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Simon Lester

Mexico Invokes Public Morals, Exhaustible Natural Resources, Indigenous Peoples Exceptions in GE Corn USMCA Dispute

Mexico's initial written submission in the GE Corn USMCA dispute was recently posted. The English public version is here. There's a lot in there and I'm not going to go through it all in this post. I just thought it was worth noting quickly

Resolving the Biden Administration's Internal Debate on International Digital Rules, and Reengaging in Negotiations

I've already made these points for the trade policy crowd, but I have now tried to make my pitch on a way forward for the Biden administration on international digital trade rules slightly more accessible (i.e., without so many blockquotes of international legal texts!). Below are some

Katherine Tai on USMCA Dispute Settlement and the USMCA Six Year Review

At a Brookings event yesterday, Josh Meltzer of Brookings had some interesting exchanges with U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai on USMCA dispute settlement and the USMCA six year review. Here's the one on dispute settlement: Meltzer: What I'd like to do is ask you a

Conversations at WTO Ministerial Side Events: Subsidy Races and Trade Remedies

As part of the WTO Ministerial Conference last week, there were some side events going on. I was watching one called "Business Forum at MC13" and came across some interesting discussion of subsidy races and trade remedies. The question that kicked off the subsidy race discussion was about

The Role of WTO Case Law in a USMCA RRLM Proceeding

Here is an interesting exchange from last week's hearing in the USMCA San Martín mine labor dispute about the role of WTO case law in interpreting the USMCA provisions at issue: Panelist: Mexico raised the question that the United States has not provided any legal authorities for its

WTO Adverse Effects Complaints vs. Domestic CVD Cases

Subsidies have been in the news a lot recently, as China's subsidies continue to cause concerns, and the Biden administration and others are now increasing their own use of subsidies. In trade policy, the reaction to foreign subsidies tends to be an anti-subsidy (aka, countervailing duty) case carried

The Role of Past Determinations in U.S. DOC Proceedings

In the U.S. - Ripe Olives from Spain, Article 21.5 panel report circulated last week, I was struck by the discussion of the role of previous Commerce Department determinations in deciding future cases, and the obvious parallels to how the ongoing DS reform negotiation are talking about the

IELP Blog Emails

The technical problems on the blog just keep coming. After recently dealing with the RSS feed, I noticed that the emails with recent blog posts (for those of you who read the blog that way) weren't sending properly. I decided to give up on feedblitz as the sender

The AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) governments have been working on the issue of international rules on digital trade. There was recently a leak of a draft Digital Trade Protocol to the AfCFTA Agreement (an earlier draft is here). In this post, I'm going to look at

Guest Post: MC13: Is It the Last Chance To Save The WTO?

This is a guest post by several people from the Research Chair on New Challenges of Economic Globalization, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada: Antoine Comont, Ph.D. Researcher; Carla Gomez, Ph.D. Researcher; Van Anh Ly, Ph.D., Deputy Director of the Research Chair on New Challenges of Economic Globalization;