Simon Lester

Canada's is here; Norway's is here. It's hard to predict how these appeals will go.  What issues will the AB focus on?  How much of the panel's findings will the AB revise?  Maybe the oral hearing will give us an indication. In

As all of you international law experts out there know far better than I do, Article 30(3) of the VCLT states: 3. When all the parties to the earlier treaty are parties also to the later treaty but the earlier treaty is not terminated or suspended in operation under

EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht gave a speech on the TTIP today.  In it, he said this about investor-state: Investment agreements also exist for a reason. Europe's economy – and Germany's in particular – benefits from the investments our companies make in other countries. And it is

The Faroe Islands' WTO complaint against the EU related to herring is going to be really interesting.  We might finally get some guidance on an issue I find challenging:  How to deal with "coercive economic measures."  Here's how the panel request in the case starts:

From the European Commission: EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht today announced his decision to consult the public on the investment provisions of a future EU-US trade deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The decision follows unprecedented public interest in the talks. It also reflects the

From today's Presidential Policy Directive on Signals Intelligence Activities: (c) The collection of foreign private commercial information or trade secrets is authorized only to protect the national security of the United States or its partners and allies. It is not an authorized foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose to

If I had been blogging in 1990, I probably would have commented on this statement by the Thailand - Cigarettes GATT panel: 73. The Panel then defined the issues which arose under this provision. In agreement with the parties to the dispute and the expert from the WHO, the Panel

The other day I wondered about whether there was a middle ground to be found on currency issues, trying to balance out the views of certain members of Congress and U.S. trading partners.  As reported by the NY Times, the same issue may arise for the environment: The Obama

I posted recently about what "regulatory trade barriers," a term that gets thrown around a lot in the context of the TTIP negotiations, might mean.  Trade lawyer Ted Posner offered up a comment, and I wanted to respond to a couple of his points.  (And by the way,

Here's the relevant text: (11) CURRENCY.—The principal negotiating objective of the United States with respect to currency practices is that parties to a trade agreement with the United States avoid manipulating exchange rates in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair