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Simon Lester

The Other Appellate Body Position

Thanks to a commenter for reminding me that there is another Appellate Body position up for grabs: India and Pakistan are going to battle it hard for a vacancy for judge at the WTO's highest court for trade disputes- the Appellate Body-- after New Delhi nominated former trade

The China - Raw Materials Notice of Appeal

... is here: http://www.worldtradelaw.net/na/ds398-10(na).pdf Here's one aspect I'll be watching closely: III. APPEAL OF THE PANEL'S FINDING THAT CHINA DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO INVOKE ARTICLE XX OF THE GATT 1994 IN DEFENSE OF A CLAIM UNDER

Chinese Land Purchases: Not Just in Africa Anymore

From the FT: A Chinese tycoon plans to buy a vast tract of Icelandic land for a $100m tourism project which critics fear could give Beijing a strategic foothold in the North Atlantic. Huang Nubo, a real estate investor and former Chinese government official, has struck a provisional deal to

The U.S. - Clove Cigarettes Panel Report

The Clove Cigarettes WTO panel report was circulated today. The report is here: http://www.worldtradelaw.net/reports/wtopanels/us-clovecigarettes(panel).pdf Here's a quick summary: Panel found a violation of TBT 2.1, but no violation of TBT 2.2; it made no findings on GATT III:

Jon Huntsman on Free Trade

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, a candidate for the Republican nomination, is not doing very well in the polls. However, he does get support from "serious" circles. In a recent speech, he had the following to say in support of free trade and trade agreements: “As a former

The U.S. Appellate Body Nominations: Graham and Greenwald

From the USTR press release (I added the links to their law firm profiles): United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk today nominated Thomas Graham and John Greenwald to serve as members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body. Graham and Greenwald are acknowledged leaders in the field of international

More on Ontario's Feed in Tariffs

Having talked to some people, and read some things, and looked at an old blog post, I think I now see a few of the legal issues that could arise in relation to the Ontario feed in tariff WTO complaint brought by Japan and the EU against Canada. First, with

GATT Article XX, Environmental Measures, and the SCM Agreement

Can GATT Article XX be invoked to justify emissions trading schemes that violate the SCM Agreement? This is from Ingrid Jegou and Luca Rubini in an ICTSD issues paper: Four aspects should be noted regarding the SCM Agreement. First, as noted above, this instrument is directly connected to the GATT

Some WTO Members' Views on the AB's New Export Contingency Standard

From the June 1 DSB meeting, here are the views of Brazil, Canada and Australia -- three Members who have been involved in export subsidy cases -- on the Appellate Body's new export contingency standard, as set out in EC - Aircraft: Brazil 15. Turning to export subsidies,

Some Very Old "Likeness" Arguments

I'll tell you how old at the end of the post. The issue was whether Russia hemp was a "like article" to Manila hemp, in the MFN context. Here's one side of the argument: The turning point in the treaty will be found in