The Challenge to Harmonization of Inter-Jurisdictional Trade Laws : A Study of Transportational Regulation Disparities within the Northern Great Plains Region

The globalization movement has made efforts to create free trade zones through considerable efforts to harmonize international commercial and trade laws. Perhaps as a result of the focus that the globalization movement has put on trade harmonization, commentators and regulators have begun examining the disparities in trade regulations that create trade barriers among the individual states of a particular country. This article discusses how,while the impetus for trade harmonization has come from the international arena, it has filtered down to more local levels, with the realization that the best trading partners of a state or region are those that are closest to that state or region. The University of South Dakota Law School recently conducted a comprehensive study of certain commercial transportation regulations within the Northern Great Plains region - North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota - to determine the degree of uniformity or disparities in the trade laws of a particular region. The study found disparities within every category of regulation surveyed and significant disparities in the areas of weight, long combination vehicles (LCVs), and permitting practices particularly on "non-designated roads." The degree of these disparities was somewhat surprising, given the commonality among the five states and the degree of trade conducted between those states. Although the study focused primarily on identifying the existence of such disparities, its findings can also be used to shed light on the larger question of why trade harmonization among individual states, much less individual nations, can be so difficult to achieve