Simon Lester

I had a recent twitter exchange that baffled me at first, but eventually clarified something in the ISDS debate that I have come across before and found confusing. Sometimes ISDS critics, including me, will say something along these lines: "Disputes between foreign investors and host governments can usually be

Law professor Pasha Hsieh sends the following: Singapore Management University (SMU) School of Law will hold the ASEAN Law Conference on December 7-8, 2017. Speakers and commentators include colleagues from various universities and governments, the ASEAN Secretariat, the World Bank and Sidley Austin LLP. The program is available at https:

This is a guest post from Brazilian trade lawyer Luiz Eduardo Salles BILATERAL AGREEMENTS AS AN OPTION TO LIVING THROUGH THE WTO AB CRISIS The trade law community’s hottest topic these days has been the crisis stemming from the US’ persistent refusal to appoint new Appellate Body members. Indeed,

This is from the provisionally adopted text of the amended EU AD/CVD regulation (I think I'm stating that correctly, but someone please correct me if I have it wrong!), relating to the use of analogue countries in constructing a normal value: Article 1 Regulation (EU) 2016/1036

This is from the updated USTR NAFTA negotiating objectives: Dispute settlement: "Provide mechanisms for ensuring that the Parties retain control of disputes and can address situations when a panel has clearly erred in its assessment of the facts or the obligations that apply." One way to address panel

This is from the Daily Beast: During his first six months in office, Donald Trump’s top trade official met with a host of companies, trade associations, and industry groups. He also carved out a little time for an unsuspected visitor: an employee of Ralph Nader’s former progressive nonprofit.

This is from Gregory Shaffer, Manfred Elsig and Mark Pollack: The Trump administration threatens to end the world’s trade court, the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), by blocking the appointment of new AB judges. In doing so, it risks destroying the rules-based trading system that

USTR's updated NAFTA negotiating objectives are here.  These are a few new additions that jumped out at me, with some brief comments: --------------------------------------- Government procurement: "Ensure reciprocity in market access opportunities for U.S. goods, services, and suppliers in Canada and Mexico." I'm not

This is from the Japanese government's list of "Suspended Provisions" in the TPP: 2. Investment Agreement and Investment Authorisation (ISDS applies to these) 9.1 Definitions - suspend “investment agreement” and “investment authorisation” and associated Footnotes (5 - 11) 9.19.1 Submission of Claim to