he sent a high-level team to meet with World Bank and IMF officials to assure them that he would continue the free-market, antiprotectionist policies of his predecessors.
Soon after the signing of the TRIPS Agreement, one commentator stated that "[w]hether the elevation of the Berne criteria to a TRIPS standard will constrain domestic courts or merely allow their antiprotectionist bias to infiltrate foreign law remains to be seen."(82) The answer to that question still remains to be seen.
The antiprotectionist trade policy for a standard Harris-Todaro economy apparently signifies the dominance of the migration-related distortion over the wage differential-based distortion, and that shows the importance of the unique migration phenomenon, which happens to be the novelty of the Harris-Todaro model.
(27.) For examples of antiprotectionist and proremedial sentiments coexisting peacefully and without comment, see generally Mary Eastwood, The Double Standard of Justice: Women's Rights Under the Constitution, 5 VAL.