Simon Lester

Check out Jon Stewart on free trade and globalization (you have to wait through a short commercial).

The Antigua legal team has posted some new documents related to the Article 22.6 arbitration in the Gambling dispute, including a written submission which, among other things, responds to some of the U.S. arguments.  One important aspect of the parties' disagreement is the following.  In arguing for

The state of the Doha Round is not good.  Consider the following. From the U.S.: "U.S. officials lashed out at India, Brazil and other large developing nations, saying that their proposal to exempt a broad range of industrial goods from tariff cuts could blow up continuing global

A recent poll suggested that Republican voters are less enthusiastic about free trade than in the past: By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS - The Inaugural Conference of the Society of International Economic Law: New Horizons of International Economic Law The Inaugural Conference of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) will take place at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva from 15-17 July 2008 (www.

I think the Costa Rican vote on CAFTA is pretty close to decided.  Reuters reports that with "ballots from nearly 74 percent of polling stations" counted, "[a]lmost 52 percent of voters backed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, while 48 percent voted against it.

For those who have not already seen it, here is a posting from the new Society of International Economic Law, with which a number of this blog's contributors (including myself) are involved: SIEL is pleased to announce that Don McRae has agreed to serve as the Interim President

Is the quote in the title to this post a threat to Costa Ricans voting tomorrow on approval of CAFTA?  It does sound a bit like one, with the suggestion that if CAFTA is not approved, unilateral trade preferences to Costa Rica might not be renewed.  Is such a threat

This sounds like a big deal to me, but it has been a while since my one EC law course, so perhaps this ruling by the European Court of Justice is not as important as it seems: it is not contrary to Community law for Article 33 of the TRIPs

As Bryan mentioned here, Canada's complaint about Belgian and Dutch bans on seal products is now official.  The consultations request is here. It might be better for the system if the complaint did not go forward, but if it does there could be some very interesting issues explored.