Trachtman

In January, the Trump Administration attacked the use of special and differential treatment (SDT), by virtue of developing country status, by China, India, Brazil, and a number of other countries (not to mention Singapore, South Korea, and Israel).  The argument, focusing on China, is that China is the world’s

In Indonesia—Safeguards, as Simon has pointed out, the AB had an opportunity to consider the definition of “safeguard” for purposes of Article XIX of GATT and Article 1 of the Safeguards Agreement.  (Note also the interesting discussion begun by Steve Charnovitz on this issue.) Indonesia had imposed a specific

Is the problem too much policy space for China, or too little?  In his FT op-ed published yesterday, Dani Rodrik seems to vacillate between applauding China’s heterodox policies, and condemning the WTO for failing sufficiently to restrict those policies. His concluding paragraph claims that the problem is failure to

One of the most significant complaints made by the US in its Section 301 investigation of China's IP practices is the claim that China conditions permission for foreign investment on transfer of technology.  However, in the US' recent WTO complaint against China's IP practices, the

One of the important recurring issues among the US problems with the case law of the Appellate Body is the standard of review in anti-dumping disputes. The relevant text was changed at a very late stage of the Uruguay Round negotiations, after most of the texts were closed. Belatedly a

Guest post from Pieter Jan Kuiper, Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam: What to do about the US Attack on the Appellate Body? Recently Steve Charnovitz has advanced the idea (IELP blog 3 Nov 2017) that the Appellate Body should use its power

Apropos of the commencement of NAFTA renegotiation next week, I just posted on SSRN a draft paper arguing that the President lacks independent power to terminate trade agreements.  Here are the title and abstract.  Comments are most welcome. Terminating Trade Agreements: the Presidential Dormant Commerce Clause Versus a Constitutional Gloss

Over at Project Syndicate, Dani Rodrik has an important essay on compensation to trade’s “losers.”  He argues that it is too late to compensate them, certainly in terms of harm done to individuals whose livelihoods have been impaired, and also in terms of political support for liberalization.  He is

Prior to his inauguration, President Trump threatened companies considering establishing plants outside the U.S. with a 35% tariff on their exports to the U.S.  Carrier, Toyota, General Motors, Ford, and BMW have been targets of the threats.  Most recently, in an interview with Bild, a German newspaper, he

Julian Ku and John Yoo have an op ed in the LA Times, arguing that the President cannot withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA or the WTO on his own.  Their writing, but probably not their thinking, conflates the issue of withdrawal from the treaty, which the President arguably can