From USTR: Today, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that the United States is requesting that the European Union (EU) enter into consultations regarding the notification it made on December 1, 2011, claiming to have fully complied with the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that subsidization of Airbus aircraft

The RDC v. Guatemala ICSID hearing can be viewed online here for the next couple days. Luke Peterson explains the facts: In 1997 RDC won a tender to operate Guatemala’s newly-privatized national railway. A concession agreement concluded with RDC’s local affiliate, Ferrovias Guatemala (FVG),  required FVG to

Here's an excerpt from an article by economist Mark Perry, arguing that Chinese currency manipulation is good for Americans: 1. China's currency manipulation is a form of foreign aid, and to the direct advantage of millions of U.S. consumers, especially low-income groups, and to

The last two posts deal with the issue of China's non-market economy status under WTO rules.  I've been reluctant to weigh in on this, as there is a lot I don't know about the issue.  So, instead of taking a position, let me

I've been asked by a colleague to comment on this post by Bernard O’Connor at VoxEU. In the post, he claims that the view that China will automatically get market economy status (MES) after 2016 is "an urban myth that seems to have gone global. It

Over at vox, trade lawyer Bernard O'Connor argues that the end of China's NME status might be further off than many people think: There is nothing in the WTO rules, or elsewhere, to provide that China automatically gets market-economy status in 2016. The idea that

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

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