I'm intrigued by the measure at issue in the California Dormant Commerce Clause case I mentioned the other day. If I understand it correctly, based on the complaint, here's how thing went.  First, the California voters passed a referendum requiring that egg producers in California use

From a letter written by a group of U.S. Senators: Dear Secretary Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Froman: We commend your past work to fight the growing geographical indication (GI) restrictions promoted by the European Union (EU). This trade barrier is of great concern to dairy and other

From the Washington Post: Americans rely on cheap chicken and eggs, the products of super-sizing livestock operations while squeezing costs. Farmers pack animals into tiny, crowded and dank pens, leaving hens with scarce room to extend their wings, let alone move around. There is a balance to be struck

This is from the U.S. third party submission in EC - Seal Products: 7. ... Article 2.1 of the TBT Agreement requires a two-step analysis: (1) whether the challenged technical regulation creates a detrimental impact on imports of like products; and (2) whether the detrimental impact stems exclusively from

This is from Jeff Schott of the Peterson Institute: Consideration should be given to invoking GATT Article XXI, which provides exceptions for national security reasons from rights and obligations under the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example. Invoking this WTO exception would allow across-the-board actions against Russia without

While I was hanging out at the ELSA WTO Moot Court All-American regional round at AU law school yesterday, a DC trade lawyer said something interesting: Switzerland almost never participates in WTO disputes, even as a third party.  That sounded familiar, but I thought I'd look up

Gary Hufbauer and Sherry Stephenson propose the following mutilateral investment agreement: ... Following its achievements at the 9th Ministerial Conference in Bali, Indonesia, the World Trade Organization (WTO) should launch negotiations to draft a 21st century Investment Framework Agreement (IFA). ... The IFA should start life as a plurilateral agreement. While the

From the Washington Post: After a blowout at its Macondo exploration well killed 11 workers, set fire to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and triggered a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a contrite BP vowed to “make things right” and set aside $42.5 billion to do

In recent years, two of the hottest trade issues have been plain packaging of cigarettes, and trade with China. What if we could combine the two? This is from the Economist: Planners have consolidated the once-fragmented [Chinese tobacco] industry. In the decade to 2010, 185 cigarette firms and 1,