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Simon Lester

The G7 Countries Should Accept Trump's Proposal to Negotiate Total Free Trade

This is from Trump's press conference at the G7 yesterday: Q Mr. President, you said that this was a positive meeting, but from the outside, it seemed quite contentious. Did you get any indication from your interlocutors that they were going to make any concessions to you? And

Trump on the NAFTA Sunset Clause

This is from Trump's press conference at the G7 meeting: Q Are you close to a deal on NAFTA? Your Press Secretary said (inaudible). THE PRESIDENT: So two things can happen on NAFTA. We’ll either leave it the way it is, as a threesome deal with Canada

Third Party Funding of ISDS Litigation

Frank Garcia sends the following: "Thanks to Anthea Roberts for enhancing UNCITRAL's own transparency efforts regarding the recent working group meeting in New York, and posting such a treasure trove of State comments. I and a team of Boston College Law students were also in New York

Canada's "As Such" Complaint Against Section 232

This is from Canada's consultations request on the Section 232 tariffs: In addition, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and its associated regulations appear to be "as such" inconsistent with Articles I:1 and II:1 of the GATT 1994 and does not

"Advisory Opinions" in WTO Panel/AB Reports

This is from the U.S. statement at the DSB meeting on Monday (footnotes omitted): 10. EUROPEAN UNION – COUNTERVAILING MEASURES ON CERTAIN POLETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE FROM PAKISTAN A. REPORT OF THE APPELLATE BODY (WT/DS486/AB/R AND WT/DS486/AB/R/ADD.1) AND REPORT OF THE PANEL (WT/DS486/

Memo to the Trump Administration: The Sunset Clause is a Lost Cause

Here's a tweet from Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star: Trudeau says he wanted to meet with Trump to resolve NAFTA, but Pence told him that he couldn't meet with Trump unless Canada accepted an auto-termination "sunset clause" in the deal. He said Canada

Farewell Speech of Appellate Body Member Ricardo Ramírez-Hernández

You can read the full farewell speech by Appellate Body Member Ricardo Ramírez-Hernández here. There's a lot of good stuff in it. This is an excerpt, with some comments from me thrown in here and there: Now I'm going to share with you some thoughts about

Tony Blair on "What do to about Brexit?"

Here is something Tony Blair said on Fareed Zakaria's TV show last week-end: ZAKARIA: What do do about Brexit? BLAIR: Well, I would still like to see it changed. I mean, I think that the truth is there is no answer to the fundamental dilemma. So in this

Will the U.S. - China Trade Deal Violate MFN?

This is from the FT: Washington is pressing Beijing to enter into multiyear contracts to buy US agricultural and energy imports as part of a broader trade deal aimed at reducing the $337bn bilateral trade deficit with China. But the move could mean taking Chinese business away from key US

The EU General Data Protection Regulation

The GDPR is coming into force soon and I'm trying to sort out the consequences in general and for this blog in particular. With regard to this blog, over 2,000 people have signed up for email notifications, and presumably some of those people are from an EU