International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 402)

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The Bananas Deal

From Reuters: During a meeting of trade ministers in July 2008 seeking a breakthrough in the Doha round, Brussels and the Latin Americans negotiated a deal that would cut the tariff to $114 a tonne by 2016, with an initial cut to $148. Brussels walked away from that agreement when

The Byrd Amendment: Not Dead Yet

But it won't last much longer: La-Z-Boy has received $3 million from the U.S. government in antidumping duties and will report the income on its fiscal third quarter statement, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. La-Z-Boy is

Trade in Everything: Nuclear Waste

From the AP: The House on Wednesday passed a bill banning the importation of radioactive waste for disposal in the United States. The move was prompted by a Salt Lake City company's plan to import 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italian nuclear plants. The

The EU Is Finally The EU

Follow this link and see the box on the right: For the first time in the WTO, the name “European Union” was used in the 1 December 2009 working session at the Geneva Ministerial Conference. This was the result of the Lisbon Treaty taking effect. Before that, for legal reasons

Some Thoughts on "Single Undertakings"

In the news: Impatience with the glacial pace of global free trade negotiations prompted calls this week for the Doha round to be smashed into smaller and more digestible mini-deals that could be agreed quickly. At a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva, ministers from both rich and poor

Any Details on RTA discussion at WTO MInisterial

The Chair's report at the end of the 7th WTO MInisterial contains the following text: "There was broad agreement that the growing number of bilateral and regional trade agreements is an issue for the multilateral trading system, and that there is a need to ensure that the

Live Blog: Kirk, Comfort and Cotton

The operative part of the concluding summary of the MC Chair indicates continued senior official talks during the first quarter of 2010, leading to a "stock-taking" meeting in March, in which it will be assessed whether an agreement can be reached at the end of 2010. I

Free Trade and the NBA

Senator Chuck Schumer is concerned with the NBA dressing its players in foreign gear. It's gotta be the shoes, right? Actually, it's the uniforms: A U.S. senator from New York doesn't want NBA players taking to the court wearing jerseys made in Asia.

The WTO's "Political Problem"

Alan Beattie of the FT assesses the Doha impasse this way:It’s not the global mechanisms that are wonky. It’s the weakness of the national governments pulling the levers. This would be as true of a plurilateral trade deal as of a multilateral, of course. There is no

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement

The recent announcement by President Obama raised hopes again that the United States will start negotiations to accede to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While such announcement is actually over-due, it is still not a bad news. However. the more important question is: is the TPP itself such a