Simon Lester

This is from the SIEL 2018 conference organizers: The Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) 2018 Global Conference will take place in Washington D.C. on July 12-14, 2018, with the theme International Economic Law in Unsettling Times. The Conference will be the largest conference SIEL has ever organized, quite

There are reports that an "agreement in principle" on a new NAFTA is almost ready. Will they try to resolve all of the major points as part of this, or will they gloss over some of them? I'm not sure. Anyway, here are 13 issues I&

This is from the newly released text of the EU - Japan Economic Partnership Agreement: ARTICLE 21.25 Administration of the dispute settlement procedure 1. Each Party shall: (a) designate an office which shall be responsible for the administration of the dispute settlement procedure under this Chapter; (b) be responsible

Last week, I posted about the EU splitting up its trade and investment agreements, with the EU - Singapore agreements separated out into a trade part and an investment protection apart. But it seems that the EU is taking a different approach in its updated, and almost completed, agreement with

Today, the Canadian Supreme Court decided the Comeau case, involving provincial barriers on trade in beer. This decision could have created a Canadian "single market" (to borrow a phrase), but the justices decided on a narrower approach. For anyone who follows WTO jurisprudence or debates about policy space/

The legal texts of the EU - Singapore Free Trade Agreement and the EU - Singapore Investment Protection Agreement are now available here. A European Commission press release related to these agreements, and also covering the EU - Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, explains the next steps as follows: The Commission

China already made the argument that the Section 232 steel/aluminum tariffs are actually safeguard measures, both in a Safeguards Agreement consultations request and a DSU consultations request. Now both the EU and India have filed Safeguards Agreement consultations requests based on this same argument. The EU says the following

This is from Krzysztof Pelc's review of Dani Rodrik's new book: In the case of trade, one such wrinkle, long overlooked, comes from economic models’ focus on the “average citizen.” And while trade agreements may indeed be beneficial to the “average Canadian,” no such animal exists

Is it worth responding to things President Trump says about trade? I'm not sure, but I'm doing it anyway, very briefly. The transcript of his remarks from today is here. Feel free to add your own comments. Trump: THE PRESIDENT:  As you are all aware, China

This is the legal basis of China's WTO complaint against the U.S. Section 232 tariffs, filed on April 5: The measures at issue, operating separately or together, appear to be inconsistent with the United States' obligations under: * Articles XIX:1(a), XIX:2 of the GATT