International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Pascal Lamy's Lessons of European Integration for Global Governance

From a speech he gave today: The first lesson I would draw is the importance of the rule of law and that of enforceable commitments. Global governance must be anchored in commitments adopted by stakeholders, in rules and regulations with mechanisms which foster and promote its respect. ... The second lesson

More on Trade in Health Services

With the passage of a health care bill this past week-end by the U.S. House of Representatives, I thought it was time for another post on trade in health services. This time I'll rely on an expert, Lior Herman of ECIPE. From the abstract of Assessing International

Free Trade Within Canada: For Canadians Only

Bloomberg reports: Northrop Grumman Corp. can’t challenge Canada’s award of a $140 million contract for weapon- targeting equipment to Lockheed Martin Corp. because it isn’t a Canadian company, the nation’s highest appeals court ruled. Only domestic companies can file complaints based on the country’s internal

Trade in Everything: Heart Operations

From the NY Times: No matter what Congress does with health care legislation in the next few weeks, one thing is already clear: the result will not do much to control the climbing costs of medical care in the United States. And that is why many employers and insurance companies

The Tuna-Dolphin Case: The NAFTA-WTO Conflict Heats Up

From a USTR press release: The Office of the United States Trade Representative announced today that the United States has requested North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) dispute settlement consultations with Mexico regarding Mexico's failure to move its "dolphin safe" labeling dispute from the World Trade

Clean Energy Competition

When I read about proposals to reduce tariffs on environmental goods and services, my sense is that, assuming trade negotiators can agree on anything these days, this should be a goal that is achievable. On the other hand, subsidies and discriminatory government procurement in the area of clean energy seem

Are Exchange Rate Rules Coming to the WTO?

Economist Simon Johnson writes the following at the NY Times Economix blog: But the mainstream consensus is starting to shift toward the idea that the World Trade Organization (W.T.O.), not the I.M.F., should have jurisdiction over exchange rates. The W.T.O. has much more legitimacy,

More on Trade and Internet Censorship

Brian Hindley and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama have published a working paper on "Protectionism Online: Internet Censorship and International Trade Law." From the abstract: This paper suggests that many WTO member states are legally obliged to permit an unrestricted supply of cross- border Internet services. And as the option to

The Seal Products WTO Consultations Request

... is here. It doesn't do much except identify the measure and the legal provisions. The provisions at issue are: TBT Agreement Articles 2.1 and 2.2; GATT Articles I:1, III:4 and XI:1; and Agriculture Agreement Article 4.2. For DSC subscribers, we have some

Beyond the ACWL: Trade Law Enforcement for Developing Countries

I've been skimming through Chad Bown's new book "Self-Enforcing Trade: Developing Countries and WTO Dispute Settlement." One of his key points is that the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) is great at its core mission of offering legal advice to developing countries on