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Free Trade under the Canadian Constitution

Just recently, I wondered why Canada needs an Agreement on Internal Trade.  Doesn't, or at least shouldn't, its constitution provide for internal free trade?  Well, it appears that someone has decided to push this issue in Canadian courts: A man whose drive from New Brunswick to
Simon Lester 26 Jul 2015 1 min read

UNSW Post-Doc Fellowship

This is from the University of New South Wales (UNSW): The CIBEL (China International Business and Economic Law) Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship is an opportunity for early career researchers of exceptional calibre who have completed their doctorate (PhD or SJD) in the last five years to undertake research in a CIBEL
Simon Lester 26 Jul 2015 1 min read

Computer software, video game consoles, printer ink cartridges, GPS devices, MRI machines and next generation semiconductors

These are some of new information technology (IT) products covered by the newly struck expanded version of the WTO IT Agreement.  This is what the WTO head said:  “Annual trade in these 201 products is valued at over $1.3 trillion per year, and accounts for approximately 7% of total
Sungjoon Cho 24 Jul 2015 1 min read

COOL Down Under

Australia will have mandatory country of origin labelling for food soon: Australia will introduce mandatory country-of-origin food labeling from 2016, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Tuesday, a move given impetus by a hepatitis outbreak earlier in the year blamed on contaminated berries from China. Under the new rules, food
Simon Lester 22 Jul 2015 1 min read

The "Right to Regulate"

It should be obvious to long-time readers that I am concerned about policy space and regulatory autonomy under trade and investment agreements.  However, I have doubts that the "right to regulate" is a good way to describe the issue: Talk of "rights" can be unproductive when
Simon Lester 21 Jul 2015 1 min read

Person to Government Dispute Settlement in Canada

This is from Canada's Premiers (a group made up of Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial Premiers.) Premiers also announced the coming into force of an improved Person-to-Government dispute settlement process under the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT). The new dispute process includes the introduction of monetary penalties
Simon Lester 21 Jul 2015 1 min read

Trade Polling: Americans Don't Think Trade Matters Much

Based on some recent polling, neither Americans in general, nor various scholars, think the TPP or TTIP matters much, at least to them personally: and:
Simon Lester 20 Jul 2015 1 min read

GATT Article XX: The Chapeau vs. the Sub-Paragraphs

This is from Lorand Bartels, in the latest AJIL: The Chapeau of the General Exceptions in the WTO GATT and GATS Agreements: A Reconstruction ... Conclusions This article argues that the Appellate Body has misunderstood the chapeau and that, in particular, there is no analytic, structural, or even thematic difference between
Simon Lester 20 Jul 2015 1 min read

Water Pricing and Subsidies

Let's say California is experiencing a serious drought. And let's say companies are bottling and selling municipal water from California. And let's say that the price set by the government for the purchase of this water is low enough that it contributes to consumption
Simon Lester 17 Jul 2015 1 min read

Tie Votes at the ITC and WTO

This is from Inside US Trade: In Tie Vote, ITC Find U.S. Producers Are Injured By Chinese Tire Imports In a victory for the United Steelworkers (USW) union, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Tuesday (July 14) issued a final determination that domestic tire producers are being
Simon Lester 17 Jul 2015 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Could Congress Extend the USMCA for Another Term?

People have been assuming that the decision on whether to extend the USMCA for another term is up to President Trump, but based on the language of the USMCA related to the upcoming joint review, could Congress actually have the power to make this decision on its own?
04 May 2026 4 min read

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

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