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Asking the Appellate Body to Clarify

This is from the China - Publications Appellate Body report: 237. The United States expresses "some concerns" regarding the Panel's approach to analyzing the "necessity" of China's measures. The United States' concerns relate to a "two step" approach, allegedly
Simon Lester 13 Jun 2016 2 min read

Varying Conceptions of FET in Mesa

Here are some articulations of the FET standard in the Mesa NAFTA Chapter 11 award: The claimant: 484. ... For Mesa, Article 1105 consists of several components including the duty to act in good faith; fairness and reasonableness; treatment free from arbitrary conduct; transparency; protection against abuse of rights; procedural fairness;
Simon Lester 09 Jun 2016 2 min read

Gary Johnson on the TPP

Here's Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson talking about the TPP with Glenn Thrush of Politico: THRUSH: ... So the other thing I find fascinating about you, the other wildfire that's really striking in terms of the Trump thing is the free trade stuff. You have been on
Simon Lester 09 Jun 2016 1 min read

Does Canadian Law Provide Remedies Equivalent to NAFTA Chapter 11 Arbitration?

That's the title of a new paper by Armand de Mestral and Robin Morgan. Here's the abstract: It is often alleged that the provisions for investor-state arbitration (ISA) are not needed in international trade agreements to protect the interests of foreign investors in developed democracies because
Simon Lester 08 Jun 2016 2 min read

Doctoral Researcher Position in International Trade Law

From the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies: The Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies is an inter-faculty interdisciplinary research centre of excellence of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Leuven which conducts research in relation to globalization, governance processes and multilateralism (www.globalgovernancestudies.eu). The Institute
Simon Lester 08 Jun 2016 1 min read

What's at Stake with the Appellate Body Reappointment Controversy

Here are Manfred Elsig, Mark Pollack and Gregory Shaffer writing about the Appellate Body reappointment controversy for the Monkey Cage blog on the Washington Post website: 2) What’s at stake What’s at stake here is not just the fate of Chang but the independence of the international judiciary,
Simon Lester 06 Jun 2016 2 min read

SIEL Conference in South Africa, July 7-9, 2016

From the SIEL: The Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) is organising its fifth Biennial Global Conference – International Economic Law in a Diverse World – on 7-9 July 2016 at the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. SIEL is a membership organization aimed at academics and academically-minded practitioners and officials
Simon Lester 06 Jun 2016 1 min read

More on the U.S. Objections to Certain Appellate Body Practice

Following up on my earlier post about U.S. allegations that the Appellate Body sometimes says more than it needs to say, here's another point the U.S. makes: Second, in DS430, a dispute in which the United States was the complaining party and prevailed, we noted that
Simon Lester 05 Jun 2016 5 min read

16th Annual WTO Law Conference

The 16th Annual WTO Law conference is coming up next week. Formerly a BIICL/IIEL production in London, it has moved to Geneva this year and added the Graduate Institute and the SIEL as organizers. From the conference web page: The Annual WTO Conference was originally established in 2000 through
Simon Lester 05 Jun 2016 1 min read

Should Cost-Benefit Analysis be a Factor in Deciding whether a Regulation is "Arbitrary"?

This is the abstract of a new paper by Cass Sunstein: When an agency fails to engage in quantitative cost-benefit analysis, has it acted arbitrarily and hence in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act? At first glance, the question answers itself: Congress sometimes requires that form of analysis, but if
Simon Lester 03 Jun 2016 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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

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Is There No Going Back on Trade? What Is the Path Forward? A Response to Lighthizer

Former U.S. Trade Rep. Bob Lighthizer has a new essay in Foreign Affairs, and I have some thoughts. I'm going to start with his brief big picture points on the direction of U.S. trade policy, and then go through a couple of the specific concepts he emphasizes.
27 Apr 2026 6 min read

The Section 301 Excess Capacity Investigation Needs Less Madness, More Method

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled President Trump’s emergency tariffs under IEEPA  unconstitutional, the administration scrambled to rebuild its tariff wall. While the announcement of Section 122 tariffs immediately following the ruling will provide a temporary patch, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office quickly began to utilize another
24 Apr 2026 6 min read

War Tariffs

This is a co-authored post by Kathleen Claussen and Tim Meyer. Last week, President Trump announced that the United States would be imposing new tariffs of 50 percent of the value of any product coming from any country that sells weapons or provides military aid to Iran. Some commentators questioned
14 Apr 2026 5 min read

USMCA Review and Extension Predictions

When the idea of an expiration clause was suggested during the NAFTA renegotiation, I was against it from the start, and Inu and I wrote a pretty critical piece about it at the time. A review is great, we said, let's definitely have reviews, and there are plenty of ways to do that.
08 Apr 2026 5 min read

The Section 301 Surge Continues: Investigating the Adoption/Enforcement/Administration of Forced Labor Import Bans

This Section 301 investigation intends to pressure all sixty named trade partners (even, inexplicably, including Canada and Mexico) to adopt similar enforcement procedures. This announcement is highly problematic for the four reasons I address below.
16 Mar 2026 4 min read

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