In Today's FT (free access this week), Alan Beattie reports that 13 countries have asked the U.S. to liberalize in the area of maritime transport "auxiliary services," which includes port management.  USTR Portman is reported to respond as follows: “The United States is not offering

Thank you, Simon, for the link to the full GMO interim report. One really has to read the full report to appreciate the Herculian job performed by this panel, and the WTO staff advising it.  The report is amazingly well-written. Given, in particular, our earlier discussions, I want to stress

Apparently the full GMOs interim panel report has now been leaked.  Friends of the Earth has made it available here:  Descriptive Part and Findings. Here's their press release: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/leaked_wto_report_us_misle_28022006.html

Two interesting proposals have recently emerged in an attempt to save thousands of lives in poor countries who are suffering from fatal diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. First, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and representatives from 95 countries gathered in Paris today to study France's "

An article in today's Wall Street Journal suggests that the excitement over the proposed takeover of P&O by Dubai Ports World has its origins in a private contract dispute. The article suggests that a Florida stevedoring firm locked in litigation with P & O has sought

It looks like France is finding itself on the "other" side of an SPS case.  Today's FT reports that 20 countries have determined to block poultry imports from France. Franz-Josef Feiter, secretary general of Copa-Cogeca, the European farmers’ lobby, said the bans were not justified, because

A "bio-piracy" case to watch: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/international/africa/21lake.html?_r=1 (free registration required). Some earlier reports ( http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr/?id=409 ) mention that Public Interest Intellectual Property Advisors, Inc. (http://www.piipa.org/) have been retained to pursue

It's an unheard of, 8-month old case from a negligible jurisdiction in global terms, but potentially interesting to bloggers and bloggees nevertheless: HCJ 2587/04 Bukhris et al. v. Hedera Tax Assessor, 23.6.05, a petition brought before the Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of

For all we know, the GMO panel faulted the EC on two grounds.  First, EC approval procedures have been subject to “undue delay” (Annex C.1(a)).  Second, safeguard restrictions imposed by certain EC member states against GMOs that were approved at the EC level, are not based on a

A number of recent panels have dealt with scheduling issues. In GATS especially, there seems to be dissatisfaction across Members with the manne rin which the Mexico - Telecoms and the US - Gambling reports came out. The former clearly states in a rather lengthy footnote that moving away from