Finally, a happy ending!  The Bali package has been delivered after a couple of serious last-minute hiccups, such as here and here.  Concededly, the Bali package is subject to the typical half-full/half-empty evaluation.  True, the Bali Ministerial Conference was originally designed to be sort of “rescue exercise” even at

From the EC - Seal Products panel report: 7.292. The European Union points out that the protection of the economic and social interests of Inuit or indigenous communities is recognized at the international level as illustrated, for example, in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

From the Guardian: Australia has finished negotiations for a free trade agreement with South Korea, paving the way to reduce and scrap tariffs on key exports, the prime minister says. The proposed deal includes a controversial investor-state dispute settlement mechanism – but the government says it has secured safeguards to ensure

The longest trade round ever is now facing its Hamletian moment.  The hard-won optimism under the new WTO leadership has recently evaporated as a thorny issue of food security remains contested.  To most observers of the Doha round, the current stalemate is a frustrating déjà vu.  We were in this

From the Washington Post: The British government has taken the unusual step of filing a brief in a Texas federal court in support of BP in its quest to get the Environmental Protection Agency to lift a ban on the British oil firm’s ability to bid for federal contracts,

I don't know what's going to happen at the Bali Ministerial this week. I'm not very good at predicting these things.  But whatever happens, I probably won't be all that excited one way or the other.  That's because the issues

A few quick comments on the run about the Seals panel decision, focussing only on the non-discrimination claims for now: -       As to the TBT 2.1 claim, and specifically the IC exception, it’s worth noting that, despite the result, the Europeans got most of what they argued for

Here's more from that Commission document mentioned in the last post: In order to discourage 'long shot' and frivolous claims by investors, the EU has agreed provisions to enable tribunals to dismiss such claims quickly and also to require that all litigation costs are borne by

From a document just released by the European Commission, entitled "A new start for investment and investment protection": 4. What is the EU doing to improve investment protection rules? The Commission’s aim is to bring improvements on two fronts (1) to clarify and improve investment protection rules

A story from Reuters http://reut.rs/1a0As7m has been circulating in the last hours that the blame for the collapse of the WTO talks is almost entirely India's. The theory is that the "electioneering" of the Indian government has led it to reject the peace