Having observed critics of trade agreements for around 20 years now, I've often wondered about their precise views. It's clear they don't like trade agreements, but what exactly do they want to see from the trade regime? Some of them are almost certainly protectionists,

When I think of GSP conditionality, normally I think of conditions by which the GSP program is designed to change an existing situation in a recipient country (e.g., labor rights violations).  But what if the program itself leads to the problem situation?  From Sara Núñez Évora, this is a

From the University of Oslo Faculty of Law: Up to five 3 year postdoctoral fellowships are available at PluriCourts, a Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order, a multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence at the Faculty of Law, Department of Public and International

From the Kluwer Arbitration blog, there is an interesting challenge going on relating to the role of assistance provided to an international arbitration tribunal: The Russian Federation argues that the arbitrators delegated substantive responsibilities to the Tribunal’s assistant and thus breached their mandate to perform their duties personally. Therefore,

More plain packaging laws: Ireland has became the  second country in the world to pass a law introducing mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products ... and more plain packaging litigation? The move has been met with fierce opposition by tobacco companies who have threatened Dublin with legal action. ... Earlier this month

From Reuters: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott backed plans on Thursday to introduce country-of-origin labeling in the wake of a hepatitis A outbreak, potentially risking contravention of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. With 18 confirmed cases of hepatitis A linked to consumption of berries sold by Patties Foods

In the context of the plain packaging dispute at the WTO, Dominican Republic's Ambassador to the WTO,  Luis Manuel Piantini, said this: "One of the fundamental principles of the WTO is that Members should regulate in the least-restrictive way." Is this one of the fundamental

Trade, Law and Development has issued a call for submissions for its Winter 2015 issue: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Winter '15 The Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development [TL&D] is pleased to invite original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the Winter ‘15 Issue of the Journal

The other day I mentioned a Journal of World Trade article of mine on domestic tobacco regulation, international trade law, and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).  I'm going to give a bullet point summary here.  Some of the points will be uncontroversial; others are bound to

CALL FOR PROPOSALS Canadian Council on International Law, 44th Annual Conference International Law: Coherence or Chaos?  Ottawa, Canada, November 5-7, 2015  I.                   Theme The needs of an increasingly interconnected and functionally diversified society have radically transformed the international legal order. Early 20th-century accounts conceived of the international system