Simon Lester

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

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

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

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