International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Simon Lester

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

Internationally Agreed Unilateralism

One of the big issues in the U.S.-China trade talks is how to enforce any resulting agreement. The traditional enforcement mechanism in trade agreements is to have a neutral adjudication process, and if a violation is found, the complaining government can get authorization to impose tariffs (in order

The Appellate Body Crisis: What Needs To Happen Now?

This is from the U.S. statement at the February 25 DSB meeting: • We also note that at least one Member has said that the United States should table its own proposal. The United States has made its views on these issues very clear: if WTO Members say that we

Guest Post: Consent and Coercion in Trump’s Trade Policy

This is from law professor Frank Garcia: The current U.S. Administration has made coercing our trade partners and allies a signature of its approach to our transnational economic relationships. No one denies the need for trade to be a mutually beneficial bargain, since that is in fact what trade

Responding to "Social Dumping" with Tariffs

This is from a recent paper by Greg Shaffer: (i) Protection against social dumping. Claims of unfair trade proliferated following the election of Donald Trump. The underlying problem from a social policy perspective, however, is not “unfair trade” as viewed through the traditional WTO lens of product dumping because antidumping

TPP Roster of Panel Chairs

From Australia DFAT: Expressions of Interest: Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Roster of Panel Chairs The Australian Government is seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified individuals to be considered for nomination to the roster of panel chairs pursuant to the dispute settlement chapter of the Comprehensive

Call for papers ESIL-sponsored conference on Actors in International Investment Law Beyond Claimants, Respondents and Arbitrators

The University Paris II Panthéon-Assas is hosting, in the context of the Investment Law Initiative, a Colloquium on ‘Actors in International Investment Law: Beyond Claimants, Respondents and Arbitrators’, which will take place on 26 and 27 September 2019, in Paris, France. This year’s Colloquium focuses on actors in international