International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

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)

Call for Papers: Geoeconomics, Trade and Investment: What role for Latin American countries?

This is from the Latin American Network of International Economic Law: Third Edition of the Global Jurist Award Call for Papers (CfP) - Deadline extension Geoeconomics, Trade and Investment: What role for Latin American countries? The Law Faculties of Universidad Externado (Colombia) and the Federal University of São Paulo, along

Call for Submissions: Trade, Law and Development

The journal Trade, Law and Development has issued a call for submissions for its Winter 2024 issue (Vol. 16, no. 1). The theme is: "Navigating the Murky Waters of Economic Treaties in International Trade." The deadline is October 1, 2024. [update: the deadline has been extended until November

J.D. Vance on Tariffs

It was not a particularly productive discussion, but here is a transcript of NBC's Kristen Welker talking to J.D. Vance about tariffs last weekend: Welker: Vice President Kamala Harris, in making her case, said that the tariff plans Donald Trump is proposing will hurt the middle class.

U.S. Leadership on Trade and Climate Policy

In a recent Foreign Affairs piece entitled "The Case for a Clean Energy Marshall Plan," Brian Deese -- the Director of the White House National Economic Council from 2021 to 2023 and a current economic adviser to Kamala Harris -- sets out a vision for how a Harris

Guest Post: Are the revisions to the EU’s ‘Bolar’ system compatible with TRIPS?

This is a guest post from Maarten Meulenbelt, Chris Boyle, Lauren Shapiro, Maryanne Kamau, and Alix Vermulst of Sidley Austin. The full article on which the post is based is available here. In the EU, much has been written about the so-called “Pharma Review” proposals, published by the European Commission

Guest Post: Why couldn’t the Russia-Ukraine BIT be used to claim compensation for war damage and frozen Russian assets to satisfy these investment awards?

This is a guest post from Csongor István Nagy, Professor of Law at the University of Galway, Ireland, and at the University of Szeged, Hungary, and research professor at the HUN-REN Center for Social Sciences, Hungary At first it may raise eyebrows. But think it over! Why couldn’t the

Non-Market Economy Status and Inducing Market-Oriented Reforms

For the purposes of U.S. anti-dumping/countervailing duty law, the Commerce Department maintains a list of non-market economies. Vietnam is one of the economies on that list. A March 2024 Congressional Research Service paper on "Vietnam’s Nonmarket Economy (NME) Status" notes that the government of Vietnam