Simon Lester

This is from Ambassador Lighthizer's statement at the NAFTA press conference today: Finally, I would like to refer, because I think it fits into this context to an unprecedented trade action that Canada brought against the United States very recently. It constitutes a massive attack on all of

The 6th round of the NAFTA talks wrapped up today, and my impression of the closing statements was that everyone was relatively positive, much more so than after the 4th round anyway. I wanted to highlight one thing from Ambassador Lighthizer's statement: Free trade agreements are essentially grants

This is from The Canadian Press: Canada and Mexico are applying pressure on the United States to decide whether it wants to be part of NAFTA’s investor-state dispute mechanism, threatening to sideline it unless it commits to participating fully. Multiple sources say the conversation came to a head

This is from Inside US Trade: [Commerce Secretary Wilbur] Ross objected to the “protectionist” label that critics of the Trump administration have attached to U.S. trade actions and rebutted the idea that China could pick up the mantle and be a leader on free trade policy. “The Chinese have

This is from the Toronto Star: Canada has made a bold offer to accept a controversial U.S. demand at the NAFTA talks about how to resolve commercial trade disputes, the Star has learned. It involves the current binding trade dispute settlement process used to resolve lawsuits by investor companies

This is from Jenny Leonard of Inside US Trade: The White House is considering the creation of a reciprocal investment regime with China following a Section 301 investigation into Chinese technology and intellectual property policies, but some in the administration fear it would lead to stock market losses and negatively

I enjoyed this recent JIEL article by Emily Lydgate, called "Is it Rational and Consistent? The Wto’s Surprising Role in Shaping Domestic Public Policy." Here is the abstract: What makes regulation rational? And why is rationality important to an international tribunal? In the World Trade Organization (WTO)

Here's a comment we wrote in our Dispute Settlement Commentary for the DS491 panel report right at the end of last year: U.S. ITC Tie Vote under WTO Law Normally, there are six commissioners who serve on the U.S. International Trade Commission at a given time.

Ken Vandevelde is one of the preeminent scholars on investment treaties. He has a new short paper entitled "IIA provisions, properly interpreted, are fully consistent with a robust regulatory state" here.  In the paper, he makes a couple points that I want to address. First, he talks about

After a recent trip to Iceland -- great scenery and delicious food! -- I wanted to learn more about the country, so naturally I looked up Iceland's most recent WTO Trade Policy Review and skimmed through the Secretariat report.* I was intrigued by this sentence: 2.39. Iceland's