From The Economist: California has been worrying about “runaway production” since 1998, when Canada began luring producers and their crews away from Los Angeles with tax breaks. Other places followed, and all but seven American states and territories and 24 other countries now offer, or are preparing to offer, rebates,

The discussion is nicely leading to the next question: what other international rules are relevant to trade in natural resources and how do they relate to WTO rules? a.    do regional agreements have any specific rules that could be relevant at the multilateral level? b.    how about international commodity agreements?

Related to the issues we have been discussing on this Blog: what are the most important gaps in the rules with respect to trade in these sectors?   This question already assumes that there are gaps in the rules, which is probably a defensible assumption. Many issues come to mind here,

The WTO Secretariat is currently preparing the World Trade Report 2010. This year's topic is trade in natural resources, covering fuels, mining, fish, and forestry. Further information about the WTR is provided at: http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/wtr10_ruta_e.htm.    The WTO

The answer is simple: bring in a new set of bean-counters (sometimes from a different country). This is essentially what the MOFCOM of China and DOC of US did in their new “Report on the Statistical Discrepancy of Merchandise Trade Between the United States and China ”, which was issued