Simon Lester

The prospect of a new WTO Director-General seems to have a lot of people thinking about the future of the WTO.  In the past few days, I've seen articles in the Guardian and Reuters, and also an FT op-ed by economist Arvind Subramanian. Subramanian thinks the problem with

Back in July, I blogged about how many WTO disputes there had been so far in 2012.  At this pace, I said, we will see 24 complaints in 2012.  As it turns out, I was pretty close, but actually underestimated the total.  The final tally is now in: 27 complaints

From a recent Columbia FDI Perspectives paper by Catharine Titi: ... it is time to start thinking about a new balance in a move away from investment treaties’ traditional laissez-faire liberalism toward WTO law’s embedded liberalism,[2] a model whereby liberalization is embedded within a wider framework that enables public

Law prof Wentong Zheng wants to replace anti-dumping and countervailing duties with a country-specific safeguard.  Here's the abstract of his paper: This article aims to restart the debate on trade remedies by offering new perspectives on the fundamental defects of the current trade remedy regime and by proposing

From the EU first written submission in Seal Products: 357. It is beyond question that the EU Seals Regime restricts trade to the extent that the General Ban provides for a prohibition, as a general rule, on the placing on the EU market of all seal products, whether domestic or

The TBT Agreement only applies to certain kinds of measures, including "technical regulations."  Is the Seal Products measure a technical regulation?  Here's the definition of technical regulation: Document which lays down product characteristics or their related processes and production methods, including the applicable administrative provisions, with

From the first EU written submission in the Seal Products dispute: 322. Canada argues that 90-95% of its seal  products, which derive from large-scale commercial hunts, cannot be placed on the EU market whereas seal products of certain EU Member States may potentially be placed on the market because they

From the first EU written submission in the Seal Products dispute: 257. Canada argues that the Indigenous Communities exception  de facto  violates Article 2.1 of the TBT Agreement since such exception effectively permits 100% of Greenlandic seal products to be placed on the EU market, but excludes virtually all

Now that Russia is in. From Reuters: Assuming WTO relations are set up quickly, the United States and Russia could file complaints against each other in the coming months. Earlier in December, Russia banned imports of meat containing any trace of ractopamine, a feed additive widely used in the United

As I said yesterday, it's not easy to summarize the "benefit" issue in the Canada - Renewable Energy panel report.  But just quickly, the dissenter puts the two sides succinctly.  The majority view (as desribed by the dissenter): 9.1 ... In essence, the Panel majority has