International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

The Latest on the Seals Dispute

From last week's DSB meeting, where the panel for Norway's complaint was established: Norway said it was of the firm view that the EU seal regime was inconsistent with WTO rules. The EU believed that the WTO was not an appropriate forum to discuss Norway’s

New Appellate Body Members Needed

From last week's DSB meeting: The DSB chair, Ambassador Johansen (Norway), announced that the first term of two Appellate Body members, Ms Jennifer Hillman and Ms Lilia Bautista will expire on 10 December 2011. Under article 17.2 of the DSU, Appellate Body members are appointed by the

What Remand Might Look Like in WTO Dispute Settlement

From the draft negotiating text on dispute settlement (Word doc), released last Thursday by the WTO, here's the section on remand: 17.12(b) Where the Appellate Body finds that there is not a sufficient factual basis to complete the analysis with respect to certain issues, it shall

The Impact of Exchange Rates on Trade

From Canada's Financial Post: ... The data is clear that Canadian consumers can save major bucks if they head south of the border to buy their goods. A Bank of Montreal study released this month looked at a basket of goods and found on average Canadians were spending 20%

Is the WTO Gambling Dispute Back?

For selfish reasons, I kind of hope so. It was a lot of fun to watch, and I've missed it the past couple years. This Reuters article suggests it may be on its way back: The United States violated global trade law by shutting down Internet gambling sites

More on Donald Trump's Trade Policy

I'm not sure it's worth the effort to talk much more about Donald Trump's trade policy, but some of his recent statements raise an issue that applies beyond just his particular trade views. The Wall Street Journal article noted in the last post says

Donald Trump as U.S. Trade Rep

Dan Drezner critiques Donald Trump's views on trade policy and Iraq: From the Wall Street Journal: As for foreign policy, Mr. Trump said he is "only interested in Libya if we take the oil," and that if he were President, "I would not leave Iraq

More on the New Zeroing

As discussed in a number of posts on this blog, "zeroing" is under attack in various ways at the WTO and in domestic courts. But even if these attacks succeed, as noted here "targeted dumping" may become the new way to use "zeroing" as

Australia, the TPP and Investor-State

As noted in the last post, Australia has announced that it no longer wants any part of investor-state dispute settlement. This is not a total surprise, of course, given its past opposition to investor-state in the U.S.-Australia FTA. Nonetheless, such a strong and formal renouncement of investor-state is

Australia and Investor-State

Via Luke Peterson, I see that Australia, in a recent Trade Policy Statement, has come out firmly against investor-state dispute settlement in trade agreements: Some countries have sought to insert investor-state dispute resolution clauses into trade agreements. Typically these clauses empower businesses from one country to take international legal action