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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

Some New Players in WTO Dispute Settlement

It's always exciting for me to see a new consultations request posted on the WTO web site. In addition to the substance, I like to see who the parties are. It's great to find someone other than the usual suspects. The latest request, in DS411, has

Trade Lawyer Position in Geneva

Even though it has been a long time since I was a trade lawyer in Geneva, people often ask me for advice on how they can become a trade lawyer in Geneva. Well, here's a good opportunity: The successful candidate will ideally have at least 5-6 years

And Yet More on Trade Remedies under NAFTA

This is from Canadian trade lawyer Lawrence Herman, in a C.D. Howe Institute paper: Trade remedy cases under Chapter 19 of the NAFTA have been tapering off for several years. There was a flurry of activity under the Free Trade Agreement and in first five years of the NAFTA.

Speaking of Trade Remedies and NAFTA ...

... as I was in the last post, a number of prior NAFTA Chapter 19 panels have addressed the permissibility of zeroing under U.S. law. In yesterday's panel report in LWR Pipe and Tube, the panel addressed a different question: Is the Department of Commerce allowed to stop

Trade Remedies in North America: Everything You Wanted to Know

That last part is not in the actual title of the book "Trade Remedies in North America," by Gregory Bowman, Nick Covelli, David Gantz, and Ihn Ho Uhm, but that's pretty much what the book is. It covers the policy issues, the nitty-gritty of trade

EC - Aircraft: The Appeal

... is coming tomorrow. Reuters has the most detail I've seen so far. The EU is appealing all of the obvious issues: export contingency, causation of serious prejudice, and many of the existence of a subsidy / specificity findings. Two other interesting issues to watch are the following: - The EU

China's GPA Offer

From the FT: The US and other big trading partners of China are expected to reject Beijing’s latest proposal to join a global pact on government purchases because it does not go far enough in opening the $500bn Chinese procurement market to foreign businesses. ... The main concern about China’

Australia Productivity Commission: Draft Report on Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements (including Investor-State)

Australia's Productivity Commission has prepared a draft report on Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements. You can read it just for your own pleasure, but note that they are looking for input, so feel free to give them comments (by Friday 10 September 2010.) Here are the draft recommendations.

Debating Industrial Policy

The Economist has been debating industrial policy. Well, sort of. They were debating the proposition, "This house believes that industrial policy always fails." I'm not sure that's how opponents of industrial policy would put it. It would be something more like, "On balance,

Development Aid: Show Them the Money?

I'm pretty sympathetic to this idea: In the last decade ... the governments of the nations where most of the world’s poorest actually live have begun to turn to an idea that seems radical in its simplicity: Solve poverty and spur development by simply giving out money. In