International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Protectionism, Health, and the Purpose of Country of Origin Labelling

From a ruling last week on the U.S. COOL measure by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit: What then are the government interests here? AMI argues that the rule merely satisfies consumers’ curiosity. But we can see non-frivolous values advanced by the information. Obviously it

What Are the "Cogent Reasons" that Could Justify Not Following AB Precedent?

From yesterday's DS449 WTO panel report: 7.317. ... In our view, bearing in mind the Appellate Body's particular function in the WTO dispute settlement system, reasons that could support but would not compel a different interpretative result to the one ultimately adopted by the Appellate Body

Legal Analysis of the Trade Facilitation Agreement

I still don't know much about the Trade Facilitation Agreement, but law prof Antonia Eliason does, and she has written an article about it. Here's the abstract: This article provides a first analysis of the new WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, tracing it from its origins in

Associate Editor Position

From the MJIEL: ASSOCIATE EDITOR/S FOR THE MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW (MJIEL) The MJIEL is looking for Associate Editor/s with a proven and distinguished record in research in the field of International Economic Law to work with Professor Asif H Qureshi and Dr Xuan Gao and

China - Rare Earths: Some Systemic Issues

The China - Rare Earths WTO panel report was circulated yesterday. What's jumping out at me in the report are some really interesting systemic issues. First, there is some good stuff about the role of precedent, and when a WTO panel might depart from prior Appellate Body reasoning

More on GSP Withdrawal to Enforce Arbitration Awards

Roger Alford is pushing forward with the debate on whether withdrawal of GSP benefits can be used to enforce investment arbitration awards, with another blog post on the issue. Let me push back a bit. Roger says: the Enabling Clause requires GSP benefits to be conferred in a non-discriminatory manner

GSP Withdrawal to Enforce Investment Arbitration Awards

Roger Alford has an interesting post over at Opinio Juris (based on an article), in which he discusses the withdrawal of GSP benefits as a way to induce compliance with investment arbitration awards. To illustrate this situation, let's say a government has previously offered lower tariffs to a

The Scope of the TBT Agreement: What is a Technical Regulation?

Having followed Rob's coverage of the Seal Products Appellate Body hearing, there is an issue that puzzles me: What is the scope of the "technical regulations" covered by the TBT Agreement? I'm finding that I have no idea how to think about this question.

Regulating Cheap Newspapers

From the Jerusalem Post: Israel Hayom may have to look for a new business model if a bill outlawing free daily newspapers passes into law. The text of the bill, proposed by MKs Eitan Cabel (Labor), Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu), Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi), Elazar Stern (Hatnua), Ariel Attias (Shas)

ASIL IEcLIG Call for Papers

From the ASIL/IEcLIG: CALL FOR PAPERS American Society for International Law International Economic Law Interest Group (IEcLIG) in partnership with the University of Denver Sturm College of Law Sutton Colloquium 2014 Biennial Research Conference: REASSESSING INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW AND DEVELOPMENT: NEW CHALLENGES FOR LAW AND POLICY University of Denver