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Simon Lester

Simon Lester

Co-founder of WorldTradeLaw.net and China Trade Monitor. Non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute.

http://simonlester.com

When Will China's NME Status End?

Over at vox, trade lawyer Bernard O'Connor argues that the end of China's NME status might be further off than many people think: There is nothing in the WTO rules, or elsewhere, to provide that China automatically gets market-economy status in 2016. The idea that

Trade in Everything: Turkey Tails

This Bloomberg article talks about the difficulties certain Pacific nations have had with taking measures to restrict imports of unhealthy food, without violating WTO rules. The focus is on Samoa's accession committments related to imports of turkey tails: After a 13-year wait, the South Pacific island nation

The PMI Plain Packaging BIT Claim

The Notification of Claim in the Philip Morris/Plain Packaging BIT claim is available from Australia DFAT here: http://www.dfat.gov.au/foi/downloads/dfat-foi-11-20550.pdf Here's an excerpt: (b) Specific contraventions of the Hong Kong-Australia BIT 44. The effect of plain packaging

The Latest Global Trade Alert Rankings

From Simon Evenett and Global Trade Alert, here is some data on who has been most protectonist recently: Which countries have inflicted the most harm? Certain emerging markets and European nations

Romney and Huntsman Debate the Nuances of WTO Law

Well, sort of. It's more detail on WTO law than one usually gets from politicians, at least. Here's something from a recent debate: Scott Pelley: That's time, Governor. But I would like to ask you a follow-up on that point. You-- you talked

Van Harten on Investor-State Reform

In a paper posted on SSRN, law prof Gus Van Harten proposes some investor-state reforms: In border and trade talks with the US and the European Union, Canada should seek to improve the institutional framework of investor-state arbitration. As it happens, one of the best models appears to

New Appellate Body Members

The WTO press release is here: The WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) appointed on 18 November 2011 the following two new members to the seven-member Appellate Body: Messrs Ujal Singh Bhatia of India and Thomas R. Graham of the United States for four years commencing on 11 December 2011.

Investor State in the KORUS FTA

My knowledge of Korean politics is pretty limited, so I wasn't sure what to make of this: President Lee Myung-bak told members of the ruling and opposition party leadership Tuesday that if the National Assembly asked him for renegotiations on the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade

More Talk about Tobacco at the TBT Committee

From a recent TBT Committee meeting: Tobacco: Australia’s plain packaging This issue attracted the most attention in this meeting even though it had already been discussed at length in the June meeting. Because it affects trademarks it has also been discussed in the Council for Trade Related Aspects of

A TPP Poll

I have had long doubts as to whether the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will ever be completed. Too many countries, too many issues. With Japan now talking about joining, I'm even more skeptical. But hey, what do I know? Let me ask others what they think with