International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 409)

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More Investor-State Debate

Following up on this post, the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP) recently held a review of the U.S. Model BIT. The report issued by the Committee has a discussion of many issues under BITs, including the investor-state dispute mechanism. It's

Fred Bergsten on Currency Undervaluation

From an article entitled "The Dollar and the Deficits: How Washington Can Prevent the Next Crisis": A central goal of US foreign economic policy must be to prevent and counter deliberate currency undervaluations by other major countries, which keep the dollar overvalued and harm US competitiveness. China has

A Contrario Update

For those of you familiar with the "a contrario" argument in relation to the SCM Agreement illustrative list, I thought this passage from the U.S. - Cotton Article 4.11 arbitration would be of interest: 4.161 Thirdly, we do not consider that there is any legitimate basis

Lamy on Services Liberalization

From a recent speech by WTO DG Pascal Lamy: Trade, or more specifically financial services liberalization, was neither a villain nor a cause of this crisis but a casualty. As you all know, in the world of the GATS, “liberalization” is essentially about opening specified sectors to competition on a

Climate Change Measures and Lost Oil Exports

I have often wondered how oil producing countries would react to lost oil exports if other countries ever begin to take serious action to shift to renewable energy. So far, very little has been done in this regard, so it has not been a big issue. But it does seem

How Do You Like Your Chicken: With or Without Chemicals?

Roughly speaking, that's the issue in the EC - Measures Affecting Poultry Meat WTO dispute (DS389), for which the U.S. recently announced it will request a panel. The panel request describes the issue as follows: The EC prohibits the import of poultry treated with any substance other than

Dani Rodrik: The Trade Regime Has Passed The Test Of This Recession

Dani Rodrik is skeptical of claims that there has been a big increase in protectionism recently: The reality is that the international trade regime has passed its greatest test since the Great Depression with flying colours. Trade economists who complain about minor instances of protectionism sound like a child whining

Trade in Everything: Sand

From the Economist: Malaysia banned sand exports as long ago as 1997. Indonesia followed suit in 2007 on environmental and, some say, political grounds. Ever since, it has become harder for Singapore to secure supplies for its booming construction industry and sea-fill plans.... So Singaporean contractors turned to Cambodia,

Glaeser on Economic Development in Argentina

At the NY Times Economix blog, economist Edward Glaeser asks, "What Happened to Argentina?": A century ago, there were only seven countries in the world that were more prosperous than Argentina (Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and four former English colonies including the United States), according to Angus Maddison’s

Canada's Flavored Tobacco Ban

Reuters reports that Canada's ban on flavored tobacco is now in effect: Canada has banned the manufacture, importation and sale of most flavored cigarettes and small cigars, which have been slammed as little more than an enticement to get children to start smoking. There are two trade issues