International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 319)

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Trade in Everything: Turkey Tails

This Bloomberg article talks about the difficulties certain Pacific nations have had with taking measures to restrict imports of unhealthy food, without violating WTO rules. The focus is on Samoa's accession committments related to imports of turkey tails: After a 13-year wait, the South Pacific island nation of

The PMI Plain Packaging BIT Claim

The Notification of Claim in the Philip Morris/Plain Packaging BIT claim is available from Australia DFAT here: http://www.dfat.gov.au/foi/downloads/dfat-foi-11-20550.pdf Here's an excerpt: (b) Specific contraventions of the Hong Kong-Australia BIT 44. The effect of plain packaging leglslalion, and for the

Video Interviews of the Birth of the WTO etc.

Just a heads up about a very interesting on-going project that Gabrielle Marceau is working on. http://www.youtube.com/thewtocreation . As described at the website itself: This project began as a tribute to Ambassador Paul Trân Van Thinh on the occasion of his 80th birthday. We set out to

The Latest Global Trade Alert Rankings

From Simon Evenett and Global Trade Alert, here is some data on who has been most protectonist recently: Which countries have inflicted the most harm? Certain emerging markets and European nations

Romney and Huntsman Debate the Nuances of WTO Law

Well, sort of. It's more detail on WTO law than one usually gets from politicians, at least. Here's something from a recent debate: Scott Pelley: That's time, Governor. But I would like to ask you a follow-up on that point. You-- you talked about

Van Harten on Investor-State Reform

In a paper posted on SSRN, law prof Gus Van Harten proposes some investor-state reforms: In border and trade talks with the US and the European Union, Canada should seek to improve the institutional framework of investor-state arbitration. As it happens, one of the best models appears to be a

New Appellate Body Members

The WTO press release is here: The WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) appointed on 18 November 2011 the following two new members to the seven-member Appellate Body: Messrs Ujal Singh Bhatia of India and Thomas R. Graham of the United States for four years commencing on 11 December 2011. Messrs

Investor State in the KORUS FTA

My knowledge of Korean politics is pretty limited, so I wasn't sure what to make of this: President Lee Myung-bak told members of the ruling and opposition party leadership Tuesday that if the National Assembly asked him for renegotiations on the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement’s

More Talk about Tobacco at the TBT Committee

From a recent TBT Committee meeting: Tobacco: Australia’s plain packaging This issue attracted the most attention in this meeting even though it had already been discussed at length in the June meeting. Because it affects trademarks it has also been discussed in the Council for Trade Related Aspects of

A TPP Poll

I have had long doubts as to whether the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will ever be completed. Too many countries, too many issues. With Japan now talking about joining, I'm even more skeptical. But hey, what do I know? Let me ask others what they think with