International Economic Law and Policy Blog
  • Home
  • About
  • WorldTradeLaw.net
Sign in Subscribe

Call for Papers: Shaping Appropriate ADR in International Law

The International Law Association is hosting a conference on Shaping Appropriate ADR in International Law, on 7 April 2025 in Florence, Italy. The call for papers is here. Here is the conference theme: As 2025 begins, there is no shortage of international law disputes, in areas ranging from geopolitics to
Simon Lester 09 Jan 2025 1 min read

Jake Sullivan's International Economics Legacy

Never having worked in government at a high level (I was a summer intern once a long time ago), I am only vaguely familiar with the idea of bolstering your "legacy" at the end of your time in office. But people who seem to know what they are
Simon Lester 05 Jan 2025 5 min read

Is NAFTA a Good Explanation for Workers Leaving the Democratic Party? The Case of Ohio

The Washington Post recently published an op-ed about Sherrod Brown, a long-time Democratic Senator (and previously a Representative) from Ohio who lost his seat in the November election, highlighting his view that the passage of NAFTA led to "workers" leaving the Democratic party: ... Brown says the political shift
Simon Lester 29 Dec 2024 11 min read

Appeal/Review Proposals under Consideration in the WTO Dispute Settlement Reform Process

In a recent post on appeal/review issues being discussed as part of the WTO dispute settlement reform process, I quoted something that referenced "an updated draft of the document known as the Appeal/Review Tables, which will reflect the progress made in the discussions since the summer break
Simon Lester 22 Dec 2024 7 min read

Discussing Tariffs with Michael Pettis

Finance professor Michael Pettis had a recent FT piece on tariffs. His piece builds on one of his Bluesky threads, which I discussed with him there. In this post, I'm going to react to some of the things he said in both the FT piece and the Bluesky
Simon Lester 16 Dec 2024 5 min read

The U.S. Proposal on How to Handle Disputes on Essential Security Measures

At a DSB meeting in January 2023, the U.S. made clear its position that "it was a mistake to begin adjudicating national security at the WTO," and said: "we believe Members need to clarify and adopt a shared understanding of the essential security exception, and we
Simon Lester 11 Dec 2024 3 min read

More Discussions of Appeal/Review in the DS Reform Process

In July, I mentioned that the the WTO Dispute Settlement Reform Process was underway, with one of the key topics being a fix for the Appellate Body crisis. People can follow the discussions in limited detail as WTO news summaries are released, or in somewhat greater detail a few weeks
Simon Lester 08 Dec 2024 10 min read

Guest Post: Are the USMCA’s rules of origin for automobiles enough to stop Chinese sourced parts coming into the US/Canada?

This is a guest post by Karen Soriano, a recent Masters graduate in international economic policy from the Norman Paterson School Of International Affairs With President-elect Donald Trump’s frequent social media pronouncements on trade, it would be a futile practice to fact-check every claim made. However, recent comments by
Simon Lester 04 Dec 2024 3 min read

Will "Post-Neoliberalism" Mean Unfettered Markets or Unfettered Industrial Policy? (Or Are We Post-"Post-Neoliberalism" Now?)

There has been a lot of talk over the past eight years about whether we are now in a period of "post-neoliberalism," with efforts to flesh out exactly what that means for economic policy. To some extent, it even seemed as though there was an alliance between those
Simon Lester 01 Dec 2024 3 min read

Foreign Savings and U.S. Budget Deficits

In the context of expressing concern with trade imbalances, a recent piece by Michael Pettis and Erica Hogan argues that high foreign savings in some countries (e.g. China and Germany) is linked to the growing U.S. fiscal deficit (among other things): The global trade system is broken. Current
Simon Lester 24 Nov 2024 5 min read

About

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Expert commentary on the law, politics and economics of international trade and investment

Sign up for email notifications

jamie@example.com
Subscribe

Featured

Beware the "Securitization" of Trade Policy

In recent years, U.S. trade policy has seen a creeping takeover by "security" concerns. The precise scope of these concerns is unclear, but they appear to cover both the traditional aspects of military-related security as well as the vague and amorphous concept of "economic security."
06 Oct 2025 4 min read

Stephen Miran on Tariffs and National Savings

In a speech earlier this week, Stephen Miran, who had been the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and is now a member of the Federal Reserve Board, made his case for a looser monetary policy. One aspect of his argument was that he thinks national savings will be
24 Sep 2025 4 min read

A GOP Tariff Working Group and Post-Trump U.S. Trade Politics

The Hill reported last week that a handful of pro-trade Republicans in Congress used some leverage during a vote about voting on tariffs – it's complicated, check out the details at the link for more! – to get a Republican working group on tariffs established: And [Tom] McClintock [R-CA] said
21 Sep 2025 4 min read

The Japan-U.S. Investment MOU: Centrally Planned Foreign Investment?

In the last post, Mona set out the basics of the Japan-U.S. MOU on "Strategic Investments" in the U.S. – or at least, a version of the MOU that was posted by the Japanese government online, although we don't know for sure if this is
14 Sep 2025 3 min read

Have the Japanese turned investment lemons into investment project lemonade?

Last week, the governments of the United States and Japan completed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to flesh out the details of a $550 billion pledge to invest in the United States made as part of the bargain to ‘buy down’ the tariffs imposed on Japanese traded products.  For months,
11 Sep 2025 8 min read

Topics

2008 Presidential Election

25 posts

2012 Republican Primary

6 posts

2020 Democratic Primary

22 posts

2020 Presidential Campaign

6 posts

2024 Presidential Campaign

9 posts

2024 Republican Primary

9 posts

Announcements

23 posts

Appellate Body

71 posts

CAFTA

5 posts

CETA

8 posts

Currency Disputes

57 posts

Development

23 posts

Digital Trade

53 posts

Domestic Trade Powers

10 posts

Dormant Commerce Clause

3 posts

DSU 25 Interim Appeals

42 posts

DSU Article 11

13 posts

Economic Integration

8 posts

Economic Statecraft

8 posts

EU-UK Trade Negotiation

5 posts

Exceptions

19 posts

Exchange Rates

5 posts

Export Restrictions

13 posts

Food Aid

5 posts

Foreign Investment

18 posts

FTA Negotiations

12 posts

FTAs - General

21 posts

Gambling Dispute

52 posts

Global Governance

9 posts

Globalization

12 posts

Government Procurement

5 posts

Green Steel Deal

14 posts

IEEPA

6 posts

IEL in Domestic Courts

19 posts

Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

5 posts

Industrial Policy

19 posts

Investor-State Arbitration

92 posts

Jamieson Greer

11 posts

Katherine Tai

65 posts

NAFTA

18 posts

NAFTA Chapter 11

15 posts

NAFTA Chapter 19

5 posts

National Security

37 posts

Non Appeal Pact

3 posts

Non-Discrimination Standards

57 posts

Non-Market Economies

4 posts

Non-Violation Nullification or Impairment

16 posts

Precedent

23 posts

Public Views of Trade

9 posts

Robert Lighthizer

17 posts

Russia Trade Sanctions

17 posts

Sanctions

15 posts

Sovereignty

8 posts

Speech

1 post

SPS/TBT

5 posts

Standards of Review

6 posts

State Enterprises

7 posts

Sub-National Trade Issues

5 posts

Subsidies

83 posts

Tariffs

1 post

Terms of Trade Manipulation

6 posts

Trade Agreements

10 posts

Trade and Competition

13 posts

Trade and Development

19 posts

Trade and Environment

116 posts

Trade and Health

20 posts

Trade and Human Rights

8 posts

Trade and Income Inequality

1 post

Trade and Intellectual Property

24 posts

Trade and Labor

23 posts

Trade and Peace

4 posts

Trade and Security

24 posts

Trade and the Stock Market

2 posts

Trade Balance

9 posts

Trade in Everything

65 posts

Trade in Services

21 posts

Trade Law and International Law

9 posts

Trade Preferences/GSP

23 posts

Trade Remedies

61 posts

Trans Pacific Partnership

8 posts

Trump Administration

33 posts

U.S. Trade Policy

29 posts

U.S. Trade Politics

58 posts

US-China Trade Relations

24 posts

USMCA

17 posts

USMCA Dispute Settlement

33 posts

USMCA Sunset/Review Clause

17 posts

USTR

15 posts

WTO - General

14 posts

WTO Accessions

8 posts

WTO Disputes

174 posts

WTO DS Reform

10 posts

WTO Jurisprudence

28 posts

WTO Negotiations

30 posts

Zeroing

29 posts
Powered by Ghost