Simon Lester

Bear with me for a second, I'm going to play a little fast and loose with the facts of an actual case here.  Consider the following scenario. Imagine Samsung has built an assembly factory for its smartphones and tablets here in the U.S.  It imports some components

A reader emails with this question: Are there any studies on the advantage of being a “first mover” in trade negotiations, and whether that makes a difference?  An example is the EU and GIs – does it benefit the EU to get out ahead and negotiate a series of free trade

So let's say Antigua goes ahead with retaliating against the U.S. in the Gambling case.  How might the U.S. respond?  Here's one suggestion: A lawyer for a group on intellectual property rights warned on Monday that the tiny island nation of Antigua could face

As the U.S. and EU continue to battle over whether billions of dollars in aircraft subsidies violate WTO rules, the NY Times has a strange article that -- perhaps time travelling back to the 1980s -- seems to think it has identified the real culprit: Japan!  OK, that may

A little while back, I asked who would do the first international economic law MOOC (massive open online course).  If you interpret IEL broadly enough, we have a winner: The Law of the European Union, offered through Coursera, by a Leiden University professor. But there are still many opportunities for

In the comments on an older post, Brett Williams points to some news about Antigua's proposed retaliation in the Gambling case: http://torrentfreak.com/antigua-government-set-to-launch-pirate-website-to-punish-united-states-130124/  He then asks: Can anyone provide any information about the outcome of the GATS Article XXI renegotiation initiated by the US. I could

Appellate Body Member Tom Graham will be giving a talk at Hofstra on Feb. 6 entitled “It Sure Looks Different From the Inside: Deciding International Trade Disputes at the WTO”. The title sounds promising, and from what I understand he will talk a bit about the use of the Vienna

The title is:  "I just read 296 trade agreements".  (Thanks to Hosuk Lee-Makiyama for the tip!) The substance is interesting, too: ... the first question that arises is: "Why do countries sign EIAs?" … The second question is: "What are they signing?" Empirical studies extensively show

Susan Aaronson has a short piece proposing some rethinking of intellectual property rights. She starts out with this: Rules governing intellectual property rights set the terms of access for users of knowledge, but the current system (which includes rigorous application of patent and copyright laws) can limit the supply of

Anders Aslund of the Peterson Institute proposes a Mutilateral Investment Agreement (MIA) (not to be confused with the failed 1990s Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI)).  I found his proposal intriguing because, as I read it, he may be making subtle suggestions about how to approach international investment issues in a