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Simon Lester

Tim Meyer Responds on Exceptions and "Mixed Motives"

This is a response from Tim Meyer to my post on his new article Many thanks to Simon for his thoughtful take on my new article, A Political Theory of Legal Exceptions, as well as the opportunity to respond. Simon and I do agree on a lot. Most notably, we

Tim Meyer on Exceptions and "Mixed Motives"

My friend Tim Meyer has a new paper entitled "A Political Theory of Legal Exceptions." Back before the pandemic, Tim and I and a few others submitted a proposal for a SIEL 2020 panel entitled "Making Space for Public Policy in International Economic Law Agreements: The Role

Assigning Blame for the Impact of COVID-19 on Developing Countries: Markets or Governments

This is from remarks by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai yesterday at a WTO virtual conference on COVID-19 vaccine equity: We hope to hear more today about how the market once again has failed in meeting the health needs of developing countries. As part of that we have to

Is USTR Ready To Revisit Necessity Tests?

This is from remarks by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai today on issues related to trade and the environment: Even as investors take a greater interest in companies’ environmental risk exposure, the multilateral trading system has no rules to address the corporate incentive to participate in the race to

Digital Trade Agreements and Domestic Policy

I did a series of posts recently on digital trade issues, and I have now consolidated them all into a short Cato paper. Here's the intro: National debates over policies that affect the flow of digital information are heating up as censorship, surveillance, control over personal data, and

SIEL April Conversation: Special and Differential Treatment under WTO

From the SIEL: The Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) is pleased to invite you to its February Conversation entitled ‘Special and Differential Treatment under WTO’, with Dr Rashmi Banga (UNCTAD), Prof. Jan Wouters (KU Leuven), Dr Inu Manak (Cato Institute), Vineet Hegde (KU Leuven), chaired and moderated by Jan

Are GPA Arbitrations Confidential?

Inside US Trade has been reporting on a U.S. request to modify its GPA commitments so as to exclude certain medical products. Back in December 2020, there was this: "The U.S. notified the World Trade Organization last week that it intends to remove certain essential medicines and

Are Digital Services Taxes Discriminatory? Who Should Decide?

In my last post, I talked about how USTR is continuing on with the Section 301 proceedings in several cases related to digital services taxes. In its announcement, USTR said: "In January, USTR found that the DSTs adopted by Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom were

The Biden Administration's Approach to Section 301

On Friday, USTR announced its next steps in many of the Section 301 digital services tax cases: The United States Trade Representative (USTR) today announced the next steps in its Section 301 investigations of Digital Service Taxes (DSTs) adopted or under consideration by ten U.S. trading partners. In January,

What Did the U.S. Originally Have in Mind for the Appellate Body? "Uniform Interpretation" vs “A Coherent and Predictable Body of Jurisprudence”

One of the issues that has come up in the Appellate Body appointments crisis is what exactly the Appellate Body's role should be. You can imagine a range of options here. At one extreme, it could be an arbitrator that decides the outcome without any reasoning at all.