The recent leak of a U.S. negotiating text related to TISA has caused some concern, in part due to its potential impact on EU data protection and privacy laws. The text can be found here, and is titled "Trade in Services Agreement TISA Proposal, New Provisions Applicable to

With more and, especially, deeper FTAs in place, I predict an uptake in dispute settlement under FTAs. Parties may generally prefer to file their disputes before the WTO. But in some cases they simply have no choice.  The commitment can only be found in an FTA (it is so-called “WTO-plus”

Looking for a young and dynamic colleague to join the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.  International economic law is one of four possible fields of specialization.  Guess which field I am pushing for? This is a really unique opening for someone focused on international trade, investment,

A while back, I wondered what would happen to NAFTA Chapter 19 if the TPP comes into effect.  I can't imagine they would create a TPP equivalent.  But will it get phased out through the TPP, or will that part of the NAFTA be carried over? More significantly,

I'm always hearing about how the TTIP is finally going to address those regulatory trade barriers we have been ignoring all these years.  In general, I'm a bit skeptical: Regulatory trade barriers have been on the agenda of trade negotiations since at least the late 1920s.

Today’s NY Times article (“Solar Rises in Malaysia During Trade Wars Over Panels”) covers a recent solar panel manufacturing boom in Malaysia, due in no small part to the U.S. trade remedies against Chinese solar panels.  The Commerce Department is mulling imposing tariffs on all solar panels “assembled”

Just a quick reminder from the Appellate Body, buried in a footnote in Monday's U.S. - Carbon Steel (India) report, that it still hasn't told us what it thinks of the mandatory/discretionary distinction: 1144 We note that the Appellate Body has "not, as

From a blog post by Google: But sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from

Simon Evenett and Alejandro Jara have a piece at vox criticizing the "settlements" in U.S. - Cotton Subsidies and U.S. - Clove Cigarettes.  Here's an excerpt: During October 2014 two WTO disputes were settled in an extraordinary manner: In both cases the US largely

As we all know, most WTO complaints are successful.  I've got the figures at about 90% for cases in which at least one violation is found. So what happens in those cases where the complaint did not succeed?  What are the various reasons that complaints fail? I can&