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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

Petina Gappah: Trade Lawyer/Author

This blog is mostly about international economic "law and policy," as its title indicates. But it's also about the international economic law "community," which includes the people in it. With that in mind, I'm going to talk a bit about one of

U.S. Takings Law and International Takings Law: The Florida Beach Erosion Case

From the WSJ: The Supreme Court waded into a property-rights dispute Wednesday, weighing whether Florida can restore eroded beaches in front of private homes and designate the newly emerged beach as public property. Erosion threatens nearly 59% of Florida's 825 miles of sandy beaches, according to the

Assessing EU Carbon Measures

From Daniel Gros at VOX: Why a cap-and-trade system can be bad for your healthThe purpose of a cap-and-trade system is to help in the fight against global climate change. This column warns that a unilateral approach could increase global emissions by shifting production to more

China's "Marshall Plan" for Africa

From the FT: The World Bank and Beijing are in discussions about setting up low-cost factories in industrial zones in Africa to help the continent develop a manufacturing base and reverse its declining share of global trade. Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, said Beijing had shown

Trade Agreements Promote Trade

Not a very surprising conclusion, I know, but interesting to see it demonstrated (subscription only): TRADE between Singapore and the US totalled $86.3 billion last year, close to 20 per cent up from when the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA) took effect in 2004, according to an official

The Bananas Deal

From Reuters: During a meeting of trade ministers in July 2008 seeking a breakthrough in the Doha round, Brussels and the Latin Americans negotiated a deal that would cut the tariff to $114 a tonne by 2016, with an initial cut to $148. Brussels walked away from that agreement when

The Byrd Amendment: Not Dead Yet

But it won't last much longer: La-Z-Boy has received $3 million from the U.S. government in antidumping duties and will report the income on its fiscal third quarter statement, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. La-Z-Boy is

Trade in Everything: Nuclear Waste

From the AP: The House on Wednesday passed a bill banning the importation of radioactive waste for disposal in the United States. The move was prompted by a Salt Lake City company's plan to import 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italian nuclear plants. The

The EU Is Finally The EU

Follow this link and see the box on the right: For the first time in the WTO, the name “European Union” was used in the 1 December 2009 working session at the Geneva Ministerial Conference. This was the result of the Lisbon Treaty taking effect. Before that, for legal reasons

Some Thoughts on "Single Undertakings"

In the news: Impatience with the glacial pace of global free trade negotiations prompted calls this week for the Doha round to be smashed into smaller and more digestible mini-deals that could be agreed quickly. At a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva, ministers from both rich and poor