International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada (AKA the New NAFTA) Trade Deal: Investment Protection/ISDS

As has been expected, in the new NAFTA deal, the Trump administration has significantly scaled back the investment protection/ISDS provisions, which are now found in Chapter 14. One way to think about what happened is that there is no more general recourse to ISDS, but there are three ways

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada (AKA the New NAFTA) Trade Deal: The Sunset Clause

The text of what is being called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has been released. It would be much easier to call this agreement NAFTA, rather than some unwieldy new name that someone thought was preferable for public relations purposes. We'll see what practice develops here. I will

Is This The New US Approach to FTAs?

From the White House: Joint Statement of the United States and Japan 1. On the occasion of our Summit Meeting in New York on September 26, 2018, we, President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, affirmed the importance of a strong, stable, and mutually beneficial trade and economic

Appointment of Panelists under the Modernised EU-Mexico Trade Agreement

This is from the dispute settlement chapter of the Modernisation of the Trade part of the EU-Mexico Global Agreement: Article X.5 Composition of a Panel 1. A panel shall be composed of three panellists. 2. Within [X] days from the date of receipt of the written request for the

What Is the Value of the Section 232 Auto Tariff Carveout?

In a side letter to the U.S.-Mexico agreement that is part of the NAFTA renegotiation, it appears that the U.S. has agreed that if it imposes tariffs on auto imports pursuant to Section 232, a certain amount of Mexican auto imports will be exempt. (You could also

Guest Post: Public Order Clause, Systemic Assault on the Rule of Law and Investment Arbitration: Revenge of the Sith

This is a guest post from Marcin Menkes, Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Law at Warsaw School of Economics: “So this is how liberty dies ... with thunderous applause.” ―Padmé Amidala A long time ago, in a hemisphere far, far away … War! The multilateral order and the democratic Rule

Could There Be a U.S.-Mexico Trade Agreement AND a NAFTA?

Mexican trade negotiator Kenneth Smith Ramos tweeted this: #Mexico stated from the beginning of the negotiation that the ideal scenario is for #NAFTA to remain trilateral. We hope the US and Canada will conclude their bilateral #negotiation shortly. If that is not possible we are ready to advance bilaterally with

Will the NAFTA ISDS Changes Deliver any Votes?

This is from Inside US Trade: Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach told reporters during that call that while she thinks “public citizens” would prefer no ISDS language in the North American Free Trade Agreement at all, the U.S.-Mexico deal “can be widely supported, especially after

Guest Post: From Roosevelt to Reagan to Trump: the Decay of US Internationalism

This is a guest post from Petros Mavroidis: This time it is different. It is difficult to say how serious it is, but it is different. President Trump’s trade policy is a decisive turn towards unilateralism followed by bilateral deals. This combination is a blow to the multilateral edifice

Rebalancing after National Security Measures

As we have talked about on this blog, the Safeguards Agreement provides for compensation/suspension where safeguards measures are used. Here is Article 8.1: A Member proposing to apply a safeguard measure or seeking an extension of a safeguard measure shall endeavour to maintain a substantially equivalent level of