Simon Lester

From PluriCourts The Present and Future Role of Investment Treaty Arbitration in Adjudicating Environmental Disputes (Oslo, 5-6 November 2015) – Call for Papers, Deadline: 15 July 2015. The interaction between international investment law and (inter)national environmental law has been of interest to scholars and practitioners for quite some time. Most

I'm not sure what to make of their changing views, but here's what they said: "First, now we have restricted resources and we would like to send them to the direct trade interest of Ukraine. Second, economic logic is absent in this dispute, and third,

This time on TISA.  I thought Edward Alden of CFR had a good take: I love Wikileaks. While I recognize that secrecy has its place, I strongly believe that the affairs of the people should, to the greatest extent possible, be conducted with the full knowledge of the people. Secrecy

Under the TBT Agreement Article 2.2 claim in the WTO plain packaging dispute, one issue will be whether there are alternative anti-smoking measures that could achieve the same purpose. As the Appellate Body put it in the recent COOL Article 21.5 report: 5.199. A complainant may seek

This is from the Chair of the DS434 Plain Packaging WTO panel: On 28 May 2015, the Panel received a request from Ukraine to suspend the proceedings in Australia – Certain Measures concerning Trademarks and other Plain Packaging Requirements Applicable to Tobacco Products and Packaging (WT/DS434) pursuant to Article 12.

This is a guest post from Geneva-based trade lawyer Adarsh Ramanujan“Risks non-fulfilment would create” I wanted to follow-up from Simon’s post last week on the Article 2.2, TBT jurisprudence arising from the Article 21.5 AB Report in US – COOL.  I believe there are some important clarifications

The WTO Secretariat has issued an interesting report on notified quantitative restrictions: 1.1. This report has been prepared at request of the Chairperson of the Committee on Market Access with a view to providing Members with factual information on the notifications of quantitative restrictions (QRs), which have been received

From a recent paper by Hugo Perezcano: Even though the United States committed to — and indeed required — eliminating tariffs and other barriers so that there would be free trade in all goods, it has also failed to live up to its obligations as regards trade in sugar. This breach of

I'm as skeptical about estimates of gains/losses from trade agreements as I am about trade polling.  How many jobs will be added/lost?  How much will GDP rise/fall?  I'm not sure there are any good answers out there, although I think economists should keep