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Non-Discrimination Standards

59 posts

"Best Treatment," "Individual" Claims and the "Class of One"

I've mentioned before (most recently, here) that I'm skeptical of applying a "best treatment" / "individual comparison" standard to non-discrimination in the IEL context (I'm more concerned with WTO rules than with investment treaties, but my views apply to the latter

More on Nicolas Diebold's Non-Discrimination Paper

I want to say a bit more about Nicolas Diebold's SIEL conference paper "Non-Discrimination and the Pillars of International Economic Law – Comparative Analysis and Building Coherency". I've read it more closely now, and I like it even better than when I first skimmed through

Grand River Enterprises: Discussion of National Treatment at the Hearing

Following up on some previous posts about the NAFTA Chapter 11 Grand River Enterprises dispute, the hearing in the case, held in early February, offered some interesting discussion of the National Treatment issue. Let me first turn to Luke Peterson of the Investment Arbitration Reporter for some background: The individual

Merrill & Ring v. Canada: More About NAFTA Ch. 11 Non-Discrimination Standards

Continuing with my occasional (although becoming somewhat frequent) posts on NAFTA Chapter 11 non-discrimination standards, there is a new decision to talk about: Merrill & Ring v. Canada. The basic facts, from the Tribunal: 26. This case concerns a claim by the Investor in respect of the implementation of Canada‘

GATT Article I:1 (MFN) and "Conditions" for Lower Tariffs

From a recent article in The Australian: China yesterday raised the prospect of tariffs and new policies to stem growing uncertainty in its steel industry, which faces iron ore price hikes of up to 90 per cent this year. China's Commerce Ministry said yesterday it was preparing a

Discrimination Arguments in the AbitibiBowater NAFTA Chapter 11 Claim

Taking a quick break from the big picture questions in the Great Trade Debate, I'm going to bring up a very narrow and technical trade issue: How to apply a non-discrimination standard in the NAFTA Chapter 11 context. As was widely reported last week, AbitibiBowater is going ahead

More on the Wisconsin Diploma Privilege

Following-up on this post, we may eventually get a decision related to whether Wisconsin's "diploma privilege" violates the dormant commerce clause. From the National Law Journal: A federal appeals court has rekindled a challenge to a Wisconsin rule that allows graduates of the state's

Cash for Clunkers and MFN

Over at Opinio Juris, Roger Alford notes that the "Cash for Clunkers" program has seemed to favor non-U.S. car-makers such as Toyota and Honda over the U.S. car-makers (with the caveat that some Toyota and Honda cars are made, in part at least, in the U.

U.S. Beverages Taxes

Taxes on beverages have a long and interesting history in GATT/WTO dispute settlement. I hope Congress keeps this in mind as they consider taxing soda and alcoholic beverages to help pay for health care reform. See here, here and here for details. The last article notes that the soda

NAFTA Non-Discrimination: The Corn Products Decision

Turning back to non-discrimination under NAFTA Chapter 11, which has become a recent obsession of mine, in addition to Grand River Enterprises, there is another NAFTA Chapter 11 case dealing with non-discrimination standards that is worth talking about: The Corn Products case (discussed on this blog by Luke Peterson just