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Simon Lester

Is Non-Discrimination in U.S. Digital Trade Agreements Nationality-Based?

Non-discrimination guru Lothar Ehring had a comment on my last post on non-discrimination in digital trade agreements, raising an issue I hadn't noticed: By eliminating a comparison with domestic products, the wording of certain non-discrimination provisions perhaps steers the provisions away from nationality-based discrimination in an even broader

More on Exceptions Language in Digital Trade Agreements

Following up on my earlier posts about exceptions in digital trade chapters/agreements, here's another issue in this same area (thanks to Thomas Streinz for bringing it to my attention). This is the USMCA cross-border transformation of information by electronic means obligation and exception: Article 19.11: Cross-Border

What Does the U.S. Want on WTO DS? (And DSU Article 11 in Particular)

This morning I watched a very interesting IIEL event on "Rethinking the WTO: Opportunities for Transatlantic Cooperation," moderated by Joost Pauwelyn, and featuring Sabine Weyand, Jennifer Hillman, Thomas Graham, and Henry Gao as panelists. (I think they will post the recorded video at some point.) One thing Tom

A Trade Hackathon

This is from CTEI, the IIEL, and the Geneva Trade Platform: G-2 CONFERENCE AND HACKATHON CHALLENGE 2O21 - HOW TO MAKE THE WTO FIT FOR FUTURE TRADE 09-11 APRIL | HACKATHON CHALLENGE 14 APRIL - 15:00-20:00 CET | G-2 CONFERENCE This year, our annual G-2 Conference 14 April 2021, will

If the AB Appointments Crisis Is Resolved, What Happens to the Pending Appeals?

A trade lawyer I know wrote to me with the following comment/question for this blog's readers: I believe that any resolution of the AB crisis will be “Walker +”, i.e. the Walker Principles plus some face-saving way of addressing “substantive overreach”. As long as we avoid linkage

SIEL March Conversation: Managing Trade, Health and Equitable Access to Medicines during a Global Pandemic

This is from the SIEL: SIEL March ConversationThe Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) is pleased to invite you to its February Conversation entitled ‘Managing Trade, Health and Equitable Access to Medicines during a Global Pandemic’, with Fatima Hassan (Health Justice Initiative), James Bacchus (Center for Global Economic and Environmental

Non-Discrimination Provisions in Digital Trade Chapters/Agreements: "A Digital Product" vs. "Digital Products," and the Impact on Policy Space

I did a couple posts recently on proposed exceptions language in the WTO e-commerce negotiations. My point there was to raise the issue of exceptions that are written in a way that could interfere with non-discriminatory measures that are designed to achieve legitimate public policies. "Necessary," in my

Guest Post: What’s Sauce for the Goose is not Sauce for the Gander? On Discriminatory Export Quotas for Vaccines

This post is by professors Henrik Horn and Petros Mavroidis The recent EU regulation restricting exports of vaccines [Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/111, 2021, O.J., (L 31I)] has caused much debate. One feature of the regime that has attracted less attention is the fact that the EU measure

USTR's View of GATT Exceptions in Relation to Non-GATT Goods Agreements

At today's DSB meeting, the U.S. - Origin Marking Requirement (DS597) dispute was on the agenda. This dispute involves a complaint by Hong Kong against various U.S. measures requiring that goods produced in Hong Kong must be marked to indicate that their origin is "China.

The EU's Outreach to the U.S. on WTO DS

The EU announced a new "open, sustainable and assertive EU trade policy" today. The press release is here; a Q & A is here; the main communication from the Commission is here. The most interesting details seem to be in this Annex. In this post, I'm