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Making COOL WTO-Compliant

At today's confirmation hearing for Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary, there were a couple questions on country of origin labelling for beef products, as farm state Senators pressed Vilsack on working on a new COOL measure that would be WTO-compliant: Senator Fischer: As you know the U.S.
Simon Lester 02 Feb 2021 3 min read

Member of the Administrative Tribunal of The Inter-American Development Bank Group

The Inter-American Development Bank is looking for a new Member of the Administrative Tribunal: Members of the Tribunal The Tribunal has the authority to conduct hearings, examine evidence, make decisions and render judgments on controversies and disputes between the Bank or IDB Invest and their respective employees. In carrying out
Simon Lester 02 Feb 2021 1 min read

Forced Technology Transfer Provisions in the CAI and the US-China Phase One Deal

It's interesting to compare the forced technology transfer provisions of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) and the US-China Phase One trade agreement. Here are the CAI provisions: Article 3 Performance Requirements 1. Neither Party may, in connection with the establishment or the operation of all enterprises
Simon Lester 24 Jan 2021 2 min read

SIEL Call for Papers and Panels: Rethinking Global Economic Governance

This is from the SIEL: The Seventh Biennial Global Conference of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) will take place as a virtual conference in collaboration with Bocconi University, Milan / Italy, on 8-10 July 2021. I. Conference Content Even prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, international economic
Simon Lester 24 Jan 2021 2 min read

The Labor Provisions in the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment

The EU has published a number of parts of the text of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) here. The "Investment and Sustainable Development" section is here. This is the substantive language on labor rights: Sub-Section 3 – Investment and Labour Article 1: Right to regulate The Parties
Simon Lester 22 Jan 2021 4 min read

Two Upcoming Online Events: The WTO Panel Process, and U.S. Trade Policy in the Biden Administration

I'll be the moderator for two online events next week, one hosted by ASIL/IIEL on the WTO panel process, and the other hosted by SIEL on U.S. trade policy under the Biden administration. Here are the details and links: ASIL/IIEL - Rethinking the WTO Panel
Simon Lester 21 Jan 2021 1 min read

The Trump/Lighthizer Legacy on Trade

With the Trump administration now finished, we are in the period where people will be spinning Trump's time in office into the narrative they want to create. On trade policy, Trump's U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer spent some of his final weeks in office trying
Simon Lester 20 Jan 2021 9 min read

Americans on the WTO Indicative List of Panelists

Back in April of 2017, I said this: while the indicative list of panelists does not have much correlation to people who actually serve as panelists, a former intern of mine named Christina Woo put together this cool table of Americans on the indicative list since the GATT era. The
Simon Lester 13 Jan 2021 1 min read

Trade Policy and Race/Ethnicity

There was some Twitter discussion last week of a new paper from Global Trade Watch called "Trade Discrimination: The Disproportionate, Underreported Damage to U.S. Black and Latino Workers From U.S. Trade Policies." I can see how it would be useful to study the impact of U.
Simon Lester 12 Jan 2021 3 min read

FTA safeguard exclusion clauses . Do they bite?

In a recent post discussing the NAFTA/USMCA provision relating to conditional exclusion of FTA partners from global safeguards under the WTO, I stated that "this type of exclusion is unique to a handful of US FTAs". Count on Amy Porges to catch me in a gross error.
Jesse Kreier 10 Jan 2021 2 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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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

The Section 301 Surge Is Upon Us: Investigating Excess Capacity and Production

The first of a large batch of expected Section 301 investigations has arrived, as USTR announced yesterday that it was initiating investigations on acts, policies, and practices of various countries/economies "relating to structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors."
12 Mar 2026 3 min read

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