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Simon Lester

Economic Nationalism

The Economist has a pretty dramatic cover piece this week. The title is "The Return of Economic Nationalism," and the cover shows a hand clawing its way out of the ground in a graveyard full of names such as Smoot/Hawley. In the piece, they argue: Economic nationalism—

Free Book Chapter on the History of Investment Treaty Law

New from Andrew Newcombe, Law and Practice of Investment Treaties: Standards of Treatment, co-authored with Lluís Paradell. The first chapter (a 73 page in-depth treatment of the historical development of investment treaty law) is available for free here: http://ita.law.uvic.ca/documents/NewcombeandParadellLawandPracticeofInvestmentTreaties-Chapter1.pdf

Tax Breaks for Buying New Cars "Assembled in the United States"

Is this a WTO violation: Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) announced that they plan to introduce an amendment to the Senate stimulus package tonight that would help American automakers sell their cars ,while also taking older, less fuel-efficient cars off the road. The Sell Fuel Efficient Cars

More on Separation of Trade Powers

A little while back, I mentioned a proposal to change the balance of power on trade issues between Congress and the President. Now, under a bill proposed by Sen. Olympia Snowe, the courts could play a greater role as well: The Trade CLAIM Act of 2009, which is cosponsored by

Global Trade Watch on the Buy America Controversy

Global Trade Watch says: The hysteria coming from European Union (EU) and Canadian officials about the Buy America and Buy American domestic preferences in the U.S. stimulus bill is particularly odd, given that both the EU and Canada have wisely excluded considerably broader swaths of their procurement activity from

Buy America in the White House Press Briefing

Not that this really clarifies anything (press briefings rarely do), but I thought it worth noting anyway: Q Robert, in some of the interviews last night, the President seemed to back off -- pardon me -- earlier commitments to "Buy American" provisions. Is he in favor of "

Jeffrey Frankel on Trade and Climate Change

From the conclusions of a paper entitled "Environmental Effects of International Trade" by Jeffrey Frankel of the Kennedy School: Concluding recommendations regarding trade penalties in climate legislation The central message of this section of the report is that border measures to address leakage need not necessarily violate the

Top 50 Foreign Policy Blogs

"Masters in Criminal Justice" offers the Top 50 Foreign Policy Blogs, and they were kind of enough to include this blog.

"Protectionist Power Balance"

From an FT article: Fredrik Erixon, of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a free-market think-tank in Brussels, says: “WTO rules are effective where you have one country behaving badly. Where there is a protectionist power balance between all the big countries, they aren’t of much use.” I

The End of the Zeroing Debate?

Well, the end of the debate in the WTO's judicial organs anyway (the political battle will surely continue). From a concurring opinion in today's AB decision in U.S. - Continued Zeroing (DS350): 304. One Member of the Division wishes to make the following statement in