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CETA Dispute Settlement: Reference to WTO Jurisprudence

From Article 14.10 of the leaked CETA text (page 474): 5. The panel shall interpret the provisions referred to in Article 14.2 in accordance with customary rules of interpretation of public international law, including those set out in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The panel
Simon Lester 15 Aug 2014 1 min read

CETA Text: The Treatment of Water

A fairly recent version of the CETA text has been leaked.  The document date is August 1, 2014.  No doubt there is some legal "scrubbing" still to do, and perhaps some actual negotiating as well, but this text seems pretty advanced, and thus ready for blogging.  I'
Simon Lester 15 Aug 2014 2 min read

Guest Post: Russian Sanctions, Polish Apples and the EU’s Litigation Strategy

This is a guest post from Boris Rigod, who has a Ph.D. from the EUI and is currently a law clerk at the Berlin Regional Court Poland announced its intention to initiate WTO proceedings against Russia over its import prohibition on Polish apples. The ban is Russia’s reaction
Simon Lester 14 Aug 2014 3 min read

A Lost Opportunity: Thoughts on the Result of China’s Appeal in Rare Earths

China lost its appeal in Rare Earths last week. The main issue on appeal: the availability of GATT XX exceptions to paragraph 11.3 of China’s Accession Protocol (AP), which contains China’s WTO-plus commitment to eliminate export duties and does not refer to GATT XX exceptions. This may
Julia Qin 12 Aug 2014 5 min read

Price Tags of WTO Disputes: Big and Small

Chad Brown and Kara Reynolds have released an interesting study on the trade stakes (dollar value) under the WTO dispute settlement system. (“WTO trade disputes, big and small”).  While their data confirms, intuitively, that WTO members are likely to litigate on big ticket items, such as the Boeing-Airbus dispute, the
Sungjoon Cho 11 Aug 2014 1 min read

GATT Article XX an an Exception to the TBT Agreement

I was struck by this sentence from para. 5.56 of yesterday's China - Rare Earths Appellate Body report (made in the context of discussing the relationship between China's Accession Protocol and the Marrakesh Agreement/Multilateral Trade Agreements): Article XX of the GATT 1994 has been
Simon Lester 08 Aug 2014 1 min read

The Russian Food Import Ban under the DSU

From the Washington Post: Russia has aimed its latest cross-Atlantic swing at the American food industry. On Thursday, the country announced the suspension of billions of dollars in food imports from a number of countries — including Norway, Canada, Australia, the United States and the 28-nation European Union — in retaliation for
Simon Lester 08 Aug 2014 2 min read

ISDS in CETA: Some Ideas for a Compromise

The FT reports on how ISDS is holding up the CETA negotiations: The EU struck a political agreement on a trade accord with Ottawa last year but the deal has become mired in negotiations over investors’ rights. Berlin fears that German standards of environmental and consumer protection could be undermined
Simon Lester 05 Aug 2014 2 min read

How the EU Influences WTO Jurisprudence

Following up on my blog post of earlier today, this is from Tilman Krueger: the EU actively contributes to rule development in the WTO also as a litigant in the context of WTO dispute settlement and in addition to its immediate, case-specific interests. Two examples for such behaviour will now
Simon Lester 04 Aug 2014 1 min read

Are the U.S. and EU Dominating Appellate Body "Law-Making"?

Joost raises an important systemic issue in a new paper: This contribution makes an empirical assessment of the role of precedent in WTO dispute settlement. As an imperfect proxy it counts cross-references between the 108 Appellate Body reports issued between 1996 and 2013. Using basic tools of network analysis it
Simon Lester 04 Aug 2014 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Jamieson Greer on the 30 Year Aberration in U.S. Trade Policy

When he was in Davos last week for the World Economic Forum, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer talked a bit about U.S. trade policy history and described a recent period during which, in his view, U.S. trade policy shifted away from tariffs/protectionism and towards free trade.
29 Jan 2026 6 min read

Is this the end of MFN as we know it? The EU submission on WTO reform and the meaning of development

With the release of the EU submission on WTO reform, it has become clear that the MFN principle’s central role within the WTO architecture is under challenge. As a keystone, it risks the entire bridge falling. Even if the foundations are retained but deemed outdated or unusable, and a
23 Jan 2026 3 min read

Can "Geopolitical" Tariffs Be Dealt With through Trade Deals?

Last Friday, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer was asked about Trump's initial suggestion of tariffs related to the goal of taking over Greenland
20 Jan 2026 4 min read

Is Foreign Antitrust Enforcement "Discriminatory" and "Anti-American"?

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust held a hearing in December on "Anti-American Antitrust: How Foreign Governments Target U.S. Businesses." There was a lot of talk at the hearing about how foreign regulations and regulators "discriminate" against American companies.
05 Jan 2026 5 min read

Pennsylvania Court Finds Mexican Government Guilty of "Discrimination" Due To Its Subsidies

I'm always interested in how courts apply the concept of "discrimination" in the context of international trade, so I've been eagerly awaiting a Pennsylvania court decision in a case against Mexico.
12 Dec 2025 8 min read

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