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Simon Lester

SIEL 2020 Conference Postponed

The following is a notice from SIEL: To the SIEL Community: In light of the evolving situation regarding the COVID-19 crisis, the SIEL Executive Council has decided to postpone the 2020 SIEL Conference, which was schedule to take place in July 2020 at Bocconi University in Milan. We have not

Guest Post: WTO [email protected]: Hidden in plain sight

This is a guest post from Prof. Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, European University Institute Florence Humanity knows from Greek mythology and from the Bible that third-party adjudication emerged and developed in response to never-ending human tragedies (like the pursuit of Orest by the goddesses of revenge punishing Orest’s murder of his

U.S. "Wins" and "Losses" in WTO Disputes

With Trump complaining about the WTO treating the U.S. unfairly, I get asked now and then about U.S. "wins" and "losses" in WTO disputes. How does the U.S. fare as a complainant and as a respondent? It's a difficult question. A

The UK-EU Trade Talks: The "Level Playing Field"

One of the most controversial aspects of the UK-EU trade talks has to do with the "level playing field." Simplifying things a bit, these are the EU demands that the UK not change its regulation so as to give its producers an advantage over EU competitors. In response,

EU Proposal on UK-EU Disputes Raising Questions of European Union Law

A version of the EU's proposed "Draft text of the Agreement on the New Partnership between the European Union and the United Kingdom" is available here (this may be a leaked version, with some edits before an official one is published). There's a lot

Tom Graham's Full Speech on the Appellate Body

Last week, I posted about the Inside US Trade summary of Tom Graham's remarks on the Appellate Body (entitled "The Rise (and Demise?) of the WTO Appellate Body"). I now have the full text, which is here. Here is one part: Soon after I joined the

Tom Graham Comments on the Appellate Body

Tom Graham was talking about the Appellate Body at a Georgetown law conference today. I wish I had the full text of his speech, but all I have for now is the Inside US Trade summary, and I'll have to make do with that: Graham identified four steps

Guest Post: Facilitating WTO-compliant Responses to International Public Health Emergencies

This is a guest post from Jingyuan "Joey" Zhou, Professor of Practice at University of Arizona Law School Introduction As exemplified by COVID-19,[i] a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)[ii] incidence and past PHEIC incidences like H1N1, Ebola, and MERS, governments take significant actions based

A Few Responses to USTR's 2020 Trade Policy Agenda and 2019 Annual Report

In the last post, I said that going through USTR's 2020 Trade Policy Agenda and 2019 Annual Report page by page and responding to every point "would be exhausting and would probably not achieve much." But I'm going to do a little bit of

How To Get Countries To Lower Their Tariffs

USTR's 2020 Trade Policy Agenda and 2019 Annual Report was released today. Among other things, it includes a lot of complaints about the WTO, and clearly reflects the trade views of the Trump administration. There's a part of me that would like to go through page