New Zealand is talking about getting rid of smoking entirely: There are smoke-free bars, smoke-free parks, even smoke-free college campuses. But a smoke-free country? New Zealand's government on Thursday squeezed smokers more than ever by announcing a 40 percent hike in tobacco taxes over

I enjoyed reading the discussions so far related to the latest AB report on Tuna.  Streamlining Tuna with Cloves, in both cases we now have: (1) a finding of discrimination (cloves v. menthols in Cloves; stricter labeling requirements in the ETP v. outside the ETP in Tuna) and (2) a

It is now established in WTO case-law that, apart from certain limited situations, the existence of a  Benefit arising from a financial contribution is based on the comparison between for example the terms of a loan and the market based commercial benchmark for an equivalent loan. It is implicit

Benn McGrady has more details on the US trade in tobacco proposal: through questioning it was possible to get a better sense of what is being proposed. So, this is my (incomplete) understanding of the proposal: 1. There will be some language recognizing the uniquely harmful character of tobacco products.

Call for papers Standard of Review in International Courts and Tribunals Rethinking the Fragmentation and Constitutionalization of International Law 26-27 October 2012 Sponsored by: COST Action IS1003, International Law Between Constitutionalization and Fragmentation http://www.il-cf.eu and University of Seville, Faculty of Law The fragmentation of international

In an amicus brief in the Canada - Renewable Energy case (DS412), several NGOs make the argument for GATT Article XX to be treated as an exception to the SCM Agreement.  Here's an excerpt: 1.3 The reference to ‘this Agreement’ in Article XX does not foreclose its applicability

From USTR: TPP TOBACCO PROPOSAL We are currently consulting with stakeholders and Congress on our draft proposal. Below is a detailed summary of the current draft proposal, which we have prepared in order to facilitate meaningful engagement on its contents. The draft proposal has three elements: • It would explicitly recognize

From today's Tuna decision: 405. To us, it seems that the Panel's decision  to exercise judicial economy rested upon the assumption that the obligations under Article 2.1 of the TBT Agreement and Articles I:1 and III:4 of the GATT 1994 are substantially the

Following up on my post from yesterday, here are a couple quick thoughts on the tuna decision (http://www.worldtradelaw.net/reports/wtoab/us-tunamexico(ab).pdf ). First, the Appellate Body upheld the finding that the measure is a "technical regulation". Second, they reversed the finding of violation

... is coming tomorrow (May 16). It is almost certain to have a lot of interesting things in it. Some possible issues: – Is the measure at issue a technical regulation? And more generally, what exactly is the scope of "technical regulations"?  We have discussed this here on this blog