International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 11)

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The U.S. Comments On the MPIA and Treaty Interpretation

At the December 19 DSB meeting, the U.S. tied one of its broad criticisms of the WTO dispute settlement system to a recent criticism by another WTO Member of a specific MPIA award: • We would like to make one further point in response to the interventions we just heard

Call for Papers: 2026 ILA-ASIL EastMed-MENA Research Forum

This is from Anastasios Gourgourinis, George Dimitropoulos, and Marios Tokas: The 2026 ILA-ASIL EastMed-MENA Research Forum, organized by the International Law Association - Hellenic Branch and the American Society of International Law, invites paper proposals for its meeting on 9–10 July 2026 in Athens, Greece. The 2026 edition

Scheduling Is the Ace in the Hole

by Carlo M. Cantore[1] & Petros C. Mavroidis[2] 1. Consensus as Insurance Against the Waning of MFN The WTO membership has been mulling over the legal status of completed JSIs (Joint Statement Initiatives). JSIs are not multilateral agreements. They could become plurilateral agreements, if the membership (including those

The U.S. Argument for Limiting MFN

In the communication to the WTO that I mentioned in the last post, the U.S. put forward a critique of the MFN principle: Most Favored Nation (MFN) Principle 3.1. The MFN principle, which seeks to prevent discriminatory trade practices and promote equal treatment among trade partners, was designed

Some Thoughts on Addressing Non-Market Policies and Practices through WTO Disputes

Earlier this week, the U.S. submitted a communication to the WTO entitled "On WTO Reform." There are a number of issues worth talking about in the document, but I want to highlight the sub-section on "Overcapacity and Overconcentration of Production."

Pennsylvania Court Finds Mexican Government Guilty of "Discrimination" Due To Its Subsidies

I'm always interested in how courts apply the concept of "discrimination" in the context of international trade, so I've been eagerly awaiting a Pennsylvania court decision in a case against Mexico.

Jamieson Greer on the Rules-Based International Order

At an Atlantic Council event yesterday, Greg Ip of the WSJ asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer about how he sees the "rules-based international order" in the trading system these days

Who Will be the MC (Master of Ceremony) of MC14?

1. The 2026 Version of the Bicycle Theory for Trade A few decades back, in separate publications, Fred C. Bergsten, and Jagdish Bhagwati referred to the “bicycle” theory of trade. In short, the idea was that steady (continuous) progress towards freer trade is essential. If not, political forces favoring protectionism

A New Central Organizing Principle for U.S. Trade

In the US Trade Regime class I teach with Matt Nicely, our unit on the regime’s import side has traditionally begun with a review of how the United States classifies trading partners … the “ordinary,” “preferred” and “rogue” categories associated with columns 1a, 1b and 2 (respectively) of the Harmonized

Three Explanations for the Foreign Investment Pledges

In recent months, President Trump and the Trump administration have been touting a $20 trillion or so figure that they say foreign companies/governments have pledged to invest in the U.S. I've had trouble figuring out what to make of all this, but I have three theories