International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Trade Balances and Trade Interventions and Trade Protectionism

Last week, finance professor Michael Pettis spoke at an event about a new paper he co-authored. From what I can tell, Pettis has had some influence recently on the U.S. trade policy debate, but I have found his views hard to decipher. He and I have interacted a bit

Seminar on Legal Architecture of Remedies in the WTO Agreement

Announcement: Interested WTO lawyers are invited to a one-hour academic feedback seminar on Zoom, hosted by Prof. Geraldo Vidigal, University of Amsterdam, to comment on a draft article by Lothar Ehring, written to pay tribute to Frieder Roessler. The paper explains the legal architecture of remedies in the WTO Agreement

The EU-Singapore Digital Trade Agreement: Experimentation with Data Flows Obligations and Exceptions Continues

Over the past couple years, I've been looking at how digital trade agreements set out data flows obligations and exceptions. I've got a new one to examine, as the EU has published a pre-legal scrub version of its digital trade agreement with Singapore, building on their

Will USMCA Be Renewed in 2026?

At a Baker Institute event last week, C.J. Mahoney, who was a Deputy U.S. Trade Representative during the Trump administration, argued that renewal of the USMCA under the Article 34.7 review clause was unlikely to happen in 2026. He first provided some background on the provision: ... USMCA

New Discussions of Appeal/Review in the DS Reform Process

In July, I mentioned that the the WTO Dispute Settlement Reform Process is underway, and that people can follow it a few weeks behind the actual developments, as meeting minutes are derestricted. The Minutes of the Heads of Delegation meeting from July 18 are now available. Focusing on the Appeal/

ANZSIL International Economic Law Interest Group: Call for Papers

This is from the ANZSIL International Economic Law Interest Group (IELIG): 2024 Workshop The 2024 IELIG Workshop will be held via Zoom on Friday 29 November 2024. Its aim is to provide an informal setting for discussion of topical issues and works in progress. We are honoured to have Prof

Guest Post: A Tribute to Frieder Roessler from Petros Mavroidis

This is a guest post by Petros Mavroidis of Columbia Law School. The piece will be published in a forthcoming issue of the World Trade Review. An Uncommon Mind: Frieder Roessler’s Legacy Petros C. Mavroidis* *Columbia Law School 1. Doubts, Persistent Doubts “U-huh”. This is what I recall being

Trump the China Trade Deficit Hawk and China Security Dove?

Trade policy came up at last week's presidential debate, with a somewhat traditional discussion of tariffs at the start, and then a shift at the end to security-related issues. Kamala Harris started it off by referring to Trump's proposed universal baseline tariffs as a sales tax:

Tariff History Emerges as a Key Issue in the U.S. Presidential Contest (Just Kidding!)

As the culture wars have dominated the political debate in recent years, it feels as though the quality of the economic policy discussion has suffered. Some of the economic topics that keep coming up are of little interest to most voters, and are being talked about in a way that

Guest Post: A Tribute to Frieder Roessler from Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann

This is a guest post by Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, emeritus Professor at the European University Institute, Florence (Italy), and legal consultant at the World Trade Organization (Geneva); former professor of European law at Geneva University, and of international economic law at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International Studies Frieder Rössler (1939-2024)