International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

The U.S.-Japan Trade Deal: Can a Political Agreement Liberalize Trade Without Institutions?

The U.S. - Japan trade deal was signed today. USTR provides the legal texts here. Based on the various fact sheets, it looks like the agreement contains a modest amount of tariff liberalization. Let's look briefly at what's in the deal, focusing on four questions:

Question from the U.S.: Why has the Appellate Body felt free to depart from what Members agreed to?

This is from the U.S. statement at Monday's DSB meeting: Indeed, for several months, both within the Informal Process and outside, the United States has actively sought engagement from Members on what we believe to be a fundamental issue. That is, how have we come to this

Guest Post: A Carbon Border Tax or A Climate Tariff?

This is a guest post from Reinhard Quick, Professor for International Economic Law, Saarland University, Dr. iur. (University of Mannheim), LL.M (University of Michigan) The political guidelines for the next European Commission (2019-2024) are a victory for the proponents of the so-called "Border Carbon Adjustment" (BCA). The

The SIEL–Hart Prize

This is from Hart Publishing: SUBMISSIONS FOR THE SIEL-HART PRIZE IN INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW ARE NOW OPEN! The SIEL–Hart Prize is awarded every two years to an outstanding unpublished manuscript by an early career scholar in the field of International Economic Law. The winner of the SIEL–Hart Prize

A Few Thoughts on the Role of the WTO/AB Secretariats in WTO Disputes

Following-up on Joost's post about his new paper with Krzysztof Pelc on the role of the WTO and Appellate Body Secretariats in WTO disputes, I wanted to offer some brief thoughts. Here's the first one: More seriously, I sort of agree with them, in the sense

Guest Post: GAFA’s Global Investment Tribunal: Is it Going to Stay? Call for a research partner

This is from Marcin J. Menkes of the Warsaw School of Economics: Although none of the GAFA companies – Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple – or other major tech giant has taken the first step, publicly, to establish a world investment tribunal, the question to already ask, is whether such an arbitration tribunal

Tom Graham Clarifies My Earlier Tom Graham Clarification

In the comments section of my blog post earlier this week, Tom Graham commented as follows: My statement as reported by Bloomberg was not inadvertent. It expressed my position accurately: "I have not yet decided [whether I will stay after December 10], and I am watching developments." No

Are Social Media Trade Wars Inevitable?

A Washington Post article from last week, which includes the heading "TikTok Rise Could Signal End To Western Web Dominance" in the print version, describes a Chinese social media platform called TikTok as follows: TikTok has quickly become one of America’s most popular mobile apps, a flashy,

Conference on Socially Responsible Foreign Investment under International Law

Católica|Lisbon School of Law and Católica Global School of Law will host the international conference on Socially Responsible Foreign Investment under International Law. The event will take place at the Lisbon campus of the Catholic University of Portugal next 24 and 25 of October. Entrance is free and registration

Clarifying Tom Graham's Status on the Appellate Body

Last week, Bloomberg ran a story about Appellate Body Member Tom Graham which stated that: ... While Graham’s term ends on Dec. 10, panel members in the past have stayed on to finish WTO cases they’re involved in. If he resigns, the seven-member body would no longer have a