International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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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

The Bahamas WTO Accession

WTO accessions are often hard to see from the outside. You only get tiny hints of what's going on. So, I've been very interested to read what the Bahamians have had to say publicly in relation to how they are thinking about their accession process, which

Report on the Second Oral Hearing in the WTO Airbus Dispute

Here's more reporting on the WTO Appellate Body oral hearings in the Airbus dispute, by Malorie Schaus (malorie.schaus [at] graduateinstitute.ch) and Tobiasz Kaczor (tobiasz.kaczor [at] gmail.com) of the Graduate Institute in Geneva. This is their report of the participants' and third participants'

More on Article III:2, first sentence discrimination in Philippines - Spirits

Recall this post on the EU position in the Philippines - Distilled Spirits (DS396,403) case in relation to Article III:2, first sentence, where I characterized the EU argument on the discrimination aspect of this standard as follows: "the discriminatory effect (or disparate impact or disproportionate disadvantage or asymmetric

Infant Industry Protection in 19th Century America

It has been argued -- for example, here -- that today's industrialized countries got that way (that is, industrialized) by using a tariff to protect their infant industries from foreign competition, and that by using trade agreements to prevent developing countries from doing the same, the industrialized countries are "

A DOC Proposal to Stop Zeroing

From today's Federal Register (PDF version here), a proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Commerce to stop zeroing in administrative reviews: Proposal for Calculating the Weighted Average Dumping Margin and Assessment Rate in Certain Antidumping Duty Proceedings and Request for CommentPursuant to section 123(g)(1)

The India Visa Fee Issue is Back

Recall the issue with a U.S. law that imposed a fee on visa applications where the companies involved have a high percentage of workers who use the special visas given to skilled foreign workers, discussed here and here. There seemed to be a disparate impact on India, and hence

Offshoring Lawyers

From The Economist: Some legal tasks cannot be done cheaply. If the fate of your company hinges on the verdict, you will want a brilliant lawyer to argue your case. But plenty of legal jobs are routine. American law firms typically get fresh law graduates to do such grunt work

A Discussion of Remand in EC - Aircraft

I just noticed the EU's brief discussion of remand in its closing memorandum following the first hearing in the EC - Aircraft appeal: E. Completion of the Analysis and Remand 50. As the European Union stated in its Opening Statement, as a result of the Panel’s erroneous rejection

Reporting on the GATT Negotiations

It's pretty well established that trade agreements today are controversial. But how does the situation compare to the past? I was recently digging around the NY Times archives for something non-trade related, and I thought I'd see what was being said about the original GATT

Public Opinion on Investor-State

From a New Zealand publication: Concerns that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will result in the New Zealand Government being successfully sued by international corporations are unfounded and incorrect, says the NZ US Council. "It is absurd to suggest that the New Zealand Government would be so naive to