Simon Lester

Todd Tucker of Global Trade Watch explains how President Obama's decision to stop the Canadian-owned Keystone oil pipeline could lead to a NAFTA Chapter 11 claim: ... TransCanada could point to a long string of overtures by the U.S. government that led it to develop "legitimate expectations&

To date, China has brought 8 complaints at the WTO, six against the U.S. and two against the EU. China also has 23 complaints against it.  Again, the U.S. and EU dominate, with 12 complaints by the U.S. and five by the EU.  There is a little

From the editors of the European Yearbook of International Economic Law (EYIEL): The editors of European Yearbook of International Economic Law (EYIEL) invite contributions from prospective authors with unpublished articles or working papers for EYIEL Volume 5 (2014) to be published at the end of 2013. The contributions should discuss

Back in November, I mentioned a blog post by trade lawyer Bernard O'Connor arguing that the end of China's NME status might be further off than many people think.  There was some good discussion of these issues in the comments to that post.  Then in December,

First up, the White House press briefing, with some more details on the plan, is here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/13/press-gaggle-press-secretary-jay-carney-and-omb-deputy-director-manageme Second, here are some links to what others have been saying: Dan Drezner: "this [is] one of those "reorganizing government" initiatives that

The Jakarta Post reports: Indonesia will not lodge an appeal against a WTO ruling on the import ban of flavored tobacco by the US, citing satisfaction despite losing its argument on the efficacy of the ban in reducing the number of young smokers. Director general for international trade Gusmardi Bustami

From the AP: President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. Obama will call

In the latest issue of Trade, Law & Development, Claus Zimmerman argues that WTO dispute settlement gets things just right in terms of the level of enforceability: It emerges from the analysis provided in this article, that although the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism has not been designed to encourage

From a recent CEPR paper by Richard Baldwin: The rise of 21st century regionalism is not yet a disaster for the world trade system. It has kept trade liberalisation and trade booming despite the WTO’s slow progress. But the present course of events seems certain to undermine the WTO’

When I first started in the trade law world, Japan was still the big threat everyone was worried about.  Things have definitely changed since then.  From a recent NY Times opinion piece, here's a theory as to why: Japanese trade negotiators noticed an almost magical sweetening in the