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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

China Currency Times Two

Both the Financial Times and New York Times (hence the post title) have recent articles which refer to the Chinese currency issue. From the FT: True, Washington and Beijing are trading heated accusations over whether China’s continued policy of holding down the renminbi is responsible for global imbalances. But

Trade in Natural Resources: The Bluefin Tuna Ban under the TBT Agreement

In the spirit of the discussion of trade in natural resources that Melaku has been leading, I thought I would do a post on a very technical aspect of the proposed trade ban on bluefin tuna, which may soon be imposed pursuant to the United Nations' Convention on International

The Great Trade Debate: Fletcher - Reply #3 to Dan Griswold on Free Trade

by Ian Fletcher Dan has again dragged irrelevant issues into this debate; I shall let the reader judge whether I am guilty of Maoism! Dan’s conflation of protectionism with communism and related economic pathologies is telling: free traders of Dan's variety (ideologically-committed libertarians) habitually roll up

The Great Trade Debate: Griswold - Trade barriers rob from the many to benefit a few special interests

by Daniel Griswold As we wrap up our debate, let me grant Ian’s point that free trade alone is not a magic bullet that by itself delivers prosperity. Economic success also depends on secure property rights, the rule of law, stable money, functioning domestic markets, and moderate levels of

AD/CVD Injury in Domestic Courts?

Remember a few weeks ago when Senator Arlen Specter asked Obama the following: The first part of my question is, would you support more effective remedies to allow injured parties -- unions which lose jobs, companies which lose profits -- by endorsing a judicial remedy, if not in U.S. courts perhaps

The Great Trade Debate: Fletcher - Reply to Dan Griswold #2

Ian Fletcher Some of Dan’s arguments continue to be mere distractions. Taking North Korea and Burma as proof of the harm of a no-trade (or close to it) policy falls down on the fact that North Korea has a communist economy and Burma a quasi-socialist state-controlled

The Great Trade Debate: Griswold - Our More Globalized World has Seen Poverty Fall and Freedom Rise

by Daniel Griswold Free Trade has endured since Adam Smith as a robust theory, and it has proven itself in practice across the decades as being superior to government restrictions. There is nothing new in Ian’s theoretical critique of free trade. In a 1996 book, Against the Tide: An

"Preventing and Managing Investment Treaty Conflict" Symposium at Wash. & Lee

Speaking of investor-state disputes, as I was yesterday, it looks like many of the big names in the field will be assembling for a conference soon: On March 29, 2010, Washington and Lee School of Law will host a Joint Symposium with the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Customs Classification at the CIT and the WTO

Multiple branches of government can be a real pain sometimes. In the ongoing WTO EC - IT Products dispute (DS375, and also DS376 and DS377 brought by Japan and Chinese Taipei), the U.S. (that is, USTR) argued that the EC's reclassification of certain monitors in a way that

Discrimination Arguments in the AbitibiBowater NAFTA Chapter 11 Claim

Taking a quick break from the big picture questions in the Great Trade Debate, I'm going to bring up a very narrow and technical trade issue: How to apply a non-discrimination standard in the NAFTA Chapter 11 context. As was widely reported last week, AbitibiBowater is going