There was one point of substance I wanted to mention from the TPP event.  I was talking with two people, one who thought plain packaging of cigarettes violates international IP rules and one thought it does not.  The guy who thought it was a violation made the argument that a

Yesterday, I went to the stakeholders engagement part of the latest TPP negotiating round.  (This is the 14th round of TPP negotiations. How many more will there be?  Another 14?) This was the first time I've attended one of these.  Here are some impressions.  (But don't

For you aspiring young scholars: A prize has been established by the Society of International Economic Law and Cambridge University Press for the best essay submitted on any topic in any field of international economic law. The competition is open to all current undergraduate and graduate students of any university

Seriously.  Well, I don't know how serious it is.  It may just be a PR stunt.  The named defendants are the WTO, USTR Ron Kirk, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and the United States of America. The complaint is here.  An excerpt: plaintiffs seek a declaration that the

For a while now, I've been saying that WTO dispute settlement is all about China.  But in recent months, it has been all about Argentina.  7 of the last 11 consultations requests have involved Argentina.  Let's look briefly at how this all transpired. Back in September

Lorand posted the other day about the South Africa-Israel dispute over labelling of West Bank products.  Sean Woolfrey of Tralac has more here: On August 22, the South African Cabinet released a statement  approving a Department of Trade Industry (DTI) notice requiring South African traders to refrain from labelling

A few weeks ago, I mentioned some discussion by NZ trade minister Tim Groser of sovereignty and international law.  Here's a quote:  "The whole point of international law is to put limits around countries' sovereignty on the basis of negotiated understandings." In a recent speech

As discussed in the last post, Australia successfully defended the domestic challenge to its plain packaging laws.  So what are the prospects for the plain packaging complaints at the WTO and under the Australia-Hong Kong BIT?  Some experts weigh in. At Lawyers Weekly, Andrew Mitchell says the WTO claims

... in domestic court anyway.  From The Guardian: Australia's highest court has endorsed cigarette plain-packaging laws that will force tobacco companies to remove branding from their products. Tobacco companies British American Tobacco, Britain's Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco challenged the laws in Australia'