International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

McCain on Other Benefits of Trade Agreements

Trade talk would be much more straightforward if trade agreements were only about trade, but things are never that simple. Here John McCain points out one of his non-trade reasons for supporting the Colombia FTA: The strategic implications of rejecting this agreement are profound. Colombia is a beacon of

A Final Word on Food Aid and the Farm Bill

Well, maybe not the final word, but one more thing anyway, from a Bloomberg article: Shipments of U.S. food aid took five months to reach Ethiopia during a famine in 1999-2000, arriving after the death toll had reached 20,000, according to Chris Barrett, an economics professor at

New Paper on Development and Human Rights under WTO law

Here's a new paper from Gillian Moon of University of New South Wales, entitled "The WTO-Minus Strategy: Development and human rights under WTO law." The abstract: International trade law, human rights law and development studies share the common objective of promoting higher standards of living

Protectionism and Wind Power

From a WSJ blog: We’ve noted before how China’s headlong push into wind power could put pressure on the rest of the global wind industry. Chinese turbines need the same scarce components as the turbines being built and installed in Europe, India, and the U.S. Now that

Airbus vs. Boeing vs. China

The Economist has an article about how the Chinese are planning to develop aircraft to compete with Airbus and Boeing. The article noties: Although Boeing huffs and puffs about ensuring that China sticks to WTO rules banning market-distorting subsidies, both it and Airbus are studiously polite about the prospect

Judging RTAs in WTO Dispute Settlement

Among the many difficulties with reconciling bilateral/regional trade agreements and the WTO Agreement is which "branch" of the WTO, the Dispute Settlement Body or the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, should judge the overall consistency of these agreements with WTO rules. A recent article by Youri Devust

Suing USTR

Public Citizen has filed a lawsuit, on behalf of journalist Ed Brayton, alleging that: The Bush administration is illegally withholding the details of its offer accepted by the European Union to bind more sectors of the U.S. economy to World Trade Organization (WTO) jurisdiction as part of a settlement

McCain Goes After the Free Trade Vote

I'm not sure how big that voting bloc is anymore, but in a speech today, Sen. McCain has a lot to say on trade. If this is a sign of things to come, trade is going to be a hot issue in the Presidential campaign. First, he goes

How Would a President Obama Govern on Trade?

Bob Davis of the Wall Street Journal is skeptical of Obama's free trade credentials: Since at least John F. Kennedy, presidential candidates have campaigned as tough on trade and then governed as free traders. Some business leaders are expecting the same if Barack Obama makes it to the

The Farm Bill and the U.S. Trade Policy Review

Reader R.V. Anuradha points me to this Reuters report on the forthcoming U.S. Trade Policy Review done by the WTO: In agriculture, some programs may provide incentives that are inconsistent with market signals and affect trade when supported output reaches world markets, it said. “The expiration of the