International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

USTR Goes Old School in USMCA Complaint on Mexican GE Corn Ban

Back in the 1990s, an important area of the trade policy debate was about how WTO rules might interfere with domestic environmental, food safety, and other public policy measures. There were cases such as Shrimp/Turtle, with a number of countries challenging a U.S. environmental measure; and EC -

The Supreme Court's Latest Ruling on the Dormant Commerce Clause: More Evidence that People Disagree on the Appropriate Degree of Economic Integration

It has been a while since I've written about a U.S. Supreme Court dormant Commerce Clause case, but the recent National Pork Producers Council v. Ross decision provides a great opportunity to revisit the issue. Steve Charnovitz commented on the decision here. (Here are some other takes:

Opt Outs, NVNI, or Automatic Rebalancing for National Security Disputes

Veteran U.S. trade lawyers Warren Maruyama and Alan Wolff have a new paper out on "Saving the WTO from the national security exception". In their conclusion, they set out three solutions to the "impasse over justiciability of national security claims": (1) allowing Members to "

Protectionism, Competition, and Corporate Power

Here's something U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai said in a recent interview with PBS: In trade policy, it's something very interesting, and I've seen this happen in competition policy, where the anti-monopoly folks, antitrust people are working. We see in both of these

Battle of the Gruyeres

Back in January 2022, I wrote about a U.S. federal court ruling that Gruyere is a generic cheese term, which meant that, despite the protests of the Swiss cheese industry, U.S. producers could make Gruyere cheese and put the word "Gruyere" on the product label in

Warren, Doggett, et al. Letter on Removing ISDS from Existing Agreements

Thirty-three Democratic members of Congress, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Lloyd Doggett, recently sent a letter to U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai and Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ISDS. One point they made in the letter is that ISDS should be removed from existing investment treaties

Does Ro Khanna Want To Get Rid of the Specificity Requirement in WTO Subsidies Rules?

In a recent post, I quoted a speech by Congressman Ro Khanna, in which he said: The US needs to work with our allies to pursue a broad WTO dispute case against the PRC. One hurdle is that the current Dispute Settlement process cannot litigate in key China-related areas that

Jake Sullivan on International Economics and Industrial Policy

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gave a speech last week on the Biden Administration's international economic agenda, with follow-up questions from a Brookings senior fellow and the audience. The video and transcript of the whole event are here (a transcript of the opening remarks is also

WTI Seeks Professor of International Economic Law with a Specialization in Trade Law

This is from the World Trade Institute: The World Trade Institute, a strategic centre of the University of Bern, and a leading centre of applied research on and teaching of international economic law, economics and politics, invites applications for the position of an Associate / Full Professor for International Economic Law

Some Interesting Reporting on U.S. Proposals for WTO DS Reform

Geneva-based reporter Ravi Kanth has two detailed pieces (here and here) on U.S. proposals for WTO dispute settlement reform, and the reaction of other Members to those proposals. It's difficult to analyze all of this without seeing the actual U.S. proposals, but I'm going