See the open letter  on immigration reform from economists and other social scientists at Marginal Revolution.  There is still a debate on the national welfare effects of increased immigration, based on empirical work by Borjas versus that by Card.  On the other hand, in at least some respects, from a

On May 23-24, 2006, the Sixth Annual WTO Conference was held in London, organized by the Institute of International Economic Law (in Georgetown Law Center) and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Many interesting, and pressing, issues, ranging from judicial economy to treaty interpretation to regulatory convergence

On May 23, 2006 an interesting workshop was held at East Asian Legal Studies, Harvard Law School to discuss China’s recent effort to enact an Anti-Monopoly Law. Despite some predicaments (such as an internal bureaucratic battle over the jurisdiction), some predict that the Law may be passed some

Another investment banker.  News reports have Robert Zoellick leaving the State Department for Merrill Lynch.  I was disappointed when he left USTR, but recognized that State had bigger fish to fry.  Forgive my venting, and apologies to my friends in investment banking, but it is painful to watch one of

The U.S., in a document delivered to the WTO on May 9, cites our humble blog.  You can't buy this kind of publicity.  Of course, the U.S. cites the blog to underscore that even those (Sungjoon Cho) who don't like zeroing believe the decision

In an unusually law-intensive and wonderfully bilingual speech (evidencing a great command of the WTO jurisprudence) given at an ESIL meeting at the Sorbonne, Pascal Lamy  made the following comments The lack of coherence of our international legal system is amplified by the relative power of the WTO and

In its Archer Daniels Midland decision yesterday, C-397/03 P,on appeal from the Court of First Instance, the ECJ decided that there is no obligation on regulators to avoid "double-fining": 50     Next, referring to paragraph 11 of Wilhelm and Others, the Court of First Instance

Today's WSJ reports that within the context of its FTA negotiations with Australia, China is negotiating for commitments regarding market access for unskilled labor.  This may be understood as the bilateralization of current Mode 4 negotiations in the WTO GATS.  The U.S. has addressed labor market access

As much of Latin America moves to the left (albeit in varied ways), the latest action is in Ecuador.  The government has purported to cancel its contract with U.S. multinational Occidental Petroleum in response to an alleged breach by Occidental.  The USTR has said this appears to constitute a

Inside U.S. Trade reports that part of the softwood lumber settlement requires the U.S. and Canada to suspend the application of NAFTA Chapter 11 (the investment chapter, giving private rights to investors).  Apparently the idea is that two parties (the U.S. and Canada) can suspend this part