Simon Lester

This is from last week's Philip Morris v. Uruguay investment arbitration award: 266 The Claimants also argue that a trademark is a property right under Uruguayan law which thus accords a right to use. Again, nothing in their argument supports the conclusion that a trademark grants an inalienable

From the Economist: The state-owned China National Tobacco Corporation controls the production and sale of all tobacco in China. That the government profits from puffing perhaps explains why it has taken so few anti-smoking measures since China signed the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2003.

Gary Born's separate opinion in the Philip Morris v. Uruguay award (see Annex B) is referred to as a "concurring and dissenting opinion," but I'm going to focus on the dissent part. Read his whole opinion, of course, but a good summary comes early

From the FT: Uruguay has won a landmark lawsuit against Philip Morris International, which was suing the South American country for its strict regulations on smoking in what was seen as a test case for the tobacco industry. The full decision can be found here. A good summary of the

This is from the USTR summary of the TPP SPS chapter: Cooperative Technical Consultations (CTC) To help encourage the early and expeditious resolution of SPS matters, the SPS chapter establishes a consultative mechanism under which relevant agencies will work to find science-based solutions to SPS issues that emerge between

This year's EUI/WTI/CEPR World Trade Forum is 23 - 24 September in Florence, focusing on behind-the-border policies and global trade: This year’s World Trade Forum – an annual event that is organised by the World Trade Institute (Bern), the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies

This is the kind of job that doesn't open up very often, so if you are at all interested, take advantage of the opportunity: Assistant United States Trade Representative for Monitoring and Enforcement Manages and coordinates USTR legal and interagency legal resources in connection with U.S. representation

From the FT: Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, is preparing to ditch contentious plans to fast-track approval of a trade deal with Canada, in an eleventh-hour political retreat that followed staunch criticism from some European capitals. To the dismay of Germany and France, Mr Juncker had

In the TTIP negotiations, some critics have gotten worked up about the potential impact on Britain's NHS (“We know that TTIP poses a real and serious threat to the NHS. The only way to neutralise that threat is for David Cameron to give a cast iron guarantee that

Here is Libertarian Party Presidential candidate Gary Johnson on CNN yesterday, talking with Brianna Keilar: KEILAR: He -- Donald Trump gave a major speech this week on international trade. He issued a challenge to Hillary Clinton. This is what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Ask Hillary if she is willing