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Reclaiming the WTO’s Practical Mission: A Thought Experiment in WTO Reform

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the World Trade Organization (WTO), emerged as a postwar response to economic nationalism. Like the United Nations, which sought to prevent another world war, the GATT aimed to avert the kind of trade wars unleashed by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Sungjoon Cho 12 Oct 2025 2 min read

Discussing Trade Policy on the Internet

Shifting the IELP blog to a new platform has led me to do a bit of reflection on the past, present, and future of discussing trade policy online. I am vaguely aware that there were Usenet forum discussions in the 1990s, and there may have been good trade policy conversations
Simon Lester 10 Oct 2025 4 min read

Beware the "Securitization" of Trade Policy

In recent years, U.S. trade policy has seen a creeping takeover by "security" concerns. The precise scope of these concerns is unclear, but they appear to cover both the traditional aspects of military-related security as well as the vague and amorphous concept of "economic security."
Simon Lester 06 Oct 2025 4 min read

Call for Candidates (Co-)Editor(s)-in-Chief Journal of International Economic Law (JIEL)

This is from the JIEL: The 5-year term of the current Co-Editors-in-Chief of JIEL is ending. We have been charged to facilitate the process of electing the next Editor or Co-Editors-in-Chief.  JIEL is the pre-eminent journal in the field of international economic law, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). We
Simon Lester 03 Oct 2025 1 min read

CPTPP Roster of Panel Chairs

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is looking for candidates for the roster of CPTPP panel chairs: Expressions of Interest: Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Roster of Panel Chairs The Australian Government is seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified individuals to be considered
Simon Lester 02 Oct 2025 1 min read

Guest Post: Putting the “harm” in Pharmaceuticals – evaluating President Trump’s proposal of 100% tariffs

This is a guest post from Simon Schropp (BRG and George Washington University) On Friday, September 25, 2025, President Trump – characteristically in a post on Truth Social – announced his intention to impose a 100% tariff on any branded/patented pharmaceutical products imported into the United States, unless the manufacturer “is
Simon Lester 01 Oct 2025 6 min read

Stephen Miran on Tariffs and National Savings

In a speech earlier this week, Stephen Miran, who had been the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and is now a member of the Federal Reserve Board, made his case for a looser monetary policy. One aspect of his argument was that he thinks national savings will be
Simon Lester 24 Sep 2025 4 min read

A GOP Tariff Working Group and Post-Trump U.S. Trade Politics

The Hill reported last week that a handful of pro-trade Republicans in Congress used some leverage during a vote about voting on tariffs – it's complicated, check out the details at the link for more! – to get a Republican working group on tariffs established: And [Tom] McClintock [R-CA] said
Simon Lester 21 Sep 2025 4 min read

Guest Post: China – Enforcement of IP Rights: Navigating Different Conceptions of Territoriality in International Intellectual Property Law

This is a guest post from Emmanuel Kolawole Oke, Senior Lecturer at Edinburgh Law School What does it mean to ‘give effect to’ the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement? That is the key question at the centre of the dispute between the EU and China at the WTO regarding anti-suit
Simon Lester 18 Sep 2025 9 min read

Some MPIA Updates

This post is a brief one just to provide a few updates on disputes in which an appeal has been or might be heard by the MPIA arbitrators.
Simon Lester 17 Sep 2025 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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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

Debunking the "Hyperglobalization" Trade Policy Myth

Policy is often shaped by narratives, and recently there has been a bipartisan effort to create a narrative that, starting in the early 1990s, globalization and free trade went too far.
03 Mar 2026 8 min read

Guest Post: Are President Trump’s New Section 122 Tariffs Legal?

This is a guest post from Bryan Riley and Joe Bishop-Henchman. Bryan is Director of the Free Trade Initiative at the National Taxpayers Union; Joe is Executive Vice President at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation President Trump has issued new 10% tariffs, shortly after raised to 15%, based on Section
24 Feb 2026 6 min read

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