International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Simon Lester

Getting Ready for the USMCA Review

I noticed that the Canadians had started their preparation for the six year USMCA review and extension decision under Article 34.7, so I wrote a short piece for the Baker Institute about all this. This is the conclusion: The USMCA review and extension process is new and untested, and

Call for Papers: 2024 Roundtable in International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School

Law prof Stratos Pahis sends this along: The Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law at Brooklyn Law School is organizing a Roundtable in International Business Law. The Roundtable will take place on September 27, and proposals are due by June 28. The call is here.

The Biden Administration's Position on ISDS Removal

In April, I mentioned an exchange between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai on getting rid of ISDS in existing investment treaties/trade agreements. There was a bit of uncertainty about what exactly Tai meant, but now we have some additional context thanks to a

Katherine Tai on the ITO Charter

At an Atlantic Council event yesterday, U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai talked about the ITO charter and some policy issues that did not make it into the international economic system at that time: Tai: The original vision for trade in the Bretton Woods institutions went above and beyond the

Katherine Tai on Digital Trade Rules

Here's something U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai said, at an Atlantic Council event yesterday, about pulling back on the formulation of international digital trade rules: Isn't it time for us to hit pause on this, come back, reconnect with all of the other policy silos,

Katherine Tai on Bob Lighthizer

This is from an exchange with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai at an Atlantic Council event today (starts around 48:30): Q: Ambassador, I wondered if you could tell us where your views overlap with those of Bob Lighthizer and where your views differ. Tai: ... Where our views are

Cross-Border Subsidies and Non-Violation Complaints

Weihuan Zhou and Victor Crochet have a new working paper called "Attribution to the State: A Critique of Cross-Border Subsidies," which combines two of my favorite issues: Cross-border subsidies and non-violation complaints. Here's the abstract: While industrial policy and subsidies proliferate worldwide, the emergence of cross-border

Changing China's Trade Practices: Hope vs. Unilateral Tariffs vs. WTO Complaints

Former Biden administration official Peter Harrell recently argued that with regard to reform of China's economic practices (and political system), the original plan was to hope that economic ties would be enough, but when that didn't work the Trump administration imposed tariffs for this purpose: For

SIEL Call for Papers: Navigating New Horizons: International Economic Law in a Changing World

This is from SIEL: The Ninth Biennial Global Conference of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) will take place on 9-11 July 2025 in Taipei (Taiwan), in collaboration with National Taiwan University (NTU). SIEL’s Ninth Biennial Global Conference will be in person and address the pressures of escalating

Still Puzzling over Privacy Exceptions in Digital Trade Chapters/Agreements

There seems to be a lot of experimentation going on these days with exceptions for the protection of personal data/privacy in digital trade agreements/chapters. I've talked about the some of these exceptions in prior posts, but to be honest I think I missed some nuances as