International Economic Law and Policy Blog
  • Home
  • About
  • WorldTradeLaw.net
Sign in Subscribe

Let Them Eat Cake? Reflections on the Labor Provisions in the New India-EFTA Agreement

I’ve never understood the expression: they want to have their cake and eat it too. Who on this planet wants to hold onto a piece of cake and not eat it?!? I was at a birthday party this weekend, and my 5-year-old asked me to hold his plate of
Desiree LeClercq 10 Mar 2024 4 min read

Mexico Invokes Public Morals, Exhaustible Natural Resources, Indigenous Peoples Exceptions in GE Corn USMCA Dispute

Mexico's initial written submission in the GE Corn USMCA dispute was recently posted. The English public version is here. There's a lot in there and I'm not going to go through it all in this post. I just thought it was worth noting quickly
Simon Lester 09 Mar 2024 4 min read

Resolving the Biden Administration's Internal Debate on International Digital Rules, and Reengaging in Negotiations

I've already made these points for the trade policy crowd, but I have now tried to make my pitch on a way forward for the Biden administration on international digital trade rules slightly more accessible (i.e., without so many blockquotes of international legal texts!). Below are some
Simon Lester 07 Mar 2024 3 min read

Katherine Tai on USMCA Dispute Settlement and the USMCA Six Year Review

At a Brookings event yesterday, Josh Meltzer of Brookings had some interesting exchanges with U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai on USMCA dispute settlement and the USMCA six year review. Here's the one on dispute settlement: Meltzer: What I'd like to do is ask you a
Simon Lester 07 Mar 2024 8 min read

Conversations at WTO Ministerial Side Events: Subsidy Races and Trade Remedies

As part of the WTO Ministerial Conference last week, there were some side events going on. I was watching one called "Business Forum at MC13" and came across some interesting discussion of subsidy races and trade remedies. The question that kicked off the subsidy race discussion was about
Simon Lester 03 Mar 2024 3 min read

The Role of WTO Case Law in a USMCA RRLM Proceeding

Here is an interesting exchange from last week's hearing in the USMCA San Martín mine labor dispute about the role of WTO case law in interpreting the USMCA provisions at issue: Panelist: Mexico raised the question that the United States has not provided any legal authorities for its
Simon Lester 03 Mar 2024 2 min read

WTO Adverse Effects Complaints vs. Domestic CVD Cases

Subsidies have been in the news a lot recently, as China's subsidies continue to cause concerns, and the Biden administration and others are now increasing their own use of subsidies. In trade policy, the reaction to foreign subsidies tends to be an anti-subsidy (aka, countervailing duty) case carried
Simon Lester 27 Feb 2024 3 min read

The Role of Past Determinations in U.S. DOC Proceedings

In the U.S. - Ripe Olives from Spain, Article 21.5 panel report circulated last week, I was struck by the discussion of the role of previous Commerce Department determinations in deciding future cases, and the obvious parallels to how the ongoing DS reform negotiation are talking about the
Simon Lester 27 Feb 2024 2 min read

IELP Blog Emails

The technical problems on the blog just keep coming. After recently dealing with the RSS feed, I noticed that the emails with recent blog posts (for those of you who read the blog that way) weren't sending properly. I decided to give up on feedblitz as the sender
Simon Lester 26 Feb 2024 1 min read

The AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) governments have been working on the issue of international rules on digital trade. There was recently a leak of a draft Digital Trade Protocol to the AfCFTA Agreement (an earlier draft is here). In this post, I'm going to look at
Simon Lester 22 Feb 2024 4 min read

About

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Expert commentary on the law, politics and economics of international trade and investment

Sign up for email notifications

jamie@example.com
Subscribe

Featured

The Section 301 Forced Labor Import Ban Report

On June 2, 2026, USTR released its report on its Section 301 investigation into acts, policies, and practices of various economies related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.
04 Jun 2026 11 min read

What To Expect from the USMCA Review?

The USMCA review is almost upon us. How exactly things will proceed is a bit unclear, as we've never done this sort of thing before, but July 1 is the six year anniversary of the USMCA's entry into force.
03 Jun 2026 15 min read

China in the World Trading System: A Response to Chad, and Some Comments on Froman-Greer

I'm going to use this post to (1) respond to Chad and (2) comment on an exchange between current U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer and former U.S. Trade Rep. Mike Froman at a recent CFR event.
01 Jun 2026 7 min read

My Response To Simon on China in the World Trading System

Here are two quick reactions to the super important question of what explains why countries did not use WTO dispute settlement to push China to change.
28 May 2026 2 min read

My Questions for Chad on China in the World Trading System

At the Peterson Institute event launching the "How To Win a Trade War" book, Chad said some things about trade relations with China that I found interesting.
26 May 2026 4 min read

Topics

2008 Presidential Election

25 posts

2012 Republican Primary

6 posts

2020 Democratic Primary

22 posts

2020 Presidential Campaign

6 posts

2024 Presidential Campaign

9 posts

2024 Republican Primary

9 posts

Announcements

27 posts

Appellate Body

72 posts

CAFTA

5 posts

CETA

8 posts

Currency Disputes

57 posts

Development

23 posts

Digital Trade

59 posts

Domestic Trade Powers

10 posts

Dormant Commerce Clause

3 posts

DSU 25 Interim Appeals

43 posts

DSU Article 11

13 posts

Economic Integration

8 posts

Economic Statecraft

10 posts

EU-UK Trade Negotiation

5 posts

Exceptions

19 posts

Exchange Rates

6 posts

Export Restrictions

13 posts

Food Aid

5 posts

Foreign Investment

21 posts

FTA Negotiations

13 posts

FTAs - General

22 posts

Gambling Dispute

52 posts

Global Governance

9 posts

Globalization

13 posts

Government Procurement

5 posts

Green Steel Deal

14 posts

IEEPA

9 posts

IEL in Domestic Courts

20 posts

Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

5 posts

Industrial Policy

20 posts

Investor-State Arbitration

93 posts

Jamieson Greer

19 posts

Katherine Tai

66 posts

NAFTA

19 posts

NAFTA Chapter 11

15 posts

NAFTA Chapter 19

5 posts

National Security

38 posts

Non Appeal Pact

3 posts

Non-Discrimination Standards

60 posts

Non-Market Economies

7 posts

Non-Violation Nullification or Impairment

19 posts

Precedent

25 posts

Public Views of Trade

9 posts

Rare Earths

1 post

Robert Lighthizer

18 posts

Russia Trade Sanctions

17 posts

Sanctions

15 posts

Section 301

14 posts

Sovereignty

9 posts

Speech

1 post

SPS/TBT

5 posts

Standards of Review

7 posts

State Enterprises

8 posts

Sub-National Trade Issues

5 posts

Subsidies

83 posts

Tariffs

3 posts

Terms of Trade Manipulation

6 posts

Trade Agreements

21 posts

Trade and Competition

14 posts

Trade and Development

21 posts

Trade and Environment

119 posts

Trade and Health

20 posts

Trade and Human Rights

9 posts

Trade and Income Inequality

1 post

Trade and Intellectual Property

26 posts

Trade and Labor

26 posts

Trade and Peace

4 posts

Trade and Security

35 posts

Trade and the Stock Market

2 posts

Trade Balance

13 posts

Trade in Everything

65 posts

Trade in Services

21 posts

Trade Law and International Law

10 posts

Trade Preferences/GSP

23 posts

Trade Remedies

63 posts

Trans Pacific Partnership

9 posts

Trump Administration

55 posts

U.S. Trade Policy

32 posts

U.S. Trade Politics

60 posts

US-China Trade Relations

28 posts

USMCA

19 posts

USMCA Dispute Settlement

33 posts

USMCA Sunset/Review Clause

24 posts

USTR

16 posts

WTO - General

25 posts

WTO Accessions

8 posts

WTO Disputes

177 posts

WTO DS Reform

13 posts

WTO Jurisprudence

28 posts

WTO Negotiations

30 posts
Powered by Ghost