The “commercial and cultural globalisation movement” has proven to be just one more spurious attempt at imposition, particularly by the United States, of one country´s values, judgements and standards on other countries, with the objective of exploiting a solid commercial advantage and assuring strategic dominance over the future of the nations. Such effort seeks to discount and even vilify the fundamental social, historical and cultural structures of the other countries as well as their institutions, inclusive of their international law institutions. It also seeks to assure the primacy of national legal institutions over the international legal order, to the effect that arbitrariness and abuse is permitted and even legitimated.

This situation presents a great risk to the sovereignty of the countries subject to such arbitrariness. In fact, outside the international order today, as in the past, the alternative and the decline of independent countries and of their populations is subjection to the unscrupulous free will of imperialism. Despite the proximity of the year 2000 and the sacrifices of humanity, the international legal order is lacking profound improvement. With exception of within the World Trade Organisation — WTO — the United States has the power to veto within all other international organisations and does not hesitate to act arbitrarily according to its own agenda. In order to compensate for its lack of veto power in the WTO, the United States submits the validifying of respective treaties to its own national laws! Moreover, its seeks to impose its legal concepts on international trade issues, with the clear objective of self-benefit.

This state of affairs has direct repercussions on lawyering. In the Uruguay Round of the GATT that led to the creation of WTO, the United States endeavoured to have the trade partners open their markets, allowing American lawyers to settle within while at the same time keeping U.S. markets closed by means of horizontal barriers established in accordance with its OCDE partners in what is conventionally known as the “shame cartel”. That attempt frustrated in great part by the resistance of most developing countries, the lawyers of developed countries were not diswayed and dared to establish commercial presence in target territories, including Brazil. Here, this was done in violation of the Criminal Law.

At the same time this invasion has been taking place in serious threat to the Brazilian Public Order, the Bar Associations of several developed countries have adopted an actively repressive position against foreign lawyers located in their jurisdictions, according to local legislation and in violation of assumed international settlement. Such is the case with the Florida Bar, possibly the most protectionist enterprise in the Continent, which expressly violates the basic rights of the foreign lawyer established in the State of Florida.