Simon Lester

From an article by law profs Susy Frankel and Daniel Gervais: The Australian plain packaging measures go practically as far as one can go in terms of imposing encumbrances on trademark owners. If, as just mentioned, the rights and interests of trademark owners are best seen as a continuum, then

This is from the TPA bill introduced in Congress today: SEC. 8. SOVEREIGNTY. (a) UNITED STATES LAW TO PREVAIL IN EVENT OF CONFLICT.—No provision of any trade agreement entered into under section 3(b), nor the application of any such provision to any person or circumstance, that is inconsistent

Here is the "remedy" portion of a proposal from the American Automotive Policy Council for currency manipulation provisions in the TPP: If a TPP member is found to have breached its currency commitments under the agreement, other TPP members shall be entitled to suspend the tariff benefits of

As mentioned before the holidays, we will be holding a policy forum at Cato on the Eli Lilly NAFTA Chapter 11 case, on January 16.  You can register to attend here: http://www.cato.org/events/patents-public-health-international-law-eli-lilly-nafta-chapter-11-case Henning explained the case about a year ago, here.  In a nutshell, the

From the Washington Post: Members of Boeing’s machinists union on Friday voted by a slim margin to accept the company’s proposal of a long-term contract that will guarantee construction of a new long-range wide-body aircraft in the Puget Sound region, in exchange for significant wage and retirement benefit

Recently, I had been wondering about "survival" clauses in investment treaties. These are provisions that allow for investment claims to be brought even after the treaty has been terminated. Here's an example from the US Model BIT, in Article 22, paragraph 3: For ten years from

From the European Commission: The European Union will continue to offer enhanced access to the EU market for vulnerable developing countries as of 1 January 2014: Armenia, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Georgia, Mongolia, Paraguay, Pakistan and Peru. Pakistan will enter the scheme for the first time. The so-called

A while back, I suggested that consumers don't want to see the word "slaughtered" on their packages of meat.  If that's true, it might affect the way we evaluate the COOL requirement to include information on where meat was "born, raised and slaughtered&

We are going to host two trade and IP events at Cato in January.  I'll remind everyone again after the holidays, but this is just to put it on your radar now. The first one is on the Eli Lilly NAFTA Chapter 11 case, and will be on

My Cato colleague Bill Watson says no: Many will argue that you need fast track to pass free trade agreements, but right now trade promotion authority is largely useless and unacceptably costly. Recent history with fast track shows that the obstacles to passing free trade agreements depend more on the