Rob Howse

Many of us heaved a sigh of relief when Philip Morris lost its challenge to Uruguay's tobacco plain packaging regulations. In the euphoria of the moment, it was easy to ignore the unpleasant fact of a dissent.  Yet much of the value to Philip Morris in attacking, both

An investor operates a facility in what has become one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East; despite the efforts of the host state's army, terrorist attacks on the facility continue.  According to a recent ICSID decision, the failure of Egypt to stop terrorist attacks on

In my previous post I took issue with what appears to be the basic premise of super-arbitrator Kaufmann-Kohler's approach to creating a multilateral investment court: because of the overriding importance of maximum enforcement instruments for investors, a multilateral tribunal can't deviate too much from "arbitration&

Currently the European Commission and Canada are at the forefront of an initiative to replace traditional investor-state arbitration with a multilateral investment court.  The latter would likely include a true appellate mechanism, serious rules on arbitrator ethics and against conflict of interest, judges who are qualified in public international law

In the process of moving to a new approach to international investment law and dispute settlement, India has elaborated a model BIT that differs significantly from older agreements.  It is much more balanced between investor interests and those of legitimate public policy.  The model BIT, for instance, contains a tightly-drafted

In the latest episode of infliction of suffering on Greece, its Eurozone creditors have halted the recently agreed debt relief plan because the Tsipras government has decided to provide emergency payments to the country's most vulnerable pensioners. The widespread and severe suffering imposed on the Greek people by

Informal translation of excerpts of the Declaration of the Kingdom of Belgium relating to the conditions under which the federal State and the federated entities exercise their full authority to sign CETA I have not translated all of those aspects that mostly pertain to procedural matters and federal intra-Belgium matters

In recent posts, I've tried to address whether and to what extent the backlash against globalization is about tribalism and xenophobia-or rather about jobs, equality, and democracy.  According to Ross Douthat in today's New York Times, the new "post-liberal" politics is all about existential

The Deplorables sounds like the name of a band that might have been playing clubs in the Bowery in the early 80s.  Now it's been used, notoriously, by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to denote a sub-set of Trump supporters whose attitudes and beliefs are, in liberal democratic terms,

In a study released yesterday well-known veteran trade policy analyst Gary Hufbauer sounds the alarm that Donald Trump could use presidential authority under a range of arcane statutory provisions to start a trade war immediately upon taking office-with Congress and the courts helpless to stop him, at least in the