Simon Lester

This time from Norway: Norway’s Ministry of Health and Care Services has proposed the imposition of a requirement for all tobacco products to be sold in standardized packaging, according to a World Trade Organization notification. It has not been decided when the measure should be adopted or when it

The Senate half is done.  From Reuters: President Barack Obama scored a major victory on Friday when the U.S. Senate voted to give him "fast-track" powers that would help wrap up negotiations on a 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal central to projecting American influence in Asia. But

Now it's in the UK and EU: Two of the world's biggest tobacco companies have challenged the legality of the UK government's plain packaging regulations. British American Tobacco and Philip Morris filed legal objections at the High Court in London on Friday. They claim

This is from "The Puzzle of Agricultural Exceptionalism in International Trade Policy", by Michael Trebilcock and Kristen Pue: ... Hence, in explaining the resilience of the agricultural sector to efforts to liberalize trade in agricultural products we are left with a rather untidy amalgam of some elements of normative

Norway has just published a new draft model BIT. It offers some explanations here.  Here are some of my thoughts on a few of the provisions. First up, national treatment: ARTICLE [3] NATIONAL TREATMENT 1. Each Party shall accord to investors of the other Party and to their investments, treatment

If you are in or near Madrid, there is an interesting seminar on the WTO and investment arbitration, this Friday, May 22.  Details here and here: Policy development challenges with WTO dispute settlement and international arbitration: why is the interface between trade and investment relevant from a political, economic and

It is here.  No big changes from the panel report: still a violation of TBT Article 2.1, and still no violation of TBT Article 2.2.  Next up on the agenda, most likely, is an arbitration over the proper amount of retaliation. I'm trying to sort out

I've organized an ISDS debate over at Cato Unbound.  We have Jason Yackee and me as critics, and John Veroneau and Ingrid Persson as supporters.  We each write essays, and then respond to each other's points.  So far we have essays up there from me and

This is from Vox: ... Due to a section of the tax code known as 280E, many state-legal marijuana businesses have to pay taxes on basic expenses like rent, employee salaries, and utility bills — unlike other legal businesses, which are allowed to deduct these types of expenses.For some businesses, this

As the current trade negotiating agenda struggles along, both at the multilateral and mega-regional levels, perhaps there are some government actions out there that could provide the basis for productive new negotiations.  One area that always gets me fired up is subsidies:  agriculture subsidies and export credits are big ones,