By Simon Lester in — 01 Oct 2017

NAFTA Conferences

It sounds like the NAFTA renegotiation is about to get exciting, with proposals on controversial issues such as ISDS, rules of origin, and dispute settlement coming soon. To hear more about all this, you might want to attend a (free!) conference or two in Washington, DC. Georgetown University has one on October 6, and then we are having one at Cato on October 26.

The link to the Georgetown one is here. The full program is here. Here is the main part of the schedule (with me just added -- I'm not on the official program yet):

9:15-10:45am: Panel 1 - The Balance of NAFTA

• Rufus Yerxa | President, National Foreign Trade Council
• Laura Dawson | Director, Canada Institute - Wilson Center
• Gerardo Esquivel | Professor, El Colegio de Mexico
• Simon Lester | Cato

11:00am-12:30pm: Panel 2 - Wither NAFTA 2.0?

Chair/Discussant: Jennifer Hillman, Georgetown University Law Center
• Debra Steger | Professor, University of Ottawa
• Melinda St. Louis | Director of International Campaigns, Global Trade Watch
• Antonio Ortiz Mena | Senior Advisor, Albright Stonebridge Group
• Chad Bown | Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

2:30-4:00pm: Panel 3 - Domestic Measures to Bolster NAFTA

Chair/Discussant: Matthew Carnes, Georgetown University Department of Government/ Director, Center
for Latin American Studies
• Dany Bahar | Fellow, Brookings Institution
• Celeste Drake | Policy Specialist, AFL-CIO
• Edward Alden | Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
• Mario Delgado | Senator, Mexican Senate (MORENA)

The link to our Cato conference is here. Here is the schedule:

9:15 – 10:15AM	SESSION I: NAFTA’S ORIGIN & PURPOSE John Weekes, Bennett Jones Rufus Yerxa, National Foreign Trade Council Moderator: Jim Bacchus, Former Chairman of the WTO Appellate Body
10:15 – 10:35AM	BREAK
10:35 – 12:00PM	SESSION II: THE DEBATE OVER NAFTA Marta Bengoa, City College of New York Steve Charnovitz, George Washington University Law School Dan Griswold, Mercatus Center Alvaro Santos, Georgetown University Law Center Todd Tucker, Roosevelt Institute Christopher Wilson, Wilson Center Moderator: Dan Ikenson, Director, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute
12:00 – 1:00PM	KEYNOTE LUNCHEON
1:15 – 2:30PM	SESSION III: POLITICS & REALITY Ted Alden, Council on Foreign Relations Phil Levy, Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs Ricardo Ramirez, World Trade Organization Bill Reinsch, Stimson Center Moderator: Scott Lincicome, Adjunct Scholar, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute
2:30 – 3:45PM	SESSION IV: HOW TO MODERNIZE NAFTA Christine Bliss, Coalition of Service Industries Amgad Shehata, UPS David Weller, Google Moderator: Inu Manak, Visiting Scholar, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute
3:45 – 4:05PM	BREAK
4:05 – 5:15PM	SESSION V: BREAKOUT SESSIONS In the Shadow of NAFTA: Dairy, Lumber, and Bombardier Ed Farrell, OFW Law Dan Ikenson, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute Chris Sands, Johns Hopkins, School of Advanced International Studies Moderator: Colin Grabow, Trade Policy Analyst, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute Dispute Settlement Jennifer Hillman, Georgetown University Law Center John Magnus, TradeWins Mike Smart, Rock Creek Advisors Moderator: Simon Lester, Trade Policy Analyst, Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute