International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 479)

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Trade in Everything: International Basketball

From Sports Illustrated (via CNN): American basketball is planning to create up to five new European franchises who would compete for the NBA Championship, according to a report by Sports Illustrated. The astonishing claims come hard on the heels of plans by the football's English Premier League to

China's Firt Defeat in the WTO

The Panel in the China - Auto Parts case has just issued the interim report. According to several sources, China lost the case. This is rather unsurprising as the legal issues involved in the case are relatively simple. The more interesting question, however, is how China would react to its first

Update on the Gambling GATS XXI Arbitration

I had been hoping that the GATS Article XXI arbitration in the Gambling dispute would be as transparent as regular WTO disputes. I'm not sure that will be the case, though, as the arbitration requests have not yet been made public on the WTO's web site

Trade in Everything: Valentine's Day Edition

From The Economist: IF YOU live in Europe and are lucky enough to be given roses by your Valentine, there is a good chance that they were grown in Kenya—specifically, in one of the colossal greenhouses that blot out the once wild shores of Lake Naivasha, 90km (56 miles)

Thailand - Cigarettes II?

Many of this blog's readers are probably familiar with the old GATT Thailand - Cigarettes dispute. It looks like we might be headed for a (somewhat) similar dispute at the WTO. From an article published just in advance of the WTO complaint: The Philippine government plans to elevate the

Obama on Economics and Trade

Barack Obama is following-up his recent primary victories with some new thoughts on economics, to be offered today at a speech at a GM factory. Here is an excerpt of what he will say about trade: It’s also time to look to the future and figure out how

Does Free Trade Favor Rich Countries?

Tyler Cowen of George Mason interviews Ha-Joon Chang of the University of Cambridge regarding his critical book on free trade: http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i23/chang_cowen/

Beyond "Trade Policy," Towards "Integration Policy"

In the Financial Post, some well known trade experts argue for deeper Canada - U.S. integration: That a big idea on Canada-U.S. trade is needed there is little doubt. ... "We reached the high point in the year 2000 in volume in terms of trucks and human traffic,

Trade in Everything: Swiss Army Knives

The title of the post is a bit mis-leading, as it appears there are some things that are not to be traded: Swiss soldiers will continue to pack knives made in Switzerland, after the defence ministry decided not to have them produced them abroad. The NZZ am Sonntag and

Job Losses from Trade vs. Non-Trade

We've talked before on this blog about whether job losses from trade deserve greater compensation than job losses from other things. Here is a real world example of the latter that I came across: Polaroid Corp. is dropping the technology it pioneered long before digital photography rendered instant