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Simon Lester

The Farm Bill and Food Aid

I mentioned the Bush Administration's food aid proposal a few days ago. So what did the Farm Bill -- passed with a veto-proof majority -- do with the issue? According to Reuters: U.S. lawmakers unveiled a five-year global food aid plan on Thursday, snubbing White House demands

Obama on Prying Open Foreign Markets

At a recent town hall meeting: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama urged Japan and South Korea on Friday to scrap all their controls on U.S. beef imports and fully open their beef markets. "You can't get beef into Japan and Korea, even though, obviously, we have

Trade in Everything: French Fries

OK, technically speaking it is trade in potatoes, but french fries made for a better title: Anyone who has been to a soccer game in Europe knows that fries and burgers are among the most popular food items on sale at football grounds. So, it must have come as a

Obama and McCain on Farm Subsidies

The U.S. Senate approved the farm bill today. The bill is now off to the President for an expected veto, but there appear to be enough Congressional votes to override the veto. What do the candidates think of it? Well, neither McCain nor Obama was there for today'

John McCain's Trade Vision for 2013

In a speech today, John McCain took "a little time to describe what [he] would hope to have achieved at the end of [his] first term as President." Here's the trade part: New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial increases in both

Expropriation Standards in Investment Rules

From the previously mentioned Norwegian draft model BIT (MS Word document) that reader Perry Bechky pointed me to: ARTICLE [6]: EXPROPRIATION 1. A Party shall not expropriate or nationalise an investment of an investor of the other Party except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for

ACP-EU Relations Conference

The Association for International Arbitration (AIA) is organising this conference to promote and create awareness of the Arbitration and Mediation in the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of countries) – EU Relations. Our goal is to promote arbitration and mediation as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, ultimately in benefit of

Obama and McCain on Cap-and-Trade

Via Peter Gallagher, I came across the following from Obama adviser Jason Grumet: To be unequivocally clear, Sen. Obama believes that the United States must and will act to put a mandatory limit on our domestic greenhouse-gas emissions. That is a predicate for us leading the world to enact

The Problem of Food Aid and Local Production

A proposal from President Bush on food aid: As America increases its food assistance, it's really important that we transform the way that food aid is delivered. In my State of the Union address this year, I called on Congress to support a proposal to purchase up to

Regulating Online Gambling, er, Predicting

From the AP: The rising popularity of markets where guesses are wagered on the outcome of everything from presidential elections to celebrity marriages has led to a situation that, well, many had predicted. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday said it is considering whether these markets should be regulated,