Simon Lester

This is the abstract of a new paper by Cass Sunstein: When an agency fails to engage in quantitative cost-benefit analysis, has it acted arbitrarily and hence in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act? At first glance, the question answers itself: Congress sometimes requires that form of analysis, but if

From ELSA: Press release Final Oral Round - ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO law Between 7 and 12 June 2016, the Final Oral Round of the ELSA Moot Court Competition will take place in Geneva, Switzerland. Over 150 active students, their team coaches, renowned academics and practitioners from all

Here is the main text of a letter to the DSB chair from all the living, former Appellate Body Members: We write in the hope that we can be of some assistance to the Members of the World Trade Organization. As the thirteen living former Members of the WTO Appellate

For those of you despairing about your choices in the U.S. Presidential election, you are in luck, there's now a credible third party option: The Libertarians. OK, you can stop laughing now, because this time they have a former two term governor as the Presidential nominee (Gary

The U.S. actions at the WTO in relation to the reappointment of Seung Wha Chang, discussed in various recent posts (and comments) on this blog, have been heavily criticized by everyone I've talked to about the issue. However, I have heard sympathy for the substance of some

Over at EJIL:Talk!, Arman Sarvarian and Fontanelli Filippo respond to the Appellate Body reappointment controversy with some reform suggestions: A Single-Term System? The chair of the DSB noted that further consultations were necessary to exit the deadlock. Recourse to diplomacy reveals the structural limits of the applicable procedural rules;

In the last post, I said I would report the details of the DSB discussion of the Appellate Body reappointment controversy when they are available. Well, Inside US Trade has them here. They probably don't want me reposting the whole article, but here's a snippet: The

Here is what Greg wrote about the Appellate Body reappointment controversy, in the Huffington Post: Following the Berlin Wall’s fall, the United States drove the creation of the World Trade Organization and its tribunal, the Appellate Body. The tribunal rose quickly to prominence for its clarification of WTO rules

The U.S. International Trade Commission issued its report on the TPP last week. This is from the ITC press release: The Commission used a dynamic computable general equilibrium model to determine the impact of TPP relative to a baseline projection that does not include TPP.  The model estimated that

Donald Trump has a sophisticated and nuanced take on the MFN principle as applied in trade negotiations.  Ha ha, just kidding. Here's what he said a couple weeks ago: "I want one-on-one: If somebody treats us well, we make a trade agreement, and I'll have