Rob Howse

Suppose someone asked you if you were to support, say, anti-smoking laws if there were no factual evidence that smoking was harmful?  I guess I'd have to say no.  Like most people I suspect, I don't like to think of myself as indifferent to facts or

Canada's latest move has been to attack the singer Morrissey, claiming that he compared the seal hunt to Auschwitz.  However, what Mr. Morrissey actually said was different.  He merely used the example of concentration camps to illustrate the moral argument that if something is intrinsically evil the fact

An article appearing in Sun New service by Jessica Hume gives a very misleading impression of the Seals case.  http://bit.ly/1rmpx15  The article appears in the guise of an interview with Geneva-based attorney and former Canadian official Brendan McGivern.  Of course, I don't know what Brendan

One of Canada's key contentions in the WTO Seals dispute is that the indigenous exception in the EU ban is lacking in evenhandedness, favoring Greenland seal products over Canadian products.  The exception is de jure neutral and available to indigenous products regardless of origin.  But Canada has maintained

This won't be my last post on Rare Earths, but its the first. In China-Publications the Appellate Body addressed the possibility that the Article XX general exceptions might apply with respect to obligations under agreements other than the GATT, in that case China's Protocol of Accession.

Today at the Seal Products Appellate Body hearing, the discussion focused on Canada’s claim that there is a philosophical consistency test included in the law of the WTO. Canada’s argument is that under the law of the WTO, the EU should not be able to regulate to protect

Canada and Norway have been attacking the EU anti-cruelty ban by focusing, at this stage exclusively, on its exceptions.  Of what relevance are these to TBT 2.2 (as opposed to 2.1)? I think the answer lies largely in the US-Tuna II case.  Recall that the AB in reversing

This afternoon( left just before the coffee break) saw the panel struggling with how within the text of TBT 2.2 to frame or imagine the EU measure, which is animated by moral concerns about seal welfare and about complicity with excessive   suffering of seals, but balanced by other concerns.

AB Division Member Chang has raised the issue that there is one estimate in the Cowie Report that suggests largest amount of seal products that entered the EU at the time the EU measure was imposed were for processing and transit, which are permitted under the scheme.  He is pressing

So if the Appellate Body were to complete the analysis and do its own assessment of the EU measure under TBT, what might its concerns be?Some hints come from a few questions from the Division yesterday afternoon.One concern seemed to be whether the EU measure is being effectively