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Simon Lester

Zoellick on Trade Politics

My sense is that Bob Zoellick is one of the most well-respected trade people around, so I thought his comments here were worth noting: Whoever wins the U.S. presidency would probably back a global trade pact if a deal can be reached this year, despite Democratic candidates'

Mattoo and Subramanian on WTO Currency Rules

Joel recently mentioned a new paper by Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian entitled "Currency Undervaluation and Sovereign Wealth Funds: A New Role for the World Trade Organization." I had been planning for a while to do a short post on it, but was distracted by other things. What

More on Video Game Subsidies

As mentioned a while back, UK video game makers are complaining about Canadian government subsidies designed to encourage producers to locate there: Following Eidos' decision to move its production services from London to Montreal, UK trade association Tiga has warned the government that it must create a fair competitive

Another Gambling Settlement

As reported by a poker web site: According to the Tico Time in Costa Rica, the United States and Costa Rica have come to a settlement agreement in regards to the United States pulling out of its World Trade Organization agreement involving online gambling. As compensation for not allowing online

Some Questions about Labor/Environment Provisions in Trade Agreements

This Presidential campaign has made it very clear that there are a number of people (mostly Democrats, I would guess), including the two remaining Democratic Presidential candidates, whose support for trade agreements is conditional on having enforceable labor and environmental rules as part of these agreements. This view raises a

Classification of Developing Countries at the WTO

A reader of this blog is doing research on the classification of developing countries at the WTO, and asked me to pose the following question: Does anyone have any suggestions for resources that discuss the classification of WTO Members as developed, developing, or least-developed? Any thoughts on this can

Investor-State Arbitration and the U.S. Presidential Campaign

From Alan Beattie in the FT: Amid the noisy battering the North American Free Trade Agreement is taking from both Democratic presidential hopefuls, one recent statement from Hillary Clinton was particularly resonant. “We will have a very clear view of how we’re going to review Nafta ,” the New York

The Next Gambling Dispute?

As was widely reported yesterday, the EU is launching an internal investigation on U.S. online gambling laws, to decide whether to bring a WTO complaint: The European Union threatened to lodge a complaint at the World Trade Organization over U.S. laws that bar gambling Web sites, saying they

Obama/Clinton and Boeing vs. McCain and Airbus

As if the Boeing vs. Airbus controversy on the Air Force tanker deal wasn't political enough already, with Obama and Clinton criticizing the decision to award the contract to a group that includes Airbus, now there's this: Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential

A Compulsory Licensing Complaint?

Whenever I hear about compulsory licensing done pursuant to the TRIPS Agreement and related instruments, I wonder whether IP companies will lobby for a formal complaint against the practice. It is permitted in principle, of course, but there is always the possibility that the applicable rules have not been followed.