Simon Lester

The always interesting Dani Rodrik proposes the following: A broadened safeguard agreement—call it an agreement on social and developmental safeguards—would enable countries to opt out from their international obligations under specified circumstances. The process for obtaining such an exemption would be a domestic one, as in the case

Bloomberg reports: Canada filed a complaint against Belgium at the World Trade Organization, in an effort to reverse the European Union country's ban on seal products. ... ``This government believes that the Belgian ban on the importation and marketing of seal products is a violation of Belgium's

Ha-Joon Chang of the University of Cambridge writes the following in the Independent (based on a book he has coming out): Both the history of rich countries and the recent records of developing countries point to the same conclusion. Economic development requires tariffs, regulation of foreign investment, permissive intellectual property

In addition to the obviously controversial subsidies in the U.S. farm bill currently under debate in Congress, there's another potentially contentious trade issue in the bill:  country of origin labeling (COOL) requirements for certain meat products.  The Palm Beach Post reports: Last week, the U.S. House

A paper by Daniel Drache and Marc D. Froese suggests just that.  From the abstract: Deadlock in the Doha Round: The Long Decline of Trade Multilateralism This paper argues that deadlock in the Doha Round of trade negotiations is due to the increasing complexity of economic globalization. It represents a

For those who haven't had enough discussion of the WTO Gambling case here on this blog, the Cato Institute in Washington, DC will be holding a policy forum on the dispute on July 25: America's High-Stakes Response to the WTO Internet Gambling Dispute POLICY FORUM Wednesday,

In its first decision, U.S. - Gasoline, the Appellate Body famously (relatively speaking) said: One problem with the [panel's] reasoning ... is that the Panel asked itself whether the "less favourable treatment" of imported gasoline was "primarily aimed at" the conservation of natural resources,