Simon Lester

We've had a few discussions on this blog about the possibility of the EU imposing trade restrictions on countries that are not doing enough to clean up the environment (see here, here and here).  According to the FT, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has rejected the idea: The

Jalal Alavi, a frequent commenter on this blog, suggested posting the following: A Survey on Public Opinion The newly released survey of German Marshall Fund of the United States “Perspectives on Trade and Poverty Reduction”   was presented in the WTO today(13.12.2006). GMF has surveyed seven countries (France,

Bloomberg reports: Pakistan plans to challenge European Union trade policy for poor nations through the World Trade Organization, concerned that among India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it's the only one not given equal advantages. In April 2004, WTO judges said the EU could exempt Latin American nations and

The Economist has an excellent article this week about food politics.  What I liked about it was that it brings the technical legal issues from the GMOs and other similar cases into a real world context.  Much of the debate in trade law circles involves government regulation, as well as

In an early post on this blog, Joel cited some articles by and about Judge Richard Posner, and noted that while Posner accepts that there are limits, he refuses to accept a clear line between interpretation and policy-making.  This line is, if not the definition of the "rule

In the ongoing retreaded tires dispute, part of Brazil's defense is that it should be able to restrict imports of used tires because of the environmental damage they cause.  But the problem seems to be a more general one, applying to other forms of waste products: Devising measures

Following up on Joel's post that the "Russians are Coming," Evraz Group SA, a steel maker partly owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich, agreed to buy Oregon Steel Mills Inc. for $2.3 billion, the biggest-ever purchase in the U.S. by a Russian company. http:

Over at Opinio Juris, Roger Alford has an interesting post on the precautionary principle.  Among other things, he notes: Of course, there are mild and strong versions of the precautionary principle. As Cass Sunstein has noted in this article, a mild version rather benignly posits that "a lack of

In an earlier post, I quoted the Economist taking the view that the new Democratic Congress would be more skeptical on trade issues.  Now someone has tried to quantify this point.  Simon Evenett and Michael Meier of the Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economic Research at the University