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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

Fears about Offshoring

Greg Mankiw is famous (infamous?) for his statements about offshoring back in 2004, when he was Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. At the time, he said: the "offshoring" of U.S. service jobs is only "the latest manifestation of the gains from trade

7th BIICL WTO Conference: 22-23 May

The Seventh Annual BIICL WTO Conference is coming up on 22-23 May 2007, in London. It's a great group of participants as always. The topics are: 1. The GMOs Dispute 2. Compliance and Remedies: Articles 21.5 and 22 DSU 3. Dispute Settlement under FTAs and the

The U.S. and WTO Disputes

Robert Lawrence of the Kennedy School has a report out with CFR entitled "The United States and the WTO Dispute Settlement System." From the press release, here are some of his main recommendations. For the system: Lawrence proposes a series of realistic fixes to bring about a more

A "Glimpse" at the Aicraft WTO Panel Meetings

As stated in news reports, the WTO will offer a "glimpse" at the upcoming panel meeting in the aircraft case (the one brought by the U.S. against alleged subsidies to Airbus). The actual meeting will be tomorrow. However, the "glimpse" will occur on Thursday, via

The First CAFTA Investment Claim

In what is being reported as the first investment claim under CAFTA Chapter 10 (the claimant's press release says it is "believed to be the first notice of intent" under this provision), Pittsburgh-based Railroad Development Corporation (RDC) filed a claim alleging that actions by the

Joost Pauwelyn on Non-Discrimination

A few months ago, I did a post praising a paper by the WTO's Mireille Cossy, which was on "likeness" and non-discrimination under the GATS. I stand by my statement that she "addressed some of the hard issues involved in an intelligent way."

Public Panel Hearing in the Aircraft Dispute

For those in Geneva (or those willing to make the trip), DG Trade posted the following on its web site in relation to public access to the DS316 Aircraft panel meeting: External Trade draws your attention to a public viewing of the panel hearing in the WTO dispute between the

The Law of Currency Manipulation

Marc's previous post referred to the silence of international trade law on the currency manipulation issue. Looks like some people are trying to change that, at least under domestic law. According to a news report, two U.S. Senators, Debbie Stabenow and Jim Bunning, have "introduced legislation

Labor Rights in Trade Agreements

Over at Opinio Juris, Julian Ku has some thoughts on recent and past efforts to incorporate labor rights into trade agreements.

Comparative Currency Policy

At the risk of turning this into the "Asian Currency Blog," I came across the following piece by an AEI scholar: In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson earlier this month, four leading Democratic congressman urged action to pressure the Japanese to strengthen the value of the