I was watching the Senate Finance Committee markup of the TPA bill last night -- I really enjoy the "voice votes," where they all speak as loudly as they can! -- and I was struck by an exchange between Senator Sherrod Brown and USTR General Counsel Tim Reif.  Brown was

Last year, I mentioned a puzzling provision on "sovereignty" in the TPA bill introduced in the Senate.  This year's Senate TPA Bill has the same provision, but I'm going to highlight a different aspect: SEC. 8. SOVEREIGNTY. ... (c) DISPUTE SETTLEMENT REPORTS.—Reports, including findings

From some economists: Recent decades have witnessed two major trends in international trade. First, technological progress and falling trade barriers have led to the emergence of global value chains and to a surge in international trade in intermediate goods. Second, there has been a proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs)

Here's the conclusion of the paper by Arwel Davies that I mentioned a while back: The advice for Treaty drafters is that there is some scope for clarifying the TNLF [treatment no less favourable] standard, to the extent that phrases such as ‘no less favourable than the most

This is from a paper about WTO dispute settlement published on the ICTSD website as part of the E15 process: there is evidence that the existing ... perception that claims under Article 2.2 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) are extremely difficult to win is having

This is from Pierre Sauvé and Marta Soprana: The ASCM, like the Uruguay Round of which it formed a part, was quite clearly the byproduct of a peculiar, “end of history” moment. It is doubtful that such disciplines could easily be replicated today given the vastly more questioning attitudes that

This is from the Tuna 21.5 WTO panel report: 7.448. Before concluding, the Panel must deal with the United States' argument that with regard to the access to the dolphin-safe label, no tuna product of a Member has a right to the label. The United States

This is from the Tuna 21.5 WTO panel report: 7.466. Before concluding, we note that in its second written submission, Mexico argues that what it considers to be the United States' unilateral action in designing and applying the dolphin-safe labelling conditions and requirements of the amended

From the University of Oslo: The 11th Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law (Oslo, September 10-12, 2015) will be hosted by the University of Oslo’s PluriCourts Center on the Legitimate Roles on the Judiciary in the Global Order. The conference is entitled “The Judicialization of

I was struck by this paragraph of the WTO panel report in the Article 21.5 tuna case: 7.197. ... Mexico appears to accept that, as the Appellate Body found, the system currently in place in the ETP fully addresses the risks posed to dolphins by setting on dolphins in