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Simon Lester

Katherine Tai on WTO Dispute Settlement Reform

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke today at an event hosted by The Institute of International and European Affairs. Here is something she said on WTO dispute settlement reform: On dispute settlement, ... I think that we need to come back to first principles ... . I know there's a

Congress' Sense of the WTO, as Articulated in USICA

I found the "sense of Congress" on various WTO issues in the Senate's United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 bill to be interesting, and it made me wonder about the process for coming up with this part of legislation. Many of these points I&

Biden Administration Thinking about COOL Again

This is from a White House fact sheet from Monday: Issue new “Product of USA” labeling rulesso that consumers can better understand where their meat comes from. already begun A vague statement like this one is going to generate concern that the U.S. will once again try to use

What Was the Purpose and Intent of the USMCA?

This is from the first USMCA Chapter 31 panel report, on Canada -Dairy TRQs, circulated today: c) Purpose and Intent of the Treaty As the Preamble to the Treaty explains, the Parties resolved to promote trade between the signatory states by creating “freer, fairer markets,” and “incentivizing the production and

Applying the Mandatory / Discretionary Distinction to the EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument

I've been thinking about the mandatory/discretionary distinction because it came up in the panel report in the recent U.S. - Olives from Spain case (which was adopted by the DSB today, i.e., not appealed into the void by the U.S., which is kind of

A Seventh Agreement To Use the MPIA

As readers can probably tell, I'm using this blog to track all the WTO disputes for which there have been agreed procedures between the parties for using the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). See this link for the whole list (along with other developments in this area)

What Are the Core Trade Principles of the Biden Administration?

I'm trying to understand the core trade principles of the Biden administration, and I'm a bit puzzled. Based on various statements by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and others in recent months, I would have thought the dominant view was that trade liberalization had gone

Binding Precedent and Precedential Value

The WTO panel report in India - Sugar and Sugarcane, circulated earlier this week, has a number of interesting passages about the role of precedent. They are a bit disconnected, and for some of them all I have is the panel's summary rather than the full statement from

Non-Discrimination and the EV Tax Credits in the Build Back Better Act

There has been a lot of Twitter discussion about the possibility that the electric vehicle (EV) tax credits in the Build Back Better Act violate USMCA or WTO obligations. There are actually three components to these tax credits, and I thought it was worth doing a quick analysis of each

Countering the "Unfettered Liberalization" Narrative

At a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event today, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the following: But I think that we have pursued a really unfettered liberalization policy for the past many years and decades. And it is part of what has brought us to this current reality