International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Digital Trade Fights: The Case of Korea

In recent years, the U.S. has expressed concerns about digital trade regulation in a number of other countries, with the focus tending to be on the the EU due to its large market and active regulatory efforts (although it sounds like USTR and the European Commission are getting along

Data Flows Obligations and Exceptions in the EU - New Zealand FTA

There's a new FTA digital chapter to analyze, with the EU-New Zealand FTA coming into force soon. Let's take a look at the data flows provisions, with the EU-Japan text in the back of our minds as a comparison. The EU-NZ digital trade chapter is here.

New U.S. AD/CVD Regulations Will Take Into Account Weak Property, IP, Human Rights, Labor, Environmental Protections

In a Proposed Rule issued last year, the U.S. Commerce Department said it would take into account "nonexistent, weak, or ineffective property (including intellectual property), human rights, labor, and environmental protections" in various ways as part of its anti-dumping/countervailing duty calculations (surrogate value selection, § 351.408;

Guest Post: EFTA-India TEPA: Breaking New Ground

This is a guest post by Rohan, a PhD student at the Graduate Institute India and the EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) signed a comprehensive Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) on 10th March, 2024 after a long process of negotiations that started in 2008. Notably, two disciplines

Is Section 301 the Right Remedy for Chinese Shipbuilding Subsidies?

In the Section 301 petition recently filed by a group of unions, the petitioners argued that "Section 301 provides an appropriate mechanism for addressing China’s policies in the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sector." They offer three reasons for this: First, traditional trade remedies are not available to

Katherine Tai on Online Business Models and Digital Regulation

U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai spoke recently at a SeedAI event and had some interesting things to say about both online business models and digital trade regulation. I'll start with a quote that reflects what she has said many times about sorting out domestic digital regulation before

Did NAFTA Push White Male Social Conservatives to the Republican Party?

This is the abstract of a new paper titled "Local Economic and Political Effects of Trade Deals: Evidence from NAFTA", which argues that many "white, less educated voters left the Democratic Party" due to NAFTA: Why have white, less-educated voters left the Democratic Party? We highlight

Guest Post: Back from the WTO MC13 – A brief report and some remarks from four scholars who were in Abu Dhabi

This is a guest post by several people from the Research Chair on New Challenges of Economic Globalization, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada: Carla Gomez, Ph.D. Researcher; Antoine Comont, Ph.D. Researcher; Van Anh Ly, Ph.D., Deputy Director of the Research Chair on New Challenges of Economic Globalization;

Mexico Invokes Public Morals, Exhaustible Natural Resources, Indigenous Peoples Exceptions in GE Corn USMCA Dispute

Mexico's initial written submission in the GE Corn USMCA dispute was recently posted. The English public version is here. There's a lot in there and I'm not going to go through it all in this post. I just thought it was worth noting quickly

Resolving the Biden Administration's Internal Debate on International Digital Rules, and Reengaging in Negotiations

I've already made these points for the trade policy crowd, but I have now tried to make my pitch on a way forward for the Biden administration on international digital trade rules slightly more accessible (i.e., without so many blockquotes of international legal texts!). Below are some