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Simon Lester

"Today, on behalf of President Obama, I am here to affirm this administration's commitment to trade enforcement."

A key statement in USTR Ron Kirk's speech to Pennsylvania steel workers. More highlights: I am announcing several concrete new measures that will help to guarantee America's workers, businesses, and families a fair deal. We will take new steps to protect the rights of American farmers

Taking WTO Rulings A Bit Too Far

Many readers are probably familiar with the Antigua-U.S. Gambling dispute. I don't want to go through all the details here, but if you need a refresher, here's an overview from an ASIL Insight I did in 2008. I hadn't heard anything about

The WTO GMO Dispute Is 1/3 Over

The 1/3 being Canada's complaint. The complaints by Argentina and the United States remain unresolved. From the EC press release: EC regulatory procedures on genetically modified organisms are working normally, as evidenced by 21 authorisations since the date of establishment of the WTO panel. The European Commission

A New Approach to Food Aid?

Is our approach to food aid about to undergo a major transformation? From the NY Times: The food aid initiative, agreed upon at the Group of 8 summit meeting, is intended to transform traditional aid to poorer countries beyond simply donated produce, grains and meats to assistance building infrastructure and

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

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