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Simon Lester

Simon Lester

Co-founder of WorldTradeLaw.net and China Trade Monitor. Non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute.

http://simonlester.com

WTO Jurisprudence in TPP Dispute Settlement

This is from Article 28.11 of the TPP Dispute Settlement Chapter: 3. The panel shall consider this Agreement in accordance with applicable rules of interpretation under international law as reflected in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969). In addition, with respect

GATT Article XX Exceptions to the TPP TBT Chapter

As far as I know, no responding party ever invoked GATT Article XX as a defense to a claim of violation of the TBT Agreement (although it would have been fun if they had), but given the various statements the Appellate Body has made recently on the interpretation of both

Guest Post on Argentina - Financial Services

This is a guest post by trade lawyer Adarsh Ramanujan:“Treatment no less favourable” –Article II:1, GATS and Article 2.1, TBT Pursuant to Simon’s earlier post about the appeal filed by Panama in Argentina – Financial Services, I noticed that one of the grounds of appeal relates to

The TPP Process for Composing Dispute Settlement Panels

If we want trade agreements to be enforceable, there needs to be a dispute settlement process that functions. The WTO process works well because you have a Secretariat and a Director-General to oversee it. By contrast, as I understand things, NAFTA Chapter 20 has broken down in the panelist

SIEL 2016 Conference Call for Papers Deadline Extended

From the SIEL: The Society of International Economic Law has extended until November 20 the deadline to submit paper and panel proposals for its 2016 conference, which will be held from 7-9 July in Johannesburg at the University of the Witwatersrand. The extended call for papers is here.

PEPA/SIEL Call for Papers

From PEPA/SIEL: 5th Conference of the Postgraduate and Early Professionals/Academics Network of the Society of International Economic Law (PEPA/SIEL) 2016 Luxembourg, 14-15 April 2016 Organised by PEPA/SIEL in collaboration with the Research Unit in Law of the University of Luxembourg SIEL’s Postgraduate and Early

Passing of John Jackson

This is from Peter Van den Bossche: The passing of John Jackson leaves us with a feeling of tremendous loss. So many of us owe John so much! He was our teacher, mentor, inspirator, colleague and friend and never ceased to encourage, support and advise us throughout our career. We

The Keystone XL Rejection

On Friday, President Obama announced the rejection of Canadian company TransCanada's application to build the Keystone XL pipeline. He offered a brief explanation here. I'm puzzled by his explanation. The first reason he gave is that the pipeline would not have created as many jobs as

NAFTA vs. TPP ISDS

Following up on my post from last week, just to clarify, I didn't meant to suggest there is a conflict between NAFTA ISDS and TPP ISDS. I wasn't thinking about conflicts at all. (Although I also don't mean to suggest there is no conflict.

Trade Damages vs. Investment Damages in TPP ISDS

This is from Ted Posner, who left it as a comment, but I'm putting it in a separate post: My comment concerns the relationship between "investment damages" and "trade damages." Take a look at article 9.28.2 of the newly released TPP text.