International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 372)

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Resisting to Lobbying: A Lesson from the WTO system for the Security of Oil Platforms?

One of the profound insight of the political economy of the world trade system is the understanding of the role played by the multilateral system for helping governments to resist the pressure of domestic lobbies. Everybody knows for example that most governments would be unable to cut even partially agricultural

More on National Treatment and Investment Arbitration

Last week I talked about National Treatment in the context of the hearing in the Grand River Enterprises NAFTA Chapter 11 case. Stimulated by re-reading an article by Nicholas DiMascio & Joost Pauwelyn, "Nondiscrimination in Trade and Investment Treaties: Worlds Apart or Two Sides of the Same Coin?"

WTO Dispute Decisions: Coming Soon

People may have noticed a lull in WTO dispute decisions recently. Since the Cotton Subsidies arbitration decisions last August, we have had a grand total of 3 decisions. And two of those were fairly minor: An Article 21.3(c) arbitration and a decision on zeroing where the U.S.

Chatting with USTR about the TPP

As mentioned here, USTR hosted an online chat about the TPP. I was excited to see that they responded to the question I submitted: Simon: What is the likelihood that an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism will be included in the TPP? Is USTR pushing for it to be included? USTR:

The Generic Drug Seizure Complaints

As was widely reported last week, Brazil and India have requested WTO consultations on the generic drug seizures issue. From Ravi Kanth of the Business Standard: India and Brazil raised a trade dispute against the European Union (EU) before the World Trade Organization on Tuesday over seizure of generic drugs

Grand River Enterprises: Discussion of National Treatment at the Hearing

Following up on some previous posts about the NAFTA Chapter 11 Grand River Enterprises dispute, the hearing in the case, held in early February, offered some interesting discussion of the National Treatment issue. Let me first turn to Luke Peterson of the Investment Arbitration Reporter for some background: The individual

Bill Clinton on VAT and Exports

From a recent interview: I think they ought to look at a progressive value-added tax, just because--and I think it's important the American people understand this--most of our competitors have tax systems like this. If you have a value-added tax, you put a little revenue to the collector,

Petitioners' vs. Respondents' Views on Prospective vs. Retrospective Systems

As mentioned a little while back, in the conference report accompanying the 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Public Law: 111-117, the conferees "directed the Secretary of Commerce to work with the Secretaries of the Departments of Homeland Security and the Treasury to conduct an analysis of the relative advantages and

Two Interesting Pieces of Trade Law Scholarship

On SSRN, "Strategic Delaying and Concessions Extraction in Accession Negotiations to the World Trade Organization," by Eric Neumayer: Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), is like no accession to any other international organization. It is extremely

Chat Online with USTR About TPP

From USTR: USTR is ... actively seeking public input on objectives for the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations ahead of the second round of negotiations, which will be held during the week of June 14. As part of USTR’s Schedule of activities for World Trade Week, USTR chief negotiator for the TPP