International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Ron Kirk Hearing: Today at 5 p.m.

The Senate Finance Committee hearing for Ron Kirk's nomination as USTR will be today at 5. I'll update this post if anything interesting is said. UPDATE: I'm not sure when a transcript of the hearing will be available, but Kirk's statement is.

Anti-Dumping on the Rise

Conventional wisdom holds that anti-dumping cases increase during economic downturns. Chad Bown's latest research seems to confirm this: Newly available data tracking the first of these trade policies - the initiation of new antidumping investigations and new antidumping measures imposed - show a marked increase in 2008 corresponding

New Journal: Trade, Law and Development

The National Law University, India has launched Trade, Law and Development, a bi-annual, student-run, academic journal: Inspired by the best traditions of scholarly journals worldwide, Trade, Law and Development seeks to explore inter-disciplinary perspectives on the international legal order, focusing on issues of relevance to the international trading system, environment

The Purpose of SCM Agreement "Countermeasures"

In the ongoing arbitration in the U.S. - Cotton Subsidies case, the parties disagree on the purpose of "countermeasures" imposed under SCM Agreement Articles 4.10 and 7.9. In its written submission, the United States argues: 340. Articles 4.10 and 7.9 of the SCM

The Future of U.S. Trade Policy

Brandon Wu of Global Trade Watch reports on a public hearing on the proposed United States-Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement, where, he notes, a USTR official made the following point: Today's hearing was to be a "different exercise than that which we've been doing for

Wolfe on the Special Safeguard "Fiasco"

Robert Wolfe explains how the Special Safeguard Mechanism brought down the latest attempt to move the Doha round forward : The July 2008 attempt by a group of ministers to agree on modalities for the WTO's Doha Round broke down in part because they could not agree on a

Non-Discrimination under NAFTA Chapter 11

From the claimants' submission in the Grand River Enterprises NAFTA Chapter 11 case: There is simply no room in the language of [the NAFTA Chapter 11 National Treatment and MFN] provisions for reading-in the requirement for an investor to either prove that the measures according less favorable treatment were

China Currency Talk

The rhetoric a few weeks back from Obama's new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on China's currency "manipulation" has generated a bit of a response. Here's a sampling: The Economist: CHINA has been accused of “manipulating” its currency by Tim Geithner, America’s

A Trade and Environment Success Story

Not all trade and the environment conflicts result in protests outside the WTO. The Economist reports on one success story: UNTIL recently, the glaze on most Mexican pottery contained lead. ... . [As a result,] products were banned from the American market, where their hand-painted beauty could fetch much higher prices than

WTO Dispute Settlement 2008

For those who will be in Geneva next Monday, March 2, the Graduate Institute's Center for Trade and Economic Integration will hold its 2nd Annual "Update on WTO Dispute Settlement," discussing developments in 2008. The program is here.