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

Congressional Democrats are starting to flex their muscles against President Trump’s trade policy. As ratification of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) hangs in the balance, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats have called on U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to strengthen enforcement of the

A fundamental uncertainty bedevils attempts to unblock the appointment process of WTO Appellate Members: is the US holding up Appellate Body appointments in order to generate enough leverage for a negotiated reform of WTO dispute settlement? Or does the US seek to abolish the Appellate Body (in effect if not

There is a Chinese saying that “when there is a policy from the above, there is a reaction from the below” (“上有政策, 下有对策”). This is exactly what has happened since the inception of trade wars.  Both domestic and international businesses have attempted to avoid the punitive tariffs through various means,

Greg Shaffer and Henry Gao have a new paper called "A New Chinese Economic Law Order?" Here is the abstract: China is incrementally developing a new, decentralized model of trade governance through a web of finance, trade, and investment initiatives involving memorandum of understandings, contracts, and trade and

It is great to see the WTO’s news item on 12 April celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (see https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news19_e/tpr_12apr19_e.htm   and https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tprm30_e.htm

This is from the Center for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI) at the Graduate Institute in Geneva: The Center for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI) at the Graduate Institute in Geneva announces the release of a new edited book by Joost Pauwelyn and Mengyi Wang, entitled "Building Legal Capacity

The Graduate Institute's Annual Update on WTO Dispute Settlement is today, Wednesday, April 10, 5-7pm Geneva time. If you cannot be there in person, we are live-streaming the event here: http://tinyurl.com/y5g3beww PROGRAMME 17:00 to 17:30 OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN