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Simon Lester

Simon Lester

Co-founder of WorldTradeLaw.net and China Trade Monitor. Non-resident fellow at the Baker Institute.

http://simonlester.com

Some Canadian Support for NAFTA Changes

It looks like there are at least some people in Canada who support the idea of opening up the NAFTA for re-negotiation: The NDP is joining U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls in their promise to change NAFTA, with Leader Jack Layton telling an American audience today the trade agreement

The End of the A Contrario Argument?

This post concerns the so-called a contrario argument under the SCM Agreement Illustrative List. The issue is a bit technical, so some background may be in order. To give a brief overview, in the Brazil - Aircraft dispute, Brazil made the following argument in relation to the consideration of its

RTAs Conference in St. Louis

In early April, Saint Louis University School of Law will be holding the following conference on Regional Trade Agreements: Saint Louis University Public Law Review and The Center for International and Comparative Law presents: THE CHANGING TIDE OF TRADE: The Social, Political and Environmental Implications of Regional Trade Agreements Friday,

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