Simon Lester

Josh Barro describes Trump's approach to negotiations as follows: Donald Trump has a negotiating tactic he really likes: Threaten to do something someone else will really hate, and then offer to stop if they give you what you want. ... One of his tactics on trade, for example, is

This is from Graham Cook: For those interested in matters of treaty interpretation and legal reasoning, here is a new paper on "The Use of Object and Purpose by Trade and Investment Adjudicators: Convergence without Interaction". It analogizes the practice of WTO and ISDS tribunals to the story

This is from the 2016 Devas v. India Award (some footnotes omitted): 219. Indeed, it is well established by judgments of the International Court of Justice (the “ICJ”) and investment arbitration awards that, unless a treaty contains specific wording granting full discretion to the State to determine what it considers

This is from Trump's press conference at the G7 yesterday: Q Mr. President, you said that this was a positive meeting, but from the outside, it seemed quite contentious. Did you get any indication from your interlocutors that they were going to make any concessions to you? And

Frank Garcia sends the following: "Thanks to Anthea Roberts for enhancing UNCITRAL's own transparency efforts regarding the recent working group meeting in New York, and posting such a treasure trove of State comments.  I and a team of Boston College Law students were also in New York

This is from Canada's consultations request on the Section 232 tariffs: In addition, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and its associated regulations appear to be "as such" inconsistent with Articles I:1 and II:1 of the GATT 1994 and does not

This is from the U.S. statement at the DSB meeting on Monday (footnotes omitted): 10. EUROPEAN UNION – COUNTERVAILING MEASURES ON CERTAIN POLETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE FROM PAKISTAN A. REPORT OF THE APPELLATE BODY (WT/DS486/AB/R AND WT/DS486/AB/R/ADD.1) AND REPORT OF THE PANEL (WT/DS486/