Simon Lester

The Appellate Body says the Panel erred in finding that the EU seal products measure is a technical regulation: 5.58. Having reviewed the relevant aspects of the EU Seal Regime, we see only one feature that may suggest that the measure lays down product characteristics, while all others suggest

I've got a number of criticisms of Windows 8 -- why did they shuffle everything around? how do I get to desktop? -- but this is clearly going too far: China is banning Windows 8 devices from at least some government IT purchases, in a mysterious move that took Microsoft

From a new article on the TRIPS Agreement: Central to the controversies surrounding the TRIPS Agreement has been the ever-enigmatic determination of how far TRIPS should reach in regulating intellectual property rights. As the name of the Agreement explicitly indicates, the TRIPS Agreement is meant to regulate only those

From a post at the Kluwer Arbitration Blog: The role of the tribunal secretary in international arbitration has been called an “enormously grey area” that has been subject to instances of “abuse.” With concerns of the secretary going beyond his or her position as an assistant to the tribunal and

I have a short piece in Investment Treaty News, in which I raise some issues related to how a general exceptions clause for investment like the one in the Australia-Korea FTA would work: First, there is a question as to how such an exception would apply in the investment

By now, most of you are probably familiar with this ECJ ruling: Internet companies can be made to remove irrelevant or excessive personal information from search engine results, Europe's top court ruled on Tuesday in a case pitting privacy campaigners against Google. The Court of Justice of the

From what I can tell, Australia has usually been pretty good about transparency in terms of its WTO dispute and investment arbitration proceedings.  It generally posts its submissions online. But as Investment Arbitration Reporter tells us, it is holding back on the briefs in the plain packaging investment arbitration, because

From a Canadian news article published in October of last year: There's a new pothole on the long, bumpy road towards a Canada-Europe free trade deal: whether human rights and weapons of mass destruction should be addressed in a side agreement to the overall pact. Diplomats from

Now that the plain packaging WTO panel has been composed, here are some issues that I've been wondering about related to the case: * If a ban on using trademarks on the product itself violates the TRIPS Agreement, does a ban on advertising -- which includes a ban on using

Here are the last three WTO complaints (before today): * In December of last year, we had Russia bringing a complaint against EU cost adjustment methodologies and anti-dumping measures (DS474). * Then on April 8, the EU complained about Russian measures on the import of live pigs and pork products (DS475)