It almost goes without saying that it is an egregious violation of the principles of liberal democratic governance that Canada-and the EU, apparently-are keeping the agreed, final text of the CETA a secret.  I can only hope that NGOs somewhere are seeking it through access to information proceedings in both

Having now spoken to several people who have seen the leaked Seals panel report-I still haven't-what appears to be the case is that the panel has upheld the general measure but found some of the exceptions to be violations.  To my mind, this raises a vexing issue concerning

I have noticed  that The Faroe Islands have recently referred the use of threats of coercive economic measures by the European Union, in relation to the Atlanto-Scandian herring, to an arbitral tribunal under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). At the same

The exchanges in the comments on this recent post on national treatment in investment law got me thinking about a more general national treatment point. It's easy to get bogged down in the technicalities of the national treatment obligation, so, if I may, I'd like to

It's my pleasure to bring to your attention the call for application for the WTO Chairs Program. Established in 2010, it is the flagship program by the WTO to promote WTO-related teaching, research and outreach activities in leading universities in the developing world. As a member of the

This is from Canada's "technical summary" of CETA: * Limited GI rights provided to EU on: Asiago, feta, fontina, Gorgonzola and Munster * won’t affect ability of current users of these names in Canada to continue use * future users will be able to use the names only

Back in May, I mentioned some comments by economist Amar Breckenridge on the FIT/Renewable Energy WTO panel report.  Along with a colleague, he has a new piece on the AB report.  Here's an excerpt related to the AB's discussion of market definitions and the existence

If you are wondering what's going on with the Cloves, Tuna, and COOL WTO disputes, Jamie Strawbridge has an ASIL Insight with some details on the implementation status of each.  From the conclusion: If the WTO upholds U.S. compliance steps in some or all of these cases,

From the Canadian government's "Technical Summary" of CETA: Investment protection rules * Strong rules that take into consideration lessons learned from past FTAs and foreign investment promotion and protection agreements * Commitments to treat investors from Canada and the EU fairly and equitably and in non-discriminatory manner * Provisions

I've gotten to know some of the folks at Brussels think tank ECIPE over the past year, and I always enjoy their work.  Here's a new piece from research associate Michal Krol entitled "The Case for an EU-China investment agreement": http://www.ecipe.org/