Simon Lester

In the context of the plain packaging dispute at the WTO, Dominican Republic's Ambassador to the WTO,  Luis Manuel Piantini, said this: "One of the fundamental principles of the WTO is that Members should regulate in the least-restrictive way." Is this one of the fundamental

Trade, Law and Development has issued a call for submissions for its Winter 2015 issue: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Winter '15 The Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development [TL&D] is pleased to invite original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the Winter ‘15 Issue of the Journal

The other day I mentioned a Journal of World Trade article of mine on domestic tobacco regulation, international trade law, and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).  I'm going to give a bullet point summary here.  Some of the points will be uncontroversial; others are bound to

CALL FOR PROPOSALS Canadian Council on International Law, 44th Annual Conference International Law: Coherence or Chaos?  Ottawa, Canada, November 5-7, 2015  I.                   Theme The needs of an increasingly interconnected and functionally diversified society have radically transformed the international legal order. Early 20th-century accounts conceived of the international system

This anti-ISDS bill, recently introduced by some Democratic members of Congress, is an odd one: PROHIBITION ON AGREEMENTS THAT INCLUDE INVESTOR-STATE DISPUTE SETTLEMENT PROVISIONS. (a) IN GENERAL.—The President may not, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act, enter into any free trade agreement

This blog post from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is -- how shall I describe it? -- quite something to behold: Roses are red Violets are blue I love the TPP And so should you Dearest Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, I can’t stop thinking about how great we’d be

In a foreign policy address today, likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush said (at 38:05) that "the focus [of US policy towards Latin America] ultimately needs to get back to a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas." Of course, that idea failed once before, but could a new

This is the abstract from a paper by trade lawyer Bernard O'Connor: Constructing Normal Value in WTO Anti-Dumping Law. Giving meaning to the phrase open, market-oriented policies in the preamble to the Marrakesh Declaration This paper looks at the construction of normal value in WTO anti-

I enjoyed this passage from the China - HP-SSST WTO panel report circulated on Friday: 6.24. Japan suggests that the Panel's analysis of the use of the indefinite article "a" preceding "like product" in the second sentence of Article 3.2 is "

Here's John Oliver on his show last night, giving his take on the tobacco litigation going on right now in international economic law: He didn't get into the interpretive issues related to overlap/conflict between the WTO and the FCTC, which I talk about in the