Eric Posner has an op ed in yesterday's WSJ, saying that human rights don't do any good, and suggesting that the whole project be abandoned.  While there is lots to argue with, I wanted to note one point here. Posner suggests that the advancement of well-

"China sets fire to pirated goods in latest crackdown". Censorship is usually thought of as conflicting with trade rules. Here we see a trade rule (IP protection) that potentially goes hand in hand with censorship. An incendiary combination. This supports my speculation about the legal link between the

A new report from the Atlantic Council, prepared under the chairmanship of Stuart Eizenstat and Grant Aldonas, and with members including John Jackson, Claude Barfield and Kenneth Dam, is calling for significant changes in the international trade "regime."  An end to the "round" system, moving forward

Most people will be happy with a very limited agreement in the Doha Round at this point, so pushing for multilateral rules on antitrust/competition policy seems pointless.  Nevertheless, antitrust law has become global, with both the U.S and EC regulatory regimes overlapping in a number of ways, and

In previous posts and comments on this Blog, it was underlined by many that, on the issue of currency manipulation, international trade law cannot be seen in "clinical isolation" from the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Article XV of GATT 1994  makes this clinical isolation difficult

The WTO has now made the two recent U.S. complaints against China available.  Here they are on WorldTradeLaw.net (the free part), in PDF format: DS362: China - Measures Affecting the Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights DS363: China - Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications

I am happy to let you know that the Academy of International Trade Law will be offered again in Macau this summer. I would greatly appreciate it if you could kindly spread the news among your students. If any of your students are interested, please feel free to have them

There's a new paper posted on SSRN by Stephanie Switzer, a regular commenter on this blog, entitled "International Trade Law and the Environment: Designing a Legal Framework to Curtail the Import of Unsustainably Produced Biofuel."  Here's the abstract: "Discussions on the appropriate international

Shameless self-promotion, yes.  Here is my recent podcast from the Fletcher School.  The subjects are Doha and migration.

Interesting new paper from Bagwell and Staiger: "What Do Trade Negotiators Negotiate About? Empirical Evidence from the World Trade Organization" Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=948189 ABSTRACT: What do trade negotiators negotiate about? There are two distinct theoretical approaches in the economics literature that offer an answer