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

Getting Around The Clove Cigarette Ban

I had been wondering if Indonesia would go forward with a WTO complaint against the U.S. ban on clove cigarettes, but had not heard anything.  Perhaps this is why: A few weeks ago ... clove cigarettes were banned in the U.S. on the grounds that their fragrance is a
Simon Lester 28 Oct 2009 1 min read

Two PPM Issues

For those of you who get excited about PPMs (process and production methods), on one side or the other, I just came across two such issues. 1.  In a policy paper about sustainability standards for biofuel products, economists Harry de Gorter and David R. Just make the following point: 28.
Simon Lester 27 Oct 2009 2 min read

Director of Legal Affairs at the WTO

I did a recent post about a job opening at the Advisory Centre on WTO Law, in which I said that these opportunities don't come along very often, so anyone who might possibly be interested should apply.  Well, here's another job just like that: The Secretariat
Simon Lester 26 Oct 2009 3 min read

Trade Versus the Environment: Local Content Requirements for Solar Energy

From thestar.com: The new Ontario requirement that grid-connected solar projects include a minimum amount of local content is causing a stir in Germany, where manufacturers say Canada is breaching its obligations to the World Trade Organization.... The new rules, which went into effect Oct. 1, require that small rooftop
Simon Lester 25 Oct 2009 1 min read

Krugman: "Something must be done about China’s currency"

First he explains: The value of China’s currency, unlike, say, the value of the British pound, isn’t determined by supply and demand. Instead, Chinese authorities enforced that target by buying or selling their currency in the foreign exchange market ...And then he complains:U.S. officials have been
Simon Lester 25 Oct 2009 2 min read

Trade in Everything: Cuban Rum to the United States

Maybe some day soon: Cuba is ready to ship 1 million cases of rum to America if Washington eases its 47-year-old embargo, but would hold off exporting its flagship Havana Club brand because of U.S. trademark battles, one of the island's top rum executives said Wednesday....Cuban
Simon Lester 22 Oct 2009 1 min read

Is That It For Section 421?

Reuters reports: The United States is pressing China to change policies that overfuel its exports and led to President Barack Obama slapping duties on Chinese-made tires last month, a U.S. trade official said on Thursday. "We have been engaging them in a dialogue in a way to address
Simon Lester 22 Oct 2009 1 min read

The FT on Excluding Sri Lanka from GSP Plus

From an FT editorial on the EU's likely decision to exclude Sri Lanka from its GSP Plus trade preference program: Using trade as a strategic tool makes the global trading system hostage to endless political posturing and negotiating games. Governments should grant trade preferences on simple, fair criteria,
Simon Lester 21 Oct 2009 1 min read

ELSA WTO Moot Court - North America Round

The ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law North American Regional RoundMarch 18-20, 2010Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa       The ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law is an international moot court competition on WTO dispute settlement organized by the European Law Students Association which includes teams of students around
Simon Lester 21 Oct 2009 1 min read

Trade Remedy Trends: Onward and Upward

From Chad Bown, formerly at Brandeis, but now at the World Bank: * Industry demands for these new import barriers continued to increase in the third quarter 2009 above and beyond the sharp increase that began in 2008 with the global spread of the financial crisis. Compared to the same time
Simon Lester 21 Oct 2009 1 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

[email protected]
Subscribe

Featured

Is There No Going Back on Trade? What Is the Path Forward? A Response to Lighthizer

Former U.S. Trade Rep. Bob Lighthizer has a new essay in Foreign Affairs, and I have some thoughts. I'm going to start with his brief big picture points on the direction of U.S. trade policy, and then go through a couple of the specific concepts he emphasizes.
27 Apr 2026 6 min read

The Section 301 Excess Capacity Investigation Needs Less Madness, More Method

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled President Trump’s emergency tariffs under IEEPA  unconstitutional, the administration scrambled to rebuild its tariff wall. While the announcement of Section 122 tariffs immediately following the ruling will provide a temporary patch, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office quickly began to utilize another
24 Apr 2026 6 min read

War Tariffs

This is a co-authored post by Kathleen Claussen and Tim Meyer. Last week, President Trump announced that the United States would be imposing new tariffs of 50 percent of the value of any product coming from any country that sells weapons or provides military aid to Iran. Some commentators questioned
14 Apr 2026 5 min read

USMCA Review and Extension Predictions

When the idea of an expiration clause was suggested during the NAFTA renegotiation, I was against it from the start, and Inu and I wrote a pretty critical piece about it at the time. A review is great, we said, let's definitely have reviews, and there are plenty of ways to do that.
08 Apr 2026 5 min read

The Section 301 Surge Continues: Investigating the Adoption/Enforcement/Administration of Forced Labor Import Bans

This Section 301 investigation intends to pressure all sixty named trade partners (even, inexplicably, including Canada and Mexico) to adopt similar enforcement procedures. This announcement is highly problematic for the four reasons I address below.
16 Mar 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

19 posts

Investor-State Arbitration

93 posts

Jamieson Greer

17 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

6 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

12 posts

Sovereignty

9 posts

Speech

1 post

SPS/TBT

5 posts

Standards of Review

7 posts

State Enterprises

7 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

118 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

25 posts

Trade and Peace

4 posts

Trade and Security

35 posts

Trade and the Stock Market

2 posts

Trade Balance

11 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

8 posts

Trump Administration

53 posts

U.S. Trade Policy

32 posts

U.S. Trade Politics

60 posts

US-China Trade Relations

27 posts

USMCA

19 posts

USMCA Dispute Settlement

33 posts

USMCA Sunset/Review Clause

22 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