Simon Lester

There seems to be some controversy over whether China will comply with the Raw Materials decision.  Personally, I'm not sure there is anything to be concerned about at this point.  Governments are often disappointed when they lose WTO disputes, as are the domestic constituencies that have been affected.

For those of you who are in to treaty interpretation, this is from last week's China - Raw Materials Appellate Body report: 320. In addition, we note that Article XI of the GATT 1994 is entitled "General Elimination of Quantitative Restrictions". The Panel found that this

Julia was trying to comment on this post, but neither she nor I could make the comment go through, so I'm putting it here as a separate post: Technically, the accession protocol should be an independent legal instrument that establishes China's accession to the WTO Agreement,

Buried in the last paragraph of a NY Times article on the China - Raw Materials case, I saw this: Western governments have periodically considered filing an international trade case against nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for limiting oil exports. But they have refrained from filing, having

In the China - Raw Materials appeal (the AB report, circulated today, is here), China argued that "Article XX of the GATT 1994 is available as a defence to China in relation to export duties found to be inconsistent with China's obligations under Paragraph 11.3 of

I'm still thinking about the difference between "technical regulation" and "standard" in the U.S. - Tuna dispute.  Here's my latest thought.  Once again, let me quote the relevant language.  The TBT Agreement defines "technical regulation" and "standard"

From Thursday's Republican Presidential nomination debate: RODRIGUEZ: Yes, good evening. The U.S. has been largely away in its foreign and trade policy with Latin America. In the meantime, Iran and China have been increasing their influence over an involvement in Latin America through the leftist and left-leaning

Via Sallie James of Cato, I see that blogger Matt Yglesias points out the following in President Obama's State of the Union speech: ... After lambasting companies that “ship jobs overseas,” Obama launched into a feel-good anecdote about how “Siemens opened a gas turbine factory in Charlotte and formed

I've been saying this over and over, so I won't say it anymore.  Instead, I'll quote Hunter Nottage and Alejandro Sánchez of the ACWL, from a new Global Trade and Customs Journal article: The US-Tuna II report tackled a range of novel interpretative questions

Recalling the discussion in two previous posts (here and here), I'm still trying to sort out what I think of the issue of whether the labelling measure in U.S. - Tuna II is a "technical regulation." The TBT Agreement defines "technical regulation" and