International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

The Health Risks of Menthol Cigarettes

For those of you following the WTO Clove Cigarettes dispute, this will no doubt be of interest and could be discussed in the panel proceedings: Removing menthol cigarettes from sale in the U.S. would benefit public health, members of an advisory panel said in a report that urged more

Norway's EC - Seal Products Panel Request

Norway's panel request in the EC - Seal products case is here. From the request: The EU seal regime imposes a general prohibition on the importation and sale of processed and unprocessed seal products in the EU, thereby depriving Norway of access to a significant market for its

Multilateralizing Bilateral and Regional FTAs

Here's a tweet from Reuters reporter Doug Palmer, who was covering a speech by WTO DDG Rufus Yerxa: Yerxa says post-Doha the WTO focus should be on multilateralizing the large number of bilateral FTAs I think there are a lot of people (myself included) who would like to

Scott Lincicome on the U.S. - AD/CVD China Case

Scott has a lot to say about the U.S. - AD/CVD (China) Appellate Body report. I'll just give some excerpts, but check out both of his posts. From the first post: the AB's ruling did not rule that DOC was absolutely prohibited from conducting

The Appellate Body on the Government's Role in Implementing Monetary Policy

From the U.S. - Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties (China) (DS379) AB report: 498. We do not consider that the Panel was wrong in drawing a distinction between a government's role in implementing monetary policy, on the one hand, and market distortions that may result from governmental participation

The Appellate Body and Double Remedies

In today's U.S. - Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties (China) Appellate Body report, the Appellate Body reversed the panel's findings on the issue of "double remedies" (see a prior post here). The panel had found no violation. The Appellate Body found instead that "

New AD/CVD Proposals in Australia: Burden Shifting and Presumptions

Trade lawyer Daniel Moulis reports on proposed changes to Australia's anti-dumping and countervailing duty law here. There's a lot going on with these proposals, but here's one aspect I thought was particularly interesting: ... a private Member’s bill has been introduced into Parliament with

Facebook in China

From Bloomberg: Since 2009, China has blocked Facebook, the world's largest online social media network. This year, Renren, one of China's largest social networks, plans to raise $500 million on the New York Stock Exchange (NYX). So a Chinese social network can tap U.S. capital

Precluding the Wrongfulness of Countermeasures

With my usual disclaimer about how little I know about international law generally, reading over the "countermeasures" part of the Cargill NAFTA Chapter 11 Award, I was struck by the strange wording that is used to describe the concept. Here's a passage from the Award: 382.

Blast from the Past: U.S. BOP Restraints

Speaking of unilateral tariffs, like the kind proposed by Ian Fletcher as mentioned in the last post, writing in the NY Times last September Alan Tonelson and Kevin Kearns had this to say: America needs more sweeping and proactive tariffs on foreign goods and services that compete directly with existing