International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Obama on Economic Development

From an Obama news conference at the G-8: when my father traveled to the United States from Kenya to study, at that time the per capita income and gross domestic product of Kenya was higher than South Korea's. Today obviously South Korea is a highly developed and relatively

Swedish "Climate Labeling"

I've said before that I am a fan of carbon labeling. Here's a new example from Sweden: Sweden is developing standards to help consumers make conscious choices about the impact of their decisions on global warming. Products with at least 25% greenhouse gas savings will be

The NY Times on How to Complete Doha

From an editorial: Big developing countries have been reluctant to reduce tariff ceilings, allowing themselves the option to increase their tariffs at any moment. They have been unwilling to open service sectors, like accounting or electricity generation, to foreign competition. They insist on being able to increase their barriers to

"Plagiarism" by the Appellate Body?

Sorry, I didn't mean to alarm anyone with the title of this post. I'm not accusing the Appellate Body of wrongdoing! Rather, what I have in mind is this post from David Zaring over at the Conglomerate: In another neat use of plagiarism software, Brian Calvin,

Gary Horlick on Climate Change Measures and Trade

In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Gary Horlick raises a number of important issues related to climate change measures and trade: Before we adopt any measures in our legislation, would we like it if other countries adopted the same measures? ... do we want similar import taxes or permit requirements

Drafts of the GATT

Over at WorldTradeLaw.net, we have been trying to gather the full text of the various drafts of the GATT: http://www.worldtradelaw.net/misc/gatttexts.htm In this regard, I was hoping to get some advice from those with more experience in these matters. In particular, I had the

International Trade Agreements and Domestic Law

I came across two items related to the treatment of international trade agreements in domestic law. I'm going to combine them in this post even though they are completely unrelated otherwise. 1. From the R-CALF (a group which represents U.S. cattle producers) submission to USTR related to

Carbon Tariffs and Cap and Trade: The Devil is the Details

The Washington Post explains the details of the Waxman-Markey energy bill and argues that such tariffs are unnecessary: ... American firms that pay in order to comply with mandatory limits on carbon emissions would be at a disadvantage competing against foreign outfits whose leaders aren't as environmentally conscious. But

The FT on Carbon Tariffs

Here's an excellent, balanced look at the carbon tariff issue from the Financial Times. A short excerpt: Some trade lawyers point out that past WTO decisions have permitted governments to restrict trade in order to protect natural resources. But others say the case law is patchy, and it

Carbon Tariffs "Are" WTO-Legal Versus Carbon Tariffs "Can Be" WTO-Legal

In a post entitled "Carbon tariffs — the legal aspects," Paul Krugman quotes Joost Pauwelyn as saying: In sum, if carefully calibrated along the lines suggested above, carbon equalization measures at the border, imposed on certain imports, can be modeled in compliance with WTO non-discrimination rules and/or the