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Simon Lester

The CIT Opinion in the Section 232 Constitutionality Case

The opinion is here. The court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that Section 232 is unconstitutional. Here is a key part of the reasoning: Most importantly for the challenge here, in Algonquin, the Supreme Court found that section 232 “easily” met the intelligible principle standard because [i]t establishes clear

The Internal U.S. Government Debate over the GATT Security Exception

Mona Pinchis-Paulsen has a great new paper called "Trade Multilateralism and National Security: Antinomies in the History of the International Trade Organization". I highly recommend pp. 11-25, which describes the internal U.S. government debate on the power to interpret the security provisions. I don't think

"Imports" of Carbon Emissions

As a political stunt, I really like this: U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and its Subcommittee on Trade, sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross calling on him to initiate an investigation into the threat

Would Speeding up WTO Dispute Settlement Help With the Appellate Body Crisis?

Article 12 of the DSU specifies these time-frames for panels to issue reports: 8. In order to make the procedures more efficient, the period in which the panel shall conduct its examination, from the date that the composition and terms of reference of the panel have been agreed upon until

Does USMCA Article 31.8 Fix the Roster Problem?

As we all know, many years ago there was a problem with the U.S. blocking the appointment of a panel under NAFTA Chapter 20 (one key issue in this regard was the establishment of a roster; full details here). When I looked at Chapter 31 of the USMCA, my

Guest Post: Taking Recourse to the DSU to Save Dispute Settlement at the WTO (Part B)

This is Part B of a guest post from Vinayak Panikkar*, Prakhar Bhardwaj+, Akhil Raina† IV. Instituting a complaint for a violation of DSU Article 17.2. While bringing the US tariff dispute to the WTO on January 29, 2019, China asserted that the US’s actions to block AB

Guest Post: Taking Recourse to the DSU to Save Dispute Settlement at the WTO (Part A)

This is Part A of a guest post from Vinayak Panikkar*, Prakhar Bhardwaj+, Akhil Raina† I. Introduction The joint communication from the European Union and 11 other nations tabled in the General Council meeting held on 12-13 December 2018 (“EU DSU Proposal”) was the last comprehensive set of publicly available

Guest Post: Background and Impact of US’s intention to “terminate” GSP benefits to India

This is a guest post by Vineet Hegde, a PhD researcher in International Law at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies at KU Leuven, Belgium. In the previous post by Simon Lester, he wrote about USTR’s decision to “terminate” GSP preferences to India. This is a second post

U.S. Terminates GSP Benefits for India and Turkey

This is from USTR: At the direction of President Donald J. Trump, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced today that the United States intends to terminate India’s and Turkey’s designations as beneficiary developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program because they no longer comply

How To Draft a Panel Appointment Provision

This is from the newly signed Australia - Indonesia CEPA: ... 3. Within five days of the date of the receipt of a request under Article 20.7, the Parties shall enter into consultations with a view to reaching agreement on the procedures for composing the panel, taking into account the