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ISDS as a Way to Avoid Unfair Domestic Courts

This is from Freya Baetans, writing in response to Poulsen, Bonnitcha, and Yackee: one type of risk that is certainly present in several EU member states relates to the possibility of not being granted a fair trial before a domestic court. According to a recent country ranking of ‘judicial independence’
Simon Lester 19 Mar 2015 1 min read

Will Plain Packaging Spread to Other Products?

This is from Inside U.S. Trade: Indonesia’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organization Iman Pambagyo last week signaled that a win for an Australian law requiring plain packaging of cigarettes as an anti-smoking measure could lead his country to introduce a similar measure for alcoholic beverages. ... No law
Simon Lester 19 Mar 2015 1 min read

italaw.com Looking for Editors

From Andrew Newcombe: Dear Colleagues In the coming days you will see that italaw.com has been redesigned.   In addition to a more contemporary look, over the coming months I am planning to expand site content to include different types of international investment law cases.  With the support of Investor-State
Simon Lester 19 Mar 2015 1 min read

Tie Votes at the ITC

One of the claims in the the latest WTO complaint, brought by Indonesia against a U.S. AD/CVD measure, is the following: The United States' imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders appears to be inconsistent with at least the following provisions of WTO law: ... With respect to
Simon Lester 17 Mar 2015 2 min read

International Investment Obligations in Domestic Law

Here's more from the ISDS in TTIP debate between Lauge Poulsen, Jonathan Bonnitcha, Jason Yackee, on one side, and Freya Baetans, on the other. Poulsen, Bonnitcha, and Yackee say the following: While the high quality of the US judicial system (and US laws) concerning foreign investors is beyond
Simon Lester 17 Mar 2015 3 min read

ISDS as Good Governance

There's a good back and forth on ISDS in TTIP between Lauge Poulsen, Jonathan Bonnitcha, Jason Yackee, on one side, and Freya Baetans, on the other.  I'm going to get 4 or 5 blog posts out of all this! I'll start with something from
Simon Lester 16 Mar 2015 2 min read

Can ISDS Serve as an International Antitrust Court?

This is from three well-known labor economists, writing in support of the TPP: If passed, the TPP also would create a powerful template for future trade deals, including with China, which would move the U.S. closer to resolving conflicts the WTO has been unable to handle. Consider, for example,
Simon Lester 15 Mar 2015 1 min read

A New Structure for Appellate Body Reports

The Appellate Body has announced a change related to how it approaches summaries of parties' arguments in its reports: The Appellate Body intends to continue the practice of asking participants in appeals to submit executive summaries of their written submissions. The deadlines for filing such summaries will also remain
Simon Lester 15 Mar 2015 2 min read

More on a TPP Secretariat

Continuing with the theme of issues I think are interesting, but few people are talking about, let me raise again the question of whether there should be a TPP Secretariat. This is from Deborah Elms: The TPP requires a robust Secretariat to ensure the long-term health and success of this
Simon Lester 12 Mar 2015 3 min read

More on That Interesting Debate

In the comments on that last post, Marc Benitah asked why I thought this was such an important debate. I had been planning to explain this anyway, so I'm glad he asked. I think the distinction between "protectionism" and "terms of trade manipulation," as
Simon Lester 10 Mar 2015 2 min read

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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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