Simon Lester

For a while now, I've been saying that WTO dispute settlement is all about China.  But in recent months, it has been all about Argentina.  7 of the last 11 consultations requests have involved Argentina.  Let's look briefly at how this all transpired. Back in September

Lorand posted the other day about the South Africa-Israel dispute over labelling of West Bank products.  Sean Woolfrey of Tralac has more here: On August 22, the South African Cabinet released a statement  approving a Department of Trade Industry (DTI) notice requiring South African traders to refrain from labelling goods

A few weeks ago, I mentioned some discussion by NZ trade minister Tim Groser of sovereignty and international law.  Here's a quote:  "The whole point of international law is to put limits around countries' sovereignty on the basis of negotiated understandings." In a recent speech

As discussed in the last post, Australia successfully defended the domestic challenge to its plain packaging laws.  So what are the prospects for the plain packaging complaints at the WTO and under the Australia-Hong Kong BIT?  Some experts weigh in. At Lawyers Weekly, Andrew Mitchell says the WTO claims have

... in domestic court anyway.  From The Guardian: Australia's highest court has endorsed cigarette plain-packaging laws that will force tobacco companies to remove branding from their products. Tobacco companies British American Tobacco, Britain's Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco challenged the laws in Australia's

The Economist has an interesting article about the some Chinese government officials who left the public sector to start a private oil drilling business.  Some key excerpts: It was in 2003 that the central government’s patience snapped. At meetings in the spring, Jingbian officials told the local oil barons

Alberto Alemanno has an interesting post on the relationship of Codex setting food safety standards and WTO law: Although few Europeans outside of the livestock industry have heard about this veterinary drug, the establishment of MRLs of ractopamine by the Codex Alimentarius Commission is set to become not only the

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From law prof Jarrod Wong: The Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA) will be holding its Second Annual Winter Forum at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami, Florida on January 24-25, 2013. The first half of the Winter Forum will showcase two works-in-progress selected pursuant to a Call-for-Papers, encompassing presentations by authors,