International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Simon Lester

From Seal Products to Shark Fins

Hawaii is going to ban "the sale, possession and distribution of" shark fins: Shark conservation groups are celebrating a small but important triumph after Hawaii on Friday became the first state in the nation to ban the sale, possession and distribution of shark fins. Gov. Linda Lingle signed

Australia's AD/CVD System

Australia has just done a report on its anti-dumping and countervailing duty system. Some snippets: Should Australia retain an antidumping system? Key points • The price raising effects of anti-dumping measures give rise to a range of benefits and costs for applicant industries and their suppliers, importers, downstream user

Webcasting an Investment Arbitration Hearing

Via Luke Peterson, I see that ICSID is webcasting a hearing in the Pac Rim CAFTA-DR investment arbitration: A hearing on preliminary objections in the above case will be transmitted live via internet feed on Monday, May 31, 2010 and Tuesday, June 1, 2010, starting at 9:30 a.

Global Trade Watch on the Prudential Carve Out

In this recent memo, Global Trade Watch expresses concern about the GATS "prudential carve out" in the area of financial services regulation. The carve out is in Article 2(a) of the GATS Annex on Financial Services and reads as follows: 2. Domestic Regulation (a) Notwithstanding any other

More on National Treatment and Investment Arbitration

Last week I talked about National Treatment in the context of the hearing in the Grand River Enterprises NAFTA Chapter 11 case. Stimulated by re-reading an article by Nicholas DiMascio & Joost Pauwelyn, "Nondiscrimination in Trade and Investment Treaties: Worlds Apart or Two Sides of the Same Coin?

WTO Dispute Decisions: Coming Soon

People may have noticed a lull in WTO dispute decisions recently. Since the Cotton Subsidies arbitration decisions last August, we have had a grand total of 3 decisions. And two of those were fairly minor: An Article 21.3(c) arbitration and a decision on zeroing where the U.S.

Chatting with USTR about the TPP

As mentioned here, USTR hosted an online chat about the TPP. I was excited to see that they responded to the question I submitted: Simon: What is the likelihood that an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism will be included in the TPP? Is USTR pushing for it to be included?

The Generic Drug Seizure Complaints

As was widely reported last week, Brazil and India have requested WTO consultations on the generic drug seizures issue. From Ravi Kanth of the Business Standard: India and Brazil raised a trade dispute against the European Union (EU) before the World Trade Organization on Tuesday over seizure of generic drugs

Grand River Enterprises: Discussion of National Treatment at the Hearing

Following up on some previous posts about the NAFTA Chapter 11 Grand River Enterprises dispute, the hearing in the case, held in early February, offered some interesting discussion of the National Treatment issue. Let me first turn to Luke Peterson of the Investment Arbitration Reporter for some background: The individual

Bill Clinton on VAT and Exports

From a recent interview: I think they ought to look at a progressive value-added tax, just because--and I think it's important the American people understand this--most of our competitors have tax systems like this. If you have a value-added tax, you put a little