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Carbon Tariffs and Cap and Trade: The Devil is the Details

The Washington Post explains the details of the Waxman-Markey energy bill and argues that such tariffs are unnecessary: ... American firms that pay in order to comply with mandatory limits on carbon emissions would be at a disadvantage competing against foreign outfits whose leaders aren't as environmentally conscious. But
Simon Lester 05 Jul 2009 1 min read

The FT on Carbon Tariffs

Here's an excellent, balanced look at the carbon tariff issue from the Financial Times.  A short excerpt: Some trade lawyers point out that past WTO decisions have permitted governments to restrict trade in order to protect natural resources. But others say the case law is patchy, and it
Simon Lester 03 Jul 2009 1 min read

Carbon Tariffs "Are" WTO-Legal Versus Carbon Tariffs "Can Be" WTO-Legal

In a post entitled "Carbon tariffs — the legal aspects," Paul Krugman quotes Joost Pauwelyn as saying: In sum, if carefully calibrated along the lines suggested above, carbon equalization measures at the border, imposed on certain imports, can be modeled in compliance with WTO non-discrimination rules and/or the
Simon Lester 03 Jul 2009 1 min read

A Bold Proposal on Anti-Dumping

From a letter to the FT by Professors Robert McGee and Yeomin Yoon: President Obama should be audacious enough to proclaim the following: In a free enterprise economic system, domestic producers have no inherent claim on the funds of consumers. The only ethical way of obtaining the funds of consumers
Simon Lester 03 Jul 2009 1 min read

Tariff Preferences and Drug Policies

This all sounds familiar.  A developed country uses illegal drug production/trafficking as a criterion for deciding which countries to include in a tariff preference program.  The DS246 EC - Tariff Preferences case, brought by India?  No, this time it's the United States excluding Bolivia from one of
Simon Lester 03 Jul 2009 1 min read

China Does Not Like Carbon Tariffs

Reuters reports: Proposals to impose "carbon tariffs" on imported products will violate the rules of the World Trade Organization as well as the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol, China's Ministry of Commerce said. In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said collecting carbon duties
Simon Lester 03 Jul 2009 1 min read

Catfish Inspection: A Difficult Trade Issue

As this AP article explains, there is a long history of trade disputes involving the U.S. catfish industry and its Vietnamese competitors, including anti-dumping duties and labelling regulations.  The latest chapter is particularly interesting, though, because it gets at what I think could be a growth industry for trade
Simon Lester 01 Jul 2009 1 min read

China's PC Software Filtering Delayed

Bloomberg reports: China postponed tomorrow’s deadline for personal-computer makers to include a state-backed anti- pornography software on new PCs after U.S. officials and business groups urged it to scrap the rule
Simon Lester 30 Jun 2009 1 min read

Twittering About Trade Law

I can't figure out what to make of Twitter.  Is this really the next big thing?  In case it is, a little while ago I went ahead and used the RSS feeds for our news service and this blog to create a Twitter feed.  (I think this is
Simon Lester 30 Jun 2009 1 min read

PC Filtering: The Investment Issues

Over at the Kluwer Arbitration Blog, Luke Peterson talks about the investment aspects of the Chinese PC filtering issue.  He notes: One critical question in any claims arising out of this internet-filtering software dispute would be the expectations that investors had upon entering the Chinese market. For instance, it has
Simon Lester 29 Jun 2009 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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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

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