I have a short piece in Bridges Africa on the debate about transparency in trade negotiations.  Here's an excerpt: ... we should expect transparency to a greater extent than it currently exists, but it should be transparency of a different kind than trade critics are demanding. In this regard,

Turns out that Hillary Clinton's emails included an interesting trade dispute with Israel under the US-Israel FTA.  Israel had blocked a shipment of Asian carp, as it apparently was permitted to do.  But the US exporters seem to have gotten their way through the lobbying channel.  I

From the Financial Post: As if conditions in Canada’s oilpatch weren’t bad enough, more pain could flow north from Washington, D.C., before the Labour Day long weekend, when President Barack Obama is expected to finally deny a permit to the Keystone XL pipeline. The latest in the

I may be the only non-Canadian following this "free trade under the Canadian constitution" case, but it's really kind of fascinating. Here's a report of some testimony from the hearing: A professor of political history testifying at a hearing over the right to

This is from the Independent: The European Commission has been accused of a cover-up after refusing to release details of talks between its officials and the tobacco industry during negotiations over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty. Corporate lobbying campaigners published documents that revealed the EU’

In response to the recent NAFTA Chapter 11 Bilcon award, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. all made submissions in the ongoing Mesa arbitration, offering their views on the Bilcon reasoning. One issue they all addressed was whether the national treatment standard covers only nationality-based discrimination: * Canada: "As

This is from the U.S. written submission in the COOL DSU Article 22.6 arbitration between the U.S. and Canada (DS384), although Mexico's argument in the parallel DS386 proceeding is referenced too: 118. Both Canada and Mexico's Methodology Papers add to the alleged trade

As we await the TPP conclusion, not to mention the inevitable Donald Trump position paper on trade policy (I'm setting the over/under at 20 WTO violations -- place your bets!), there are some interesting WTO disputes going on. First, there is the COOL retaliation litigation.  Canada asked for

In the debate over the Iran deal among US legislators, high-profile enemies such as New York Senator Charles Schumer attack the Administration's suggestion that the one alternative to this agreement is war-bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.  Such critics hold out that continued or perhaps intensified