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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

The Expanding Scope of Trade Agreements

Just two quick points related to Joel's earlier posts about the "new" U.S. approach to trade policy. First, according to the USTR fact sheets on labor and the environment, there is to be a requirement that any alleged labor/environment violations must "affect"

Obama's Trade Team

Bloomberg reports that Barack Obama will be getting trade policy advice from Dan Tarullo of Georgetown: The tough task of helping to develop a trade policy that avoids overt protectionism may fall to [Daniel] Tarullo, a 54-year-old trade expert. Tarullo ``escapes easy labeling,'' said former Clinton

More Dani Rodrik

So far, Dani Rodrik's blog has been extremely interesting. In a post today, he says that the issue of "whether we should increase trade restrictions or lower them" is part of the "old debate," and then suggests that today's questions are different:

Developments in the Gambling Dispute

According to press reports, the U.S. is planning to "clarify" its GATS commitments relating to gambling services, pursuant to GATS Article XXI: The United States said Friday it was not required to comply with a WTO ruling to open its borders to the Internet gambling industry because

Non-Discrimination: How Others Do It

The proper standard for non-discrimination has long been a vexing question in GATT/WTO law. Is there anything to be learned from seeing how others do it? Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court decided a "dormant" commerce clause case, where non-discrimination is part of the legal

Dani Rodrik on Free Trade and Lower Prices

Dani Rodrik has entered the blogosphere. In one of his first posts, he questions whether free trade leads to lower prices. At the risk of getting into issues that I don't know as much about as I wish I did, I'm going to offer a criticism

The Leading Democrats on Trade

There's little question that the 2008 U.S. Presidential election will have a significant impact on future U.S. trade policy and bilateral/multilateral trade negotiations in general. Here's what the three leading Democratic candidates (listed alphabetically, to avoid any suggestion of favoritism) have had to

Should there be a "Healthy Foods" Subsidies Exception?

A NY Times article reports that U.S. farm subsidies are mainly for corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton, and says that "U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy." The result,

International Antitrust

Most people will be happy with a very limited agreement in the Doha Round at this point, so pushing for multilateral rules on antitrust/competition policy seems pointless. Nevertheless, antitrust law has become global, with both the U.S and EC regulatory regimes overlapping in a number of ways, and

The China Complaints: Hot off the Electronic Press

The WTO has now made the two recent U.S. complaints against China available. Here they are on WorldTradeLaw.net (the free part), in PDF format: DS362: China - Measures Affecting the Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights DS363: China - Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications