Simon Lester

This is from a Q & A with Meg Kinnear, Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID): We have seen some anti-investment arbitration sentiment in the global press; what are the main misconceptions about ISDS? There are a number of fundamental misconceptions. For example, there is

From the comments on another post, here's something from David Gantz: Am I missing something with the announcement that Ford will build a new plant in China to build the next generation small car (Focus)? I believe that this was the plant that Ford originally planned for Mexico,

The panel report is now available. I'll put it on WorldTradeLaw.net soon, but for now you can read it here. This is from the conclusion: 594. The United States has proven that at eight worksites and with respect to 74 workers Guatemala failed to effectively enforce its

In my last post, I cited a Politico article which suggests that ISDS/investment protection will be removed from the Japan - EU free trade agreement (JEFTA) that is currently under negotiation.  But now I see that Greenpeace has leaked some of the JEFTA text, which shows that it has

To follow up on Anthea's post from last week, there is another fundamental question about ISDS/investment protection: If it is going to exist, in one form or another, where exactly does it belong? Should it be part of the trade regime? Or should there be a separate

Article 1708.14 of NAFTA says: Each Party shall refuse to register trademarks that consist of or comprise immoral, deceptive or scandalous matter, or matter that may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs or any Party's national symbols, or bring them

In its early years, NAFTA Chapter 20 state to state dispute settlement functioned as expected.  There were complaints, a couple panels were set up, they issued reports, and compliance was sometimes achieved.  However, as I understand it (and I confess I'm fuzzy on the details), in a case

This is from law prof Eric Posner: I’m told by someone who knows about these things that the Obama-era climate actions, combined with ongoing shifts in the U.S. energy sector, will ensure that the U.S. will reach its announced (voluntary) target under the Paris agreement, or nearly

A couple weeks ago, I suggested that it was possible the Trump administration had already made up its mind on the Section 232 investigations, and would almost certainly find that steel and aluminum imports have impaired national security, giving the President the authority to impose trade restrictions in response (the

Last month, I blogged about a press conference by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in which, among other things, he seemed to criticize the MFN clause as a barrier to trade liberalization. I explained (briefly) there why I thought this criticism was misguided. Chad Bown and Alan Sykes subsequently wrote a