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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

Introducing the Society of International Economic Law

August 17, 2007 Press Release The Society of International Economic Law: Inaugural Conference, July 15-17, 2008 Members of the international economic law community have created a new organisation called the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL). The organisation will foster co-ordination, collaboration and debate between International Economic Law

Chinese Imports and the U.S. Presidential Campaign

As a trade lawyer, it's exciting for me to see GATT Article XX invoked, implicitly anyway, in the U.S. Presidential campaign: Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd called for suspending all imports of toys and food from China ... "This is an issue of safety," said Dodd. "

WTO Law in Domestic Law: The Novartis Case

The status of WTO law in domestic law varies a bit from country to country, and is sometimes not very clear. The recent Indian court decision in the Novartis case was interesting, as the court basically said that any consideration of consistency of Indian law with the TRIPS Agreement should

"Social and Developmental Safeguards"

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

From Dolphins to Turtles to Seals: The Next Trade and the Environment Dispute

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

The DS316 Aircraft Panel Hearing

Following-up on Roger Alford's post over at Opinio Juris and Tomer's post on this blog, the WTO panel hearing on one part of the Aircraft dispute (DS316, involving alleged subsides to Airbus) took place last week. As Roger and Tomer noted, the hearing was transparent

Trade and Development

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

It's Getting COOL In Here

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

Are We Witnessing the Decline of Multilateralism?

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

Cato Event on the Gambling Dispute

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