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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

"Can a New Cast Save Global Trade Talks?"

From the headline of a NY Times article. They say that India is now ready to move ahead, but they are less sure about the U.S.: While there are signs that the host of this week’s session, India, has become more willing to bargain, negotiators are still trying

Obama Trade Policy Speech Coming Soon?

Washington Trade Daily just tweeted: USTR Kirk just told reporters President Obama will deliver his long-awaited trade policy speech sometime before the G-20 meeting Sept 24. "Long-awaited" is right. I had been expecting to spend much of the past few months blogging about the new

The Cotton 22.6 Decision(s): A Chance to Test TRIPS Retaliation?

The Article 22.6 Arbitration decision in the U.S. - Cotton case was issued today. Or rather, the decisions, plural. There is one decision related to actionable subsidies and one decision related to prohibited subsidies. So what do they say? Well, I'm still trying to finish up the

Alan Sykes on Comparative Subsidies Regulation

With the EC - Aircraft Subsidies interim panel report almost upon us, this seems like a good time to talk about disciplines on subsidies. Alan Sykes' new paper "The Questionable Case for Subsidies Regulation: A Comparative Perspective," available on SSRN, is a good starting point. Here's

Yet More on Solar Panel Dumping

As a follow up on these two posts, The Australian reports the following: THE Coalition has called for an urgent investigation into the potential dumping of cut-price Chinese solar panels into Australia, which threatens to undermine a fledgling domestic solar power industry.Federal opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt wrote

Is There a Tires - Auto Parts Link?

As I mentioned earlier today, China has said it will implement the China - Auto Parts WTO decision by removing the offending measure (we don't have the full details yet as to what exactly they will do). A Reuters article on this issue makes an interesting point: China'

Is There Something Other Than a Good or a Service?

There has been plenty of discussion, in various places, about whether a particular item is a good, a service, or has aspects of both. But is there a category outside of goods and services? This is from fn. 394 of the China - Publications case: China considers that a motion picture

China's Implementation in WTO Dispute Settlement

A lot of people have been wondering how China will implement adverse WTO rulings. Well, here's an indication from the China - Auto Parts (DS339,340,342) dispute: China is expected to next week scrap higher tariffs on imported auto parts after World Trade Organization last year ruled that

Will China be the "OPEC of Rare Earth Metals"?

From the Times Online: Global supply of the rare-earth metals [the “green” lanthanide metals used in hundreds of environmental and military technologies], which are vital to the mechanisms of hybrid cars, wind turbines, iPods, lasers, super-efficient light bulbs and radar systems, is 95 per cent controlled by China.

More on Trade in Solar Panels: The Dumping Issue

The other day, I quoted a NY Times article about Chinese production of solar panels as saying:Even with Suntech acknowledging that it sells below the marginal cost of producing each additional solar panel — that is, the cost after administrative and development costs are subtracted — any antidumping case, in the