International Economic Law and Policy Blog
  • Home
  • About
  • WorldTradeLaw.net
Sign in Subscribe

Does Plain Packaging Work?

Whether plain packaging is effective at discouraging smoking could be an important issue in the WTO plain packaging dispute.  What does the evidence show?  Not surprisingly, there is some disagreement. On the "it works" side, there's this: Australia’s landmark cigarette legislation banning logos and putting
Simon Lester 12 Jun 2014 2 min read

GATT Consistency of a Commercial Fishing Ban

For you law professors out there searching for a good exam question, take a look at this fact pattern from an Economist article: IN PALAU, the traditional prescription for an ailing reef is a fishing ban called a bul. Local chiefs may declare a bul to rest a busy fishing
Simon Lester 10 Jun 2014 2 min read

Fun With Plain Packaging

A while back, I was thinking about the Australian plain packaging law, and it occurred to me that people were saying "plain package" and "cigarettes" together quite a lot, and the terms are now associated closely with one another.  With that in mind, wouldn't
Simon Lester 06 Jun 2014 1 min read

The Next WTO Moot Court Case

Many of you have been involved in some capacity in the ELSA WTO Moot Court competition. It may have occurred to you that it would be fun to write up a case that would drive students completely nuts teach students a lot about WTO law.  If so, here's
Simon Lester 06 Jun 2014 2 min read

WTO Seals: migrating from this blog to ASIL Inisghts

ASIL Insights has just posted a preliminary assessment of the AB ruling in Seals co-authored by Jo Langille, Katie Sykes and me.bit.ly/1uiYXcx The exchanges on this blog were very helpful to us in the deliberations that led to our joint piece.  So many thanks to Simon, our
Rob Howse 04 Jun 2014 2 min read

Are the WTO “Teeth” Working?

Maybe.  Here go some excerpts from a recent report by the U.S. House Appropriations Committee.      Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL).—The Committee is aware that the governments of Canada and Mexico have challenged a final rule published in the Federal Register on May 24, 2013, (78 Fed. Reg.
Sungjoon Cho 03 Jun 2014 1 min read

More on the ECJ's "Right to be Forgotten" as a Trade Barrier

From a recent op-ed: This month’s bombshell decision from the European Court of Justice pronouncing a “right to be forgotten” on the Internet was couched as a principled stand for digital privacy. Looking closer, however, one could see a double standard at work: The enormously expensive effects of the
Simon Lester 03 Jun 2014 2 min read

The Relationship between China’s Protocol of Accession and the GATT 1994: China – Rare Earths and the Incorporation Theory ― Off with its Head! (Part 1)

by André de Hoogh, cross-posted from the GUILD-blog Introduction Last March, a WTO panel issued its report on a dispute between the European Union, the United States and Japan on the one hand and China on the other concerning export duties imposed on certain rare earths, tungsten and molebdynum (here
Simon Lester 02 Jun 2014 8 min read

ISDS Forum

For those of you who could not attend, here's the video of our ISDS policy forum at Cato: http://www.cato.org/events/investor-state-dispute-settlement-mechanism-examination-benefits-costs I think we had a pretty good back and forth, with reasonable people on all sides. My favorite part, though, was Lori Wallach of
Simon Lester 02 Jun 2014 1 min read

What Did the AB Mean in Seal Products?

We've had some good discussions of the Seal Products AB report here on this blog over the past week or so.  There are definitely some differences of opinion as to what the AB meant in relation to the GATT non-discrimination obligations.  When will we get some clarification? It
Simon Lester 02 Jun 2014 1 min read

About

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Expert commentary on the law, politics and economics of international trade and investment

Sign up for email notifications

[email protected]
Subscribe

Featured

The Section 301 Surge Continues: Investigating the Adoption/Enforcement/Administration of Forced Labor Import Bans

This Section 301 investigation intends to pressure all sixty named trade partners (even, inexplicably, including Canada and Mexico) to adopt similar enforcement procedures. This announcement is highly problematic for the four reasons I address below.
16 Mar 2026 4 min read

The Section 301 Surge Is Upon Us: Investigating Excess Capacity and Production

The first of a large batch of expected Section 301 investigations has arrived, as USTR announced yesterday that it was initiating investigations on acts, policies, and practices of various countries/economies "relating to structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors."
12 Mar 2026 3 min read

Debunking the "Hyperglobalization" Trade Policy Myth

Policy is often shaped by narratives, and recently there has been a bipartisan effort to create a narrative that, starting in the early 1990s, globalization and free trade went too far.
03 Mar 2026 8 min read

Guest Post: Are President Trump’s New Section 122 Tariffs Legal?

This is a guest post from Bryan Riley and Joe Bishop-Henchman. Bryan is Director of the Free Trade Initiative at the National Taxpayers Union; Joe is Executive Vice President at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation President Trump has issued new 10% tariffs, shortly after raised to 15%, based on Section
24 Feb 2026 6 min read

Section 122 as a (Partial) Replacement for the IEEPA Tariffs

Apparently, this is the era of dusting off old international economic policy statutes and figuring out what they mean and how they work. After the Supreme Court's ruling today in Learning Resources, holding that "IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs," we are now
20 Feb 2026 5 min read

Topics

2008 Presidential Election

25 posts

2012 Republican Primary

6 posts

2020 Democratic Primary

22 posts

2020 Presidential Campaign

6 posts

2024 Presidential Campaign

9 posts

2024 Republican Primary

9 posts

Announcements

27 posts

Appellate Body

72 posts

CAFTA

5 posts

CETA

8 posts

Currency Disputes

57 posts

Development

23 posts

Digital Trade

57 posts

Domestic Trade Powers

10 posts

Dormant Commerce Clause

3 posts

DSU 25 Interim Appeals

43 posts

DSU Article 11

13 posts

Economic Integration

8 posts

Economic Statecraft

9 posts

EU-UK Trade Negotiation

5 posts

Exceptions

19 posts

Exchange Rates

6 posts

Export Restrictions

13 posts

Food Aid

5 posts

Foreign Investment

21 posts

FTA Negotiations

13 posts

FTAs - General

22 posts

Gambling Dispute

52 posts

Global Governance

9 posts

Globalization

13 posts

Government Procurement

5 posts

Green Steel Deal

14 posts

IEEPA

9 posts

IEL in Domestic Courts

20 posts

Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

5 posts

Industrial Policy

19 posts

Investor-State Arbitration

93 posts

Jamieson Greer

16 posts

Katherine Tai

66 posts

NAFTA

19 posts

NAFTA Chapter 11

15 posts

NAFTA Chapter 19

5 posts

National Security

38 posts

Non Appeal Pact

3 posts

Non-Discrimination Standards

59 posts

Non-Market Economies

6 posts

Non-Violation Nullification or Impairment

19 posts

Precedent

25 posts

Public Views of Trade

9 posts

Rare Earths

1 post

Robert Lighthizer

17 posts

Russia Trade Sanctions

17 posts

Sanctions

15 posts

Section 301

2 posts

Sovereignty

9 posts

Speech

1 post

SPS/TBT

5 posts

Standards of Review

7 posts

State Enterprises

7 posts

Sub-National Trade Issues

5 posts

Subsidies

83 posts

Tariffs

3 posts

Terms of Trade Manipulation

6 posts

Trade Agreements

20 posts

Trade and Competition

14 posts

Trade and Development

21 posts

Trade and Environment

117 posts

Trade and Health

20 posts

Trade and Human Rights

9 posts

Trade and Income Inequality

1 post

Trade and Intellectual Property

26 posts

Trade and Labor

25 posts

Trade and Peace

4 posts

Trade and Security

35 posts

Trade and the Stock Market

2 posts

Trade Balance

11 posts

Trade in Everything

65 posts

Trade in Services

21 posts

Trade Law and International Law

10 posts

Trade Preferences/GSP

23 posts

Trade Remedies

62 posts

Trans Pacific Partnership

8 posts

Trump Administration

53 posts

U.S. Trade Policy

32 posts

U.S. Trade Politics

60 posts

US-China Trade Relations

26 posts

USMCA

19 posts

USMCA Dispute Settlement

33 posts

USMCA Sunset/Review Clause

18 posts

USTR

16 posts

WTO - General

25 posts

WTO Accessions

8 posts

WTO Disputes

175 posts

WTO DS Reform

13 posts

WTO Jurisprudence

28 posts

WTO Negotiations

30 posts
Powered by Ghost